When we are working with an organization through the rebranding process, one of the main questions that arises in our strategy session is whether they are seeking an Evolutionary change or a Revolutionary change in their brand identity.

An evolutionary rebrand would be what AT&T did when it updated it's identity to be lower-case and 3 dimensional.

A revolutionary rebrand would be when AT&T decided to bring their cell-phone company, Cingular, under the newly updated AT&T brand (this really bothered me because Cingular was such a strong recognizable brand in the mobile category, but that's another rant for another time).

When thinking about whether a rebrand needs to be evolutionary or revolutionary, here are a couple of questions to answer:

• How much equity is there in your current Brand Identity?

• Has there been a change in big picture vision of the company?

• How much love is there for your company?

• Has the core product or service offering changed?

• Are you looking to become more of what your company is at its core?

These are just a few to get the conversation started, but the answers to these questions can help guide you in either an Evolutionary or Revolutionary path of rebranding.

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Last week the house got a little bit more full, with the addition of Meg McClelland, interning this summer as the newest member of our creative team. Meg is currently pursuing a MFA in Graphic Design at SCAD.

Today was her day off, but to show her that we're no slackers here at Matchstic, I wrestled through a moment of technical difficulties and caught up with her just as she was about to get a snow cone. We talk grad school, vegetables, Luba Lukova, live music and reality TV.

AD: Alright, are you [online] for good?
MM: For good. Until I go and get a snow cone.
AD: I didn't realize you were conversing all that time on your phone [while driving]. Seems dangerous, but shows dedication. Points in Matchstic's book.
MM: Thanks. Thanks.
AD: As you can see, we run a tight schedule. We'll even make you work on your day off, like today. Does this concern you?
MM: No, as long as I can get a snow cone.
AD: Snow cones sound really good. Where do you usually get yours?
MM: New Orleagians on Ponce and Moreland. I get the Hurricane Katrina – light on the juice.
AD: Where are you from?
MM: Hmm. From Texas. My parents live in Houston, grew up mostly in San Antonio, but moved here from California
AD: What brings you to Atlanta?
MM: My sister. I live with her. And grad school.
AD: You're doing your Master's at SCAD?
MM: Yes, my MFA in Graphic Design.
AD: Ah yes, graphic design. What is it you like about design? Or is there anybody you're particularly inspired by?
MM: I don't really feel like I have quite a profound answer. I am passionate about creating and making. I love the challenge that comes when you communication through design. Inspires… Luba Lukova – I think she's great.
AD: Not profound is okay; I would have accepted "pretty things". But I agree, Luba Lukova is great. How would you describe Matchstic after your first week?
MM: Fun.
AD: Anything more profound?
MM: Alvin: not profound is okay.
AD: Fair enough.
MM: Learning and seeing people create using a different process.
AD: Nice save. You're familiar with the music wars around here. But if we gave you speakers for a day, what would you play?
MM: I haven't even begin to think that I could get speakers for the day. Probably Miley Cyrus, Nickel Back, Creed
…
Probably Bob Dylan, Haley Bonar, Wilco, Andrew Bird, Patty Griffin, Simon and Garfunkel.
AD: What do you do when you're not working or eating snow cones?
MM: Garden, Boggle, practice banjo. I eat often – I live meal to meal.
AD: I hear you cook a lot? Is that what the garden's for?
MM: Yes, trying to be sustainable.
AD: Do you have chickens?
MM: Not yet.
AD: What else do you have growing out there?
MM: Watermelon, beans, peas, raspberries, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, strawberries, figs, lemons, red peppers, sweet peas, edamame, and herbs and blueberries.
AD: What's your favorite brand?
MM: How long is this blog? As cliche as it is, I think Mac. I know it's cliche and trendy, but they do it all well – packaging and all.
AD: It's hard to disagree with that. What's the last great book you read?
MM: East of Eden.
AD: Last great concert you went to? (Now this interview is getting cliche.)
MM: Man, well tonight I'm going to Andrew Bird and I think it's going to be pretty great. Bon Iver was pretty good.
MM: Oh! Lisa Hannigan and the Low Anthem.
AD: Sad I missed Bon Iver. I did do a poster for that man.. not a very lucrative opportunity, but I guess it's better than watching TV.
MM: Depends on the show.
AD: What are you watching these days?
MM: I have to admit my TV taste isn't something I brag about. I confess I watch reality TV. Guilty – "Bachelorette." Big fan.
AD: Perfect. Let's leave this with the 3 Ls.
MM: 3 Ls?
AD: "Loves:", "Loathes:" and "Life is:"
MM: Fill in the blank?
Loves: Boggle, home-made jorts, screen printing, drinking tea
(This is stressing me out, the 3 Ls)
Loathes: going to the movie theater, public bathrooms, migraine headaches, dill
MM: and Fox News.
AD: I hope that is a "loathes" and not a "life is".
MM: It's a loathe for Fox News. The life question is like the super powers question. Both stress me out.
AD: You should have gotten that snow cone.
MM: I know…
MM: Oh, I love records.
AD: Is that your final answer?
MM: Life is:…
That's my final answer.

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I was watching the news the other night and heard about the new modern wing of the Art Institute of Chicago. Chicago has long been a pioneer in American architecture. The skyscraper was born there. The architect Renzo Piano was talking about how the original 1893 parts of the museum, stone and marble, told the story of the people at the time. It was about strength, confidence, solidity. He said today its a different story. He designed the new wing to let the outside in. Large windows provide natural light and make it more inviting. The windows also provide the artwork on display with a cityscape backdrop rather than the usual white wall. The new story is about openness, accessibility and transparency.

These ideals have been echoed elsewhere I think. The Obama campaign and initiatives to bring transparency to the budget. As well, the concept of open source software development embraced by many new growing companies. Not to mention the free and open discussion that happens right here on this blog. In each case, openness and accessibility seem to be a common thread and very popular.

Is this old news that im just now hearing? Im curious if others have seen this as well. Is this our new story as Renzo Piano puts it?

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Anyone else notice that work seems to have suddenly picked up? Most everyone I talk to these days is saying the same thing…"we're really busy!".

It feels like the business community received a memo that stated, "You've experienced the worst of it, be fruitful and multiply". And so they did.

Its an interesting phenomenon to witness, as obviously no such memo was sent out. No one said, "Hey America, BUY, BUY, BUY!". But anecdotally – I can say that it seems this is the case.

How did this happen? Did everyone just get tired of the negativity and the no-buy policy that seemed to be employed from Nov 08 – Feb 09? Did the media affect our feelings enough to keep us from buying for a period of time, and then have the opposite effