Mike Lovdal Design

What happens when your brand gets smeared, but you're innocent?

2012-03-05T13:11:00.003-08:00

Just days after my post on controlling the message about your brand, Rush Limbaugh has gone and done a bang-up job of providing us with a great case lesson.

As Inc Magazine reports, Limbaugh has managed to drag down a number of brands with his own, even companies that are not even affiliated with him in any way!

Has your brand ever come under fire for something that you had no control over? Let's hear about it in the comments!

Source:
Inc. Magazine

You Don’t Need to Control the Message (a Tragic Comedy)

2012-02-28T04:19:00.005-08:00

The internet has birthed a wild and wonderful culture of memes, messages, and meanings. It’s untamed, largely uncontrolled, and very much influenced by the power of suggestion. For professionals looking to keep in their customer’s good graces, this battlefield can present a difficult challenge.

Case Study: Apple vs. Microsoft

By the early 1990’s, Microsoft had already risen to power as the dominant producer of operating systems (Windows), arguably the key place of power for strong-arming suppliers and software engineers. An overnight monopoly ensued, which gave Microsoft the advantage in many other sectors, bundling their products with a browser (Internet Explorer), various tools, and even physical peripherals like mice and keyboards.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s junior-sized competitor (Apple Computers) fought for its survival. It cornered and held onto a niche market of Microsoft-disenchanted users who wanted innovation over fiscal conservatism. For decades, Apple represented “the little guy” taking on “the man,” the evil Microsoft machine. Early commercials even depicted Microsoft as a George Orwell–ian, totalitarian monster!

Fast forward to 2001. Apple launched the iPod, which went on to revolutionize the music industry and monopolize online music sales with iTunes. Billions and billions of dollars later, Apple found themselves richer and bigger than their old rival Microsoft. While their old nemesis neglectfully took years of verbal punishment and scorn (without doing much of anything to improve customer satisfaction), Apple was riding high on a wave of anti-Microsoft sentiment.

According to an article on Forbes.com, Apple’s iPhone business alone is bigger than all of Microsoft combined! Does this challenge your inner prejudices? For many (dare I say most) of us, the answer is a resounding “yes!” When we think “Microsoft,” we think "big, evil, faceless corporation with a monopoly and lots of money." When we think “Apple,” many of us still think of an underdog fighting to have their voice heard. Well, that dog is now a well–fattened Rottweiler that tears apart its competition and leaves it for dead.

Where did it all go wrong for Microsoft? Coming full circle back to this article’s title, Microsoft foolishly thought that they didn’t need to control the message about their company. A happy Windows launch here, a quick little interview there, and they pretty much left people to decide for themselves what they thought about the company. Meanwhile, Microsoft slowly sabotaged their own brand with decades of customer neglect and abuse, while Apple sabotaged that brand with anti-Microsoft propaganda.

Apple was already a giant when they launched their “I’m an Apple (and I’m a PC)” campaign that had millions of viewers laughing at how geeky and stupid Microsoft was. This campaign did so much damage that Microsoft eventually released it’s own counter-campaign, where actors proudly claimed Windows as their own: “I am a PC, and Windows (X) was my idea.”

You may not be a billionaire computer geek sitting on the power seat of a Sillicon Valley giant, but you are someone who has a brand to protect and control. If you don’t control the message, someone else is going to control it for you.

How do you control the message? Stay tuned…

Sources:
Forbes.com

Cold Weather-Inspired Logos

2011-10-30T19:51:00.000-07:00

As the temperate here in Charlottesville, Virginia drops below freezing, it has me wondering: "are there any beautiful wintery-wonderful logos out there? Alas, my first primarily visual post was inspired. For your personal enjoyment, here are a few of the better logos that I have come across lately:

Logos in Fighting Form - UFC, Pride, WWE…

2011-03-20T11:26:00.000-07:00

Few sports evoke so much controversy and emotion. Fighting sports are both loved by their fans and held in contempt by their conscientious objectors. Whichever camp you find yourself in, it is interesting to consider how these sports' organizations brand themselves and what they portray. The following is a brief collection of fighting logos, including MMA, boxing, and staged-wrestling.

America's forefront mixed martial arts (MMA) venture, the Ultimate Fighting Championship is rapidly gaining popularity worldwide as it seeks to promote MMA as an exciting, legitimate sport.

This logo evokes a cold strength with its steel-grey texture and thick (strong) lettering. Fighting a reputation for brutality from the earliest seasons, the designers chose a clean sans-serif font with a modern feel. This particular graphic also features a smooth reflection, an element more native to the technology sector than a two-minute duel to a knock-out.

Pride is Japan's own MMA league, often featuring American and international combatants as well. You can see a cold strength (similarly to the UFC's logo), however it is taken a step further by utilizing a powerful graphic of a fist holding lightning. Like something out of Greek mythology, the fist stands for power and dominance. While the lettering is thick and strong, it fails (in my estimation) to capture the professional level of its competitors, giving the impression that it is a second-tier event. UFC's kid sister, if you will.

The North American Boxing Council (NABC, not to be confused with the National Association of Basketball Coaches) logo is a crudely-drawn silhouette of a fighter celebrating his victory. Can't you just hear Sylvester Stalone saying, "Yo Adrian - I did it!" [Check out 0:50 of this video if you feel like a nostalgic refresher.]

Back to the logo: just glancing at it, I see the NBA logo first, and then I realize that it looks off somehow. The boxing gloves are so subtle that my eyes have nearly moved on by the time I recognize this as a boxing logo. It has no guts, no strength, and a weak slab-serif font that looks type-written.

