Bye Bye Text
This morning, Starbucks announced that they will be refreshing their logo. Indeed, a logo redesign for a company with as much presence as Starbucks will garner quite a bit of attention, so I decided I should wipe of the—quite thick at this point—layer of dust on the Blog and throw my opinion into the ring.
While it does look as if they have redrawn the siren, (or mermaid as most sane people would call it) effectively the redesign of the logo was a simple task of removing the outer ring of junk from the previous logo. Surely the driving force behind this decision was to remove the word coffee from the logo. I can just see the boardroom meetings…
We’re not just a coffee company anymore. We sell sandwiches, tea, and muffins! We need to get “coffee” off of the logo!
Fair enough, they have expanded their business quite a bit since 1992 when the last logo was introduced. Necessary though? Not really.
If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times: a brand is not solely a logo. It is my bet that most people would associate a white cup with Starbucks over the logo, not unlike people’s association of Apple’s white earbuds with an iPod. Starbucks doesn’t just have a white cup and a logo backing their brand though, they have their store designs, atmosphere, music, Starbucks Green and omnipresence. All of these factors render this redesign of the logo a metaphorical drop in the coffee pot of what is Starbucks’ brand, and will render what will undoubtedly be a whole lot of complaining about it pretty much pointless.
However, it is interesting to see that Starbucks has the boldness (coffee reference) to pull off the whole “drop the text from the logo” deal. Companies have done it before, Nike, Apple, and more recently—and I think less successfully since they don’t have the visual power to back them up—AT&T. But obviously Starbucks knows that they have much more branding power behind them, something that I’m sure many of the people who will be chattering about the new logo won’t understand.
From a technical and visual standpoint, I do think there is just a little something that is missing from the new logo. To me it seems too uncontained which gives it the feeling of being incomplete. One of the strongest aspects of their old logos was the sound geometric footing, and without having the containing circle it weakens that characteristic, and creates a bit of a weird shape in the whitespace of the siren’s body. Adding a circle around the logo also makes it more versatile, visually ties it with their old logo more effectively, and makes it look more like a “quality seal”. When applied to signs or stickers, the logo as-is will still have this effect since it will be bound in a physical circle anyways, but the graphic circle just adds a final finishing touch.
And as a final footnote, yes, the title is in reference to the song by N*SYNC, something that would never be played in a Starbucks store.
New Work with Circle: Cascade Envirotech
This brand and website was created for the manufacturers of “Reactive Filter Media” which is a very fancy way of saying “soil that filters impurities out of water”. The goal was to create a feeling of fresh and clean while also mixing in a natural element.
December 5th, 2010 Filed Under: Circle New Work, logos, websites | No Comments »New Work with Circle: Wardell 2010
One great thing about having clients for an extended period of time is having the ability to look back on a project, see how you could do it differently, and improve on it. I was lucky enough with Circle to have the ability to do this for Wardell, a professional development company. The redesign was meant to target larger, more upscale companies by simplifying the site and making it more into a brochure rather than online resource. The more upscale look was accomplished by darkening the colours, and adding subtle depths and textures.
November 2nd, 2010 Filed Under: Circle New Work, websites | No Comments »New Work with Circle: Clearbrook & McCallum Interchanges
With Circle I created matching identities and similar designed websites for two interchange projects in the City of Abbotsford.
www.mccalluminterchange.ca
www.clearbrookinterchange.ca
New Work with Circle: Victoria Duffield
Since this site and logotype’s creation, Victoria Duffield was voted into the top 6 of YTV’s Next Star television show. Both the site and logotype were meant to invoke a young urban feeling, a quality that exists in Victoria’s music.
September 15th, 2010 Filed Under: Circle New Work, logos, websites | No Comments »New Work with Circle: Our Water Matters
This website design was created through Circle for the Abbotsford/Mission Water & Sewer Services. The site houses information for water conservation, water quality and rebate programs. I employed a multi-demensional look using a splashing water graphic and incorporated a clean and concise look with the brand’s existing colour palette.
May 26th, 2010 Filed Under: Circle New Work, websites | No Comments »New Work: Sonlight Equestrian Centre
I have created a brand new identity for an Abbotsford-based equestrian centre named Sonlight. The previous logo incorporated more of a cartoon-looking horse and a very obvious sun. I challenged myself to come up with a design that incorporated both the horse and sun element in an attractive, understated and sophisticated way. The end result is a more regal horse with “flares” incorporated into it’s flowing mane to represent the sun. Coupled with a simple sans-serif, I believe the updated branding is quite successful.
February 8th, 2010 Filed Under: Identity, New Work, typography | No Comments »New Work with Circle: 2010 Harrison Visitor’s Guide
I once again had the great pleasure of updating Harrison Hot Spring’s Visitor’s Guide (which I created in 2009) for 2010. The new design is close to the design of 2009′s, but incorporates some new dynamic and fun design elements that I used in the 2009 Tourism Harrison Website Redesign.
You can see an online version of the Visitor’s Guide Here, or pick it up at your local library or visitor’s centre (In BC, of course)!
February 8th, 2010 Filed Under: Circle New Work | No Comments »New Work with Circle: Tourism Harrison Website Redesign
I have redesigned the Tourism Harrison website for Circle in order to realign the look and feel to the more recent branding work we have done. The goal was to reposition the site as more of a designation for information on Harrison itself, rather than information on the Tourism Harrison group itself. The site also includes an expanded tagline & seasonal strategy for the brand.
Check it out at www.tourismharrison.com
October 5th, 2009 Filed Under: Circle New Work, websites | No Comments »Martha, what the…
My admiration for Martha Stewart is no secret, but I must say this new lockup they have come up with for her Home Depot line makes absolutely no sense. What order am I supposed to read this? Why is there text on four different angles? Why does it say Martha Stewart twice? Is it “The Home Depot Martha Living” or “The Home Depot Martha Stewart Living” or “The Home Depot Martha Stewart Martha Stewart Living”?
I think simplicity is always the key in design, especially for a brand like Martha Stewart’s, and unfortunately this fails at simplicity to quite an extreme.
New Work with Circle: Healthy Abbotsford
The City of Abbotsford approached us at Circle to establish their new Healthy Abbotsford campaign. Supplied with the logo, I fleshed out the rest of the of the campaign by applying and establishing new brand standards that included bright, dynamic colours and angles and exciting, energetic imagery.
Check it out at www.healthyabbotsford.ca and in multiple print pieces throughout the city.
July 30th, 2009 Filed Under: branding, Circle New Work, websites | No Comments »New Work: Jaime Carlson
I had the pleasure of designing new business cards for my friend Jaime Carlson (she will say we are actual arch enemies but I know it’s not true). Being a backstage worker, I designed her card to resemble a backstage pass and created a light pattern that gives it a bit of a “star” factor.
May 23rd, 2009 | No Comments »New Work with Circle: City of Abbotsford
At Circle we do extensive work with the City of Abbotsford, so when it came to redesign their website (which Circle had created before my time) I was given the task.
My general idea was to give the website an upscale/city feel while bringing in country elements through imagery and some text elements — all to correspond with their tagline “City in the Country”.
Check it out at www.abbotsford.ca
March 24th, 2009 Filed Under: Circle New Work | No Comments »New Work with Circle: Fraser Valley AHL
I had a lot of fun working on this project for Circle, and since it is a pretty big deal for Abbotsford, I also thought it was also a pretty cool project to do.
I tried to give this website a bit of an attitude with it’s aggressive design and it’s “voice” in headings, buttons and even the footer.
You can check the live site out at www.fraservalleyahl.com.
March 23rd, 2009 Filed Under: Circle New Work | No Comments »New Work with Circle: One Day Paint
Here’s a project I have been working on at Circle for a local painting company. We just got back pictures of the van wrap, and I think it turned out quite well.
I also developed their logo, website design and am currently developing other print collateral. Check it all out in the Circle Portfolio.
March 14th, 2009 Filed Under: Circle New Work | No Comments »Why Good Design Costs Money
I’ve been doing some thinking lately about why horrible designs exist. Obviously, one of the main reasons is the result of people who think they are designers but aren’t, and have no idea what they are doing. People hire their 14-year-old nephew to design them a logo— and even though they may have the technical know-how, there is no way they have the experience or creative background that is required to create a sucessful identity.
Another main factor— probably the main factor— is money. In order to understand the factor of money, one has to have an understanding of the creative process. The fact is all designers come up with designs that are terrible. It happens to all designers no matter how good they are, how much training they have, or how much experience they have accumulated. As part of the creative process, a good designer works past these not-so-good designs and eventually arrives at something that is a successful solution for their client.
The problem lies with the clients that are not willing to pay their designers properly. If you underpay a designer, it becomes not worth it for the them to work past these earlier— sometimes terrible— design stages. This means, you end up with a half-rate product. If the frugal client had made it worth the designer’s time to work past these initial stages, the half-rate product has the potential to become a successful solution.
A good example of the creative process is a builder and the process of constructing a table. If you give a builder an hour to build a table, there is a distinct possibility your result will be a rickety table that is missing a leg or two. On the other hand, give the builder ten hours and you will probably end up with a decent product.
That is not to say good design cannot be created in a short period of time. Sometimes a creative spark of genius is ignited and can jump from a designers mind into a full-fledged product in a very short period of time. But in usual situations, the creative process is just that— a process— which requires time, and as Benjamin Franklin said: Time is Money.
New Work: Jamie & Keynan
Created for my friends Jamie & Keynan. Since it is a beach wedding, it required a beachy theme, but still had to stay a bit traditional. A mix of raffia and ribbon along the side adds to the beachy and traditional feel. Check out the full job here.
March 10th, 2009 Filed Under: New Work | No Comments »Oh, those Brits
Alright so I am in love with this show on E4 called Skins (don’t watch it if you are under 18 though, probably not a good idea). Anyways, living in Canada, I obviously don’t actually get E4… but being interested in the show I took a trip to the show’s site on E4′s site, which I have found I really like.
E4 is Channel 4′s sister network which is aimed more towards the younger crowd. That being said, it’s quite possible the reason I really like their branding is because it is directed at me. Upon my sleuthing which occurred last night of many TV channels, I have found I very much like the design of the UK channel’s sites. Channel 4‘s site is also pretty sweet (at least the front page, the interior pages are a bit dated). Pretty cool use of Flash.
The BBC’s sites for their domestic stations are a bit boring but nicely simple, I suppose. Five‘s is also pretty nice.
In general, all of them are pretty simple, and to the point. They have a good use of Flash which isn’t too overly Flashy (unlike many US stations, and let’s not even talk about Canadian network sites, that’s a whole other post).
And as a bonus, one of my favorite American network sites, FOX, beautifully done by Trokia (although I’m not totally convinced on the usability of that top carousel).
New Work with Circle: Tourism Harrison Visitor’s Guide
Following our multiple other branding and collateral efforts between Circle and Tourism Harrison, I had the pleasure of creating their 2009 Visitor’s Guide. The task included also creating many of the ads that were in the book, as well as extending the brand that we had previously created in all aspects of the book.
The full guide can be viewed in the online viewer here.
March 1st, 2009 Filed Under: Circle New Work | No Comments »New Work with Circle: Sevenoaks Journey Booklet & Website
We were approached at Circle to create a booklet to accompany Sevenoaks’ new mantra “Journey with God”. Requesting a “travel book” theme, I went overboard scanning bits of paper, pens, pencils, scribbles, circles and more to add every last detail to the book.
The effort paid off, the ministers liked the book so we carried on to giving their website a complete overhaul with the same look.
Click here to download a PDF of the Journey booklet, or visit the redesigned website at www.sevenoaks.org.
February 15th, 2009 Filed Under: Circle New Work | No Comments »New Work with Circle: Tourism White Rock
Even though this isn’t a full site and only a coming soon page, I really like it and I will be doing the full site eventually. Check it out www.tourismwhiterock.com.
January 28th, 2009 Filed Under: Circle New Work | No Comments »New Work with Circle: Wardell
This ones from quite awhile ago, but I think it works quite well. Wardell is a business coaching company. Check out the full site at www.wardell.biz.
January 28th, 2009 Filed Under: Circle New Work | No Comments »The Cola Wars: Revisited
A few years ago I wrote a post about the differences between the brandings of Coke and Pepsi. Unfortunately, due to events beyond my control (ok, maybe they were under my control) the database containing that blog was deleted. But, I will give you the gyst:
Coke has much better branding than Pepsi.
Why? Basically it comes down to consistancy. Coke has had the same brand since almost their inception. They have kept the scripty font, the red colour, the “contour bottle” (as they call it), and almost every other asset to their brand. Any ad campaigns that Coke releases only builds upon this already created brand, thus making it stronger.
In contrast, Pepsi keeps rebuilding their brand. Instead of keeping the same foundation, they continually jackhammer it up to start anew. This can sometimes work, but for Pepsi it fails.
And this is what we come to today: Pepsi’s latest rebranding.
I’m not one to gloat (most of the time) but this just proves my previous post even moreso (if only it still existed). Pepsi’s new “brand” is a redrawn and reshaped version of their “globe logo”. This new logo is now supposed to represent a smiling face. Now, I’m a pretty visual person, but this looks nothing like a smiling face to me. No matter how much, or at which angle, I look at it.
And get this: the “smiling mouth” has different sizes. That is, for some products, the white area in the middle (which is supposedly the mouth) is wider or smaller. How about that for brand consistency?
Ah Pepsi, you taste so good, why do you have to look so wrong?
Come on, MTV
Sometimes I really wonder who designs these things and gets away with them. The titles and L3′s for The City, MTV’s new Hills spin-off starring Whitney (my personal favourite from The Hills) have these terrible oversized first letters which are far too big and cumbersome to be placed beside the rest of the letters. I personally think they changed just for the sake of changing and not matching The Hill’s more dapper presentation of all capitals.
London 2012: Trust the Designers
This week London launched their logo for the 2012 Olympics.
It has met, as Vancouver’s Olympic logo was, with an insane amount of critisism: the London logo is being forced to be reviewed by the Government, and the motion graphics accompanying the logo has been blamed for causing epileptic siezures.
My initial reaction was also disgust. It does look like a mash of shapes with the Olympic Rings and “London” text slapped on it. But after thinking about it, what exactly is this? Or this? The two reasons why these marks are sucessful is the same reason why the London mark is going to be as well. Exposure, and the fact that a logo does not make a brand.
In terms of exposure, let’s remind ourselves: this logo is for the Olympics. An Olympic logo is going to be plastered all over everything. It could be anything! A circle, a square. Anything. No matter what it is it’s going to get more exposure than Britney Spears’… ahem. Point being it’s going to be emblazoned in your brain. It doesn’t have to remind you of a product. It doesn’t have to sell you a product. It is a symbol to represent an event. An event that will take place weather or not the logo is a success. The way I look at it is you might as well have some fun with it, add a little culture to your city. Also on the exposure level, the mark has to be flexible, and I think that with the multiple colours, shapes and patterns I have seen so far, this mark fits the bill.
What I am most impressed with is the brand’s supporting collateral. It really hits home the entire idea of the logo, movement, energy and Olympics (although maybe a sound change is in order— a wee bit too reminiscent of electrocution). The graphics are interesting, dynamic, and bright (although possibly a bit too flashy as has been proven). Seeing the brand come together in the video gives us the entire picture, and on that account, I truly do think that it will be a success.
I think that this kind of leap of faith in a logo is really what the Olympics need. We don’t need another logo of a city landmark, a running man, a torch, a clever integration of letters and the Olympic rings, it’s all been done. I am impressed (and surprised) with the designer’s and planning comittee’s amazing courageousness, as I am sure they knew there was going to be some sort of backlash.
And to the people of Britain: give the logo a chance. Don’t vote it out in Parliament. Let the designers do what they do best. Trust them. They know what they’re doing.
September 7th, 2007 Filed Under: branding, olympics | No Comments »
