Coming from a design background I'm going to say something heretical.
Logos are useless and everyone who design logos for a living had better find something else to do with their time.
The company I use to work had a complicated business to say the least and was not terribly brandable. I believe that most companies are going to be this way going forward. It might even be hard to create a logo for even a sandwich shop, it might seem easy but what would differentiate it from the sandwhich shop down the street?
“What do we do?” is the million dollar question for any company, and one rarely asked. I doubt just a logo can answer that question and more often than not that is what is being asked of a designer in the logo creation process. A good designer will do the research, and create media friendly iconography, and then hope that the company is willing to attempt to make a brand connection to it.
There in lies the challange to companies. Once you engage in the creation of a logo, the willingness to put the full force of the company and it’s people behind the logo to breath life into it.
I like QR codes but for the life of me I can’t think of an application for it that would be worthwhile. Yet.
The QR (Quick Response) code is a 2D barcode that is huge in Japan and trying to get a foothold here in the US. QR codes can be scanned by applications on smart phones using the phone’s camera. The QR code usually contains a URL, a short text message or contact information.
This can be a boon to a digital marketing strategy. It can track responsiveness, stickiness, and take advantage of user feedback. I think the potential for social games is huge. I think as a counter-part to the foursquare and gowalla’s of the world are huge.
But the QR code has a last mile problem big time. Outside of the name which doesn’t mean anything to anyone, and as a first step ‘QR code’ should be dropped—quickly. The last mile is one part behavioral, one part technical and one part usefulness.
On the behavioral side, the actual act of scanning is a clunky process at best. However with the advent of location based services, whipping out the mobile phone to open a casual application is over-coming that hurdle big time. Even now, the more I get into the habit of checking in, the easier it gets. QR codes will follow the trend I suspect.
On the technical side, sometime the information that is scanned is not very actionable. If I scan some one’s contact information, the application should recognize it as such and give me the option to add it to my address book or more options when it’s a URL I should also get more options, whether bookmark it view it, and it should certainly lead to a mobile site. Applications just need to be smarter.
Finally we need to be smarter on how we use them in campaigns. What is the added value of the hassle of scanning a QR code? The challenge is going to be figuring out what the user wants when they are scanning and are we giving it to them. Is it information? Is it a coupon? What can I give the scanner that will prompt a next step? What are the expectations? Am I adding value?
I think it’s something that needs to be figured out before QR codes can really ever catch on.
Working in an inhouse department certainly has it’s challenges, one of them being the notion of promotion to your internal clients. This was a recent question on In-house Designers Linkedin group. While I have a bunch of suggestions, here are three favorite tried and true methods:
Make friends and influence people. There are always a few people that really take advantage of the services of your department. Conscript them to be ambassadors making sure that whatever project they are involved in, that your group is pulled in.Check in on your ambassadors from time to time to see what projects they are working on, and where you might help. It also helps to have a few friends in every department to let you know about new projects coming down the pipeline. Bonus points for friends that work across departments like yours does.
Be nosy. If you see anything that does nto conform to standards or just plain ugly, step in and offer your services. In some cases do the work and present them the alternative. If it is breaking corporate standards (and always say ‘the corporate standards’, as if it is beyond your control, even if you came up with the ‘the corporate standards’) and they need to get in line. It helps to provide the tools for them to use. Such as an internal wiki..
Get a module in employee orientation. Contact HR to get some time in new employee orientation to talk about branding, the services that your department offers and the tools at their disposal. Get them early before the bad habits set in.
Finally, some people will never get it, but persistence matters, be sure to document the efforts at outreach to the hold-outs. Either they will be told to work with your department or be left behind, but you’ve done your due diligence.
The bad ideas that I am refering to here are the small ones. The ones not worth fighting against. Those bad ideas that are easier to get them done and over with.
In times like this I go back to what professor said once upon a time. He said that as creative people out job is to make even the smallest job and make it beautiful.
This is a little had to do with a bad idea.
However, I’ve found that even with bad ideas, at the very least I can make the execution beautiful. Shallow, I know, but when execluded from the conception process with these small bad ideas, sometimes you have to just get in there and do the work and make it beauticful.
This is a business card meeting. We were going over some mockups of some of our more ambitious ideas. While none of them were chosen, it always good in a company to get away with as much as possible. They may not choose the design this time, but with enough priming they may be ready for it next time.