If you thought the NABC logo was horrible, nothing can compare with the visual migraine that is the McCoy Martial Arts Institute logo. Where do I start?

If they really needed to have vertically-stressed lettering for the "MMA" part, they really ought to have made it stretch off towards a centered focal point, instead of ever-so-slightly skewed to the left. The stars and spikes are way-overkill, really having very little to do with the organization. (Yes, you could argue that stars represent fame, but this is a teaching institute, not a proving grounds.) The reds are faded and clash badly, and the background gradient is amateurish.

One of the most fundamental flaws with this design is that the creator crammed way too much information around it. What would have been a poor logo became a cluttered disaster, drowned in a paragraph of points that are not necessary. Logos are not for listing everything that you do - they are a way for people to recognize your brand at-a-glance, drawing them in to your product or service.

To give you a better idea of this look might look, I recreated the logo with the changes that I have suggested previously. In addition, I added a few basic effects to enhance the rugged factor, including a damage/blood-like stain to the star, a few chunks missing from the shield, and gave the word "INSTITUTE" greater kerning.

My revised design is certainly imperfect, but I believe it addresses most of the underlying problems. Perhaps a better approach would be to scrap the existing design altogether, although this can be a hard sell for clients at times.

Just for fun, I thought I would include EA Sports' MMA game logo. I find it interesting to note that instead of cold steel, EA chose to go with an almost Guitar Hero-like decorative font with grunge swooshes. I'm not sure it conveys the foundations of MMA fighting, but it does capture excitement and Twenty-First Century Design, so kudos to them there.

Finally, we have perhaps the most well known logo in this collection, World Wrestling Entertainment. While I don't care for staged wrestling in general, I can honestly say that this is the most effective logo in the group.

It is not shiny, it's dirty. It is not clean, it's raw, pardon the pun. Most of all, the streaky/stressed lettering screams pain and anguish, with a blood-red shadow (or underline) emphasizing the brutality and barbarism which characterizes the ~~sport~~ show.

A good logo is the epitome of a brand's values, worth, and selling-points.

In Response

Have you seen any fighting logos that have caught your eye? Let us know about it in the comments!

Earthquake & Tsunami Relief in Japan

2011-03-18T07:33:00.000-07:00

"...6,900 [dead], with another 10,000 still missing."

If you haven't heard yet, you've likely not turned on your television or checked your RSS feeds this week. Japan's "biggest disaster since World War II" (CNN) struck hard and fast, first with an unprecedented 8.9 magnitude quake, then a series of powerful aftershocks, and then finally a tsunami that reached as high as 10 meters tall.

You have to see it to believe it: videos of the tsunami in Japan

As the people of Japan continue to search for survivors, a rebuilding effort is already in the planning stages.

If you would like to contribute with a donation to disaster relief efforts, you can visit the American Red Cross or World Vision.

Also: LivingSocial is purportedly matching all donations to the Red Cross. [Thank you to Aaron for that tip!]

Sources: CNN World, BBC, Asian Tsunami Videos

How Not to Design a Logo

2011-03-17T09:34:00.000-07:00

The web design gurus at WebDesigner Depot released a great post a few years ago that warrants a second look. [Note: some readers may find one particular example near the end offensive, however it does serve to illustrate the point rather well.]

It seems that there are many people out there who, in their need to save money in difficult times, are turning to free logo generators or public contests to have their logos "designed."

A logo is the face of your company or brand. It is the epitome of what you are to your customers. With that in mind, it should warrant a great deal of caution when trusting that important task to an untrained hand or a mob of faceless designers. Allow me to address these individually:

You Get What You Pay For: $FREE-99 Designs

Perhaps you are one of the millions of people who have lost revenue in this recession. You know that you need a logo to create recognition of your brand, but designers are expensive. Why hire someone to do a job that you can do yourself, you reason?
Walk with me to a parallel scenario now: You have had a terrible tooth-ache for months. You would rather go to a dentist, but why pay someone to do a job when you could just do it yourself? Perhaps you own a cheap dentistry kit that you bought at Walmart. The colorful packaging claims it will empower you to be your own dentist! Heaven forbid, maybe you even bought an expensive suite of dentistry products that a real dentist would use.

Would you be your own dentist? I would fear for your health. No matter what free logo sites may claim, it takes more than some tools to do a job right. Graphic Designers spend years of their life working to learn the principles of design, understand and avoid trends, and master their craft. Even with thousands of dollars invested in professional design software, a businessman (or woman) is just playing designer when they try to make their own logo.

The Mob: Logo Design Contests and Desperate Lowballers

Understanding that a designer is needed with skill and knowledge of his field, many business owners are turning to logo design contests and auction-style hiring sites to find their solution. These sites are a gathering grounds for desperate designers, people from all over the world who are willing to sell their work for next to nothing just to win a job.

It usually works like this: 1) A client posts a job description, 2) people bid on the job, usually offering successively less money than the person before them, then 3) the client picks a winner and 4) the winning bidder throws something together and the client is stuck with it, minus the designer's fee and the auction site's cut and fees.

Ask yourself these questions:

1) Your business has a culture and a message. Can an online stranger understand that from your 75-word summary?

2) Your clients have specific interests and desires. Will a free logo design capture their attention?

3) Can I afford to damage my brand in the minds of my customers by choosing to be identified by a generic, lifeless logo?

No.

I implore you - seek out a skilled professional who agrees that understanding your clients and your wishes is key. This is the foundation of every good design and every good designer.

Source: WebDesigner Depot