Branding | Shelby White - The blog of artist, visual designer and entrepreneur Shelby White.

Archive for the ‘Branding’ Category

The Evolution of the Herman Miller Logo

November 15th, 2011

Current: The Herman Miller logo maintains an elegant shape contained within a circle. The circle was introduced in 1999.

Herman Miller, one of the greatest companies in interior design, has been around for over 100 years. Originally starting as the Michigan Star Furniture Company in 1905, the company evolved to claim the name Herman Miller in 1923.

Since then the company has completely shaped us and our backs by providing some of the ergonomic chairs and office equipment around today.

Shared via Graham Smith

» CONTINUE READING THIS POST

4Comments

Tweet

Anywhere

Uncomfortably Sexual Company Logos

May 12th, 2011

Usually I don’t post bad design on the blog but these certainly deserve to be posted. How is it even possible that the designer didn’t see the innuendo’s brewing when designing these? This by far is the funniest and greatest-of-the-worst set of logos. It is almost unbelievable that this could happen. Just to add to the humor, some of these were designed for churches…

Via Somecards

» CONTINUE READING THIS POST

46Comments

Tweet

Anywhere

JCPenny Inspired by GAP Logo Redesign Fail

February 24th, 2011

It’s hard to even know where to start with this. I’m sure you can remember what GAP did not long ago with their attempt at redesigning their historic logo. As much as I hate to say it because I actually was fond of their aesthetic development, I don’t doubt that GAP’s redesign fail will be forever recorded in history. The amount of negative feedback they received for essentially crowd sourcing the logo redesign was of epic internet proportions.

What did we learn from GAP’s logo redesign fail?

I can really only speak for myself in what I learned and I’m sure you can agree with me. Crowd sourcing for a logo or anything design for that matter, is just like asking for an F on a report card. In purely straight forward words, it will undoubtedly end in not quality. Since GAP’s fail was so broad and heard around the world, I had really liked to think that companies saw this as a mistake and weren’t going to repeat it. How wrong I was though. Maybe a better question should be asked:

What did companies alike GAP, learn from the failure?

JCPenny, well they clearly didn’t learn much from it. They’ve stepped forth and attempted to redesign their logo, which appears to be inspired by the failed logo of GAP. Not to mention in their official press release they said this:

To choose a new logo design, jcpenney sought submissions that reflect a wide range of perspectives. Participants included the Company’s associates, several design agencies and two art schools — University of Cincinnati and Rhode Island School of Design — that collectively submitted over 200 designs for consideration.

Ok so they went to a school and “several” design agencies. Maybe its not anonymous crowd sourcing, but it sure is a form of crowd sourcing. My question is why didn’t they go with an agency or hire a great logo designer? I can name more than a few off the top of my head that are well worthy of the challenge. After all, they’re essentially changing the face of a billion dollar company. I don’t really even want to get into the design issues with their website, but by all means I would be entertained to hear your thoughts.

With that said: JCPenny I urge you to go back to your old logo or to try again. Now I’m open to hear what you think—does the new JCPenny logo pass or fail and what are your thoughts on it?

24Comments

Tweet

Anywhere

La Strada Identity

February 3rd, 2011

La Strada is a cozy cafe perfect for taking a break to have a pleasant time in a calm, relaxed atmosphere. The design done here by Transformer Studio is very clean and well executed. Unfortunately nailing down the whereabouts of this cafe hasn’t been easy.

5Comments

Tweet

Anywhere

Basle Film Festival Identity

January 19th, 2011

Seeing projects like this Basle Film Festival identity really get me excited for the possibilities of analog projections in my own projects. The creators of this project, Andreas Hidber (art direction) and Laurent Rueff (photographer) used a Nikon FA for the projection by removing the back of it and inserting previously developed slide film that contained the logo that you see on the wall.

To project through the camera onto the wall they used a flash pointed into the back of the camera while shooting on Bulb mode. This allowed them to keep the shutter open. In order to capture the projection they shot with a digital camera on the side. The most interesting part of this is that people aren’t likely or really able to view the projection.

3Comments

Tweet

Anywhere

Deichmanske Library Identity

December 28th, 2010

Mikael Floysand completed this project for the Deichmanske Library as a final exam while at Westerdals School of Communication. The project included identity, promotional and editorial design.

The library’s goal is to become one of the most modern and functional libraries in Europe by combining the old library tradition with new digital media advancements. It will also function as a cultural institution, housing concerts, a café/bar, lectures & debates. The identity focuses on the many sides of the institution by building a brand that constantly evolves rather than being static, just as the library itself is supposed to.

The part I enjoy the most about this identity is that the logo is modular. It has more than just one form but when applied, it still is recognizable as the same/similar. Also the typefaces, color palette, and paper stock that were used give off a great european vintage vibe.