This is a written exchange between myself: ever pragmatic, and my co-worker: ever optimistic
We are ramping up are newsletters again at The Budget Fashionista. We will have two flavors, a person can receive a daily newsletter or a weekly newsletter. The daily newsletter are for the hardcore folks who would visit the site pretty regularly anyway, I think it will be the weekly newsletter that we are going to find the most return on investment.
Email newsletters have laughably low conversion rates as its industry standard. TBF tends to run about twice that, and the people we work with are usually delighted by the return. This could be that we keep a tight reign on our newsletter list, we double opt in and we make it painfully easy to leave. People who are on the list want to be on the list.
First I use twitter to keep up with people I’ve met and my peers in the creative and tech fields. There is plenty I like to share, and learn from and with those people. it keeps me relevant and informed about my craft
Second, I use twitter because I like people. I especially like people who do something that is totally out of my sphere of influence. Connecting with those people is obvious but it’s the not so obvious people that I would not cross paths with day to day that interest me. “What is a blogger doing?”, “What is a sustainability expert doing?”. “What is a writer doing?”
In addition to being interested in other people, the third reason I use twitter is to stay informed, There has been plenty of general news, and news that only a few people might find interesting gets around on twitter hours before television and days before newspapers.
In a nutshell, I use twitter because it tells me what I don’t know.
Okay here is my three-step plan for the newspaper industry. The short answer is give it away, charge more and don't worry about being first.
Let’s face it, no one looks to the paper anymore for breaking news. Newspapers should get out of the headlines business, because it literally is yesterday’s headlines. Here is what I’d like to see from newspapers:
1. Change you paper to a daily tabloid and give it away. Sell as many ads as you have to to monetize the thing. I’d take a general news-in-brief from the New York Times over the Metro any day. What you are really looking here is for the numbers. Also why you are at it. Make it as local as possible. Even a story or two of what is happening in my neighborhood would be nice. You can get a blogger or two, they don’t know their power yet, so you can get them for cheap or free.
2. Give me a single-serving paper when necessary. Much like single serving sites, Print a paper that is about one thing and one thing only and make people pay. I’d pay $5, $7 10 $10 bucks for a dossier of articles that tell me why Iran is going through what it is going through, and context of why it is important.
This week would have been ideal for a non-sensational look at Michael Jackson, why he is important and while you’re at it, throw in the others who died last week, and why they were important. But whatever the case tell me something I don’t know.
3. If you must break the news don’t reinvent the wheel, or use the same one you been using. Just use the tools available like twitter and text alerts. Be discriminating and substantive about what you break, and don’t worry about being the first. Just pass along the information. In an environment where information is free, the best asset you have is trust. If I can trust you to just give me the information and give it to me now, I won’t look anywhere else.
There you are newspaper industry go to it. Check out my friends over at metaprinter, they think about this type of stuff all day.
I'm a big fan of a business doing what they already do. This may sound a little obvious, but I believe there are tons of people and business looking to do the same thing that you already do, but are they as good at it as you? Are you as good at it as you should be?
Running a business at it’s essence is an exercise in focus. There are so many things that can be compelling, that is easy to chase after too many things. There is a balance however, one of my instructors at NYU, a student of Peter Drucker , likes the idea of trying many different things and sticking with what works. A great example is 3M, a business that started out in one but found success in another, innovation is maybe their business not scotch-tape and post-its—but I digress.
Interesting thought from Joe Webb, a graphic communications guru.
How many times have you heard the phrase “content is king”? Perhaps hundreds or thousands of times in the last 10 to 15 years. This has been uttered all those times as a justification for the dominance of publishers of all types—audio, video, text, and images—in the digital age. If it were true, the content kings would not always be whining about profits, downsizing, or restructuring. They’d be riding a wave of successes that emanate from their kingly dominance
He concludes that Distribution is King, which I happen to agree with. Ironically enough, at the end of the article there is no way share it. I’d love to have sent this to everyone I know.
This was the title a of a speech given by Greg D'Amico, one of my professors at NYU.
He covered six points that, although they were used in the context of the Graphic Communication industry, could be applied to any business environment.
1. The customer is our business
2. Focus on core-competencies
3. Create one-to-one customer relationships
4. Build strategic alliances
5. Enable a culture open to change
6. Hire a talented and educated salesforce