5Comments

Tweet

Anywhere

Behind the SwissAir Logo

October 6th, 2010

Swiss Airlines has a rich history that has been hidden in the archives for quite some time. On March 26th, 1931 when Swissair formed, I doubt anyone at the time really considered the history that they were going to be making with the company’s design. Balair and Ad Astra were the two companies that merged to form Swissair. Throughout the years they’ve changed logos many times but there was one that was most memorable (above). Quite possibly it was the best logo that the company has ever used.

Thanks to SR692 we’re able to chronologically walk through past logos used by Swissair. Some great, some not so great and a few that were very, very experimental. I’d love to hear what you think about some of these logos so hit the jump to continue reading and see more images.

Check out Part Two of this post » Swiss Airlines Posters.

» CONTINUE READING THIS POST

57Comments

Tweet

Anywhere

Studio Brave

September 17th, 2010

These two projects by Studio Brave are without a doubt my favorites from their portfolio. Everything about each of these projects seem right on. I’d like to tip my hat particularly to the Long Photography branding. One of the things I’ve been asked about quite a bit recently is on how to brand photographers. What steps to take and whether to create very personalized icons or marks versus focusing on keeping the logo typographically driven. I attempted to answer some of those in my Ian Matteson branding process post, but if not I’d be happy to answer.

Going back to these pieces, what both do really well is handle consistency without being literally repetitive. I feel like I’ve seen a lot of cases here over consistency takes place. At some times it becomes hard to find the middle ground between inconsistent and overly consistent. I know I’ve done branding projects where I’ve gone overboard with consistency and then had to pull it back.

2Comments

Tweet

Anywhere

The Branding of GAP

September 3rd, 2010

Gap is one of those brands that I’ve just never bought into. Why? I’m not sure. But if asked what brands are doing it right with their branding, I would say these guys are.

Earlier this year I started noticing some of the really nicely designed outdoor displays and really felt like their typographic decisions in combination with photography were really appealing. I’m not sure how long GAP has been using Helvetica as their brand’s type but all of their current promotional materials have it. To me it seems like a perfect fit, especially with the number set ‘1969’. Gap’s 1969 Stream collection website is another great example of where I feel that they’ve done right.

What are your thoughts on Gap’s branding?

» CONTINUE READING THIS POST

9Comments

Tweet

Anywhere

Waterhouse Hotel Branding

August 11th, 2010

Foreign Policy Design is the creative group behind this nicely done branding project. The group’s branding efforts focused on the concept of duality in Shanghai. On one side of the bund there are historic art deco buildings and on the other side more modern. From there the design had the ability to become a reversible concept.

Another part of the identity pays tribute to the Waterhouse as a former warehouse. The graphic elements of the identity were squares to mimic the stacking and storage of cargo and goods. This helped the identity become globally and internationally appealing.

13Comments

Tweet

Anywhere

V-One Jet Charter Branding

May 14th, 2010

It’s been nearly a year and a half since I completed this project in school. The project was a self-initiated re-branding of V1 Private Jet charter. The reason for tackling this particular company was that their branding was loose. It looked as if the aspect of design throughout their brand had been lost sight of. Being that V1 is a jet charter service that offers their luxury-minded clientele on-demand private jet charter services for both domestic and international travel, I tackled this design in a whole new way than their previous mark.

The initial reaction when beginning the logo process was that the previous V-One was in resemblance of something too close to military and science (periodic table of elements). The new logo utilized a powerful mark in addition to hand-drawn type. The new logo represents aspects of their clients: luxury and exclusiveness. The logo’s “V” shape also incorporates a slice that enables the shape to be interpreted as a bird flying high, or a jet taking off up and to the left.

9Comments

Tweet

Anywhere

Process: Branding Ian Matteson

February 16th, 2010

This project, brand and identity development, was for long time friend and photographer Ian Matteson. Ian is an action and commercial based photographer out of Salt Lake City, Utah. Along with Ian’s action and commercial work, he shoots a lot of film/fine art photographs. As the project progressed, I realized just how great it would be to incorporate these other areas into core components of his brand. We both have put in endless hours working on this project and really are excited to have this portion of it completed.

Objectives & Goals

Our first main objective was to develop an identity for Ian that really complimented his style of photography also keeping his long and short-term goals in mind, while at the same time, enabling him to stand out among others in the photography industry. After talking about these goals we came to recognize that simplicity was key in this case. We needed people to remember his name through his work and needed to be unique in the way that we were doing it. A brand that was cohesive would in itself set Ian apart from his competition.

Logo Development

Round one sketches

Before diving into headfirst into the design, Ian and I sat down (mostly via iChat) and researched current and past photographer logo trends. Based upon our research, we saw a pattern. It showed that generally the more successful photographers opt to utilize their name as their logo. In some cases, Ian’s competition also did this, but completely lacked the visual stability throughout their brand and the uniqueness of the logotype.

The few sketches above show alleys that were explored. Although my initial icon sketches didn’t make the cut, they still provided a point in which I could look at how an icon could assist or take away from the main logo. This was the point where we really questioned tradition and steered away from using an icon. There would be no case where Ian would need to use one and going back to our original goal: We want people to remember his name–not an icon.
» CONTINUE READING THIS POST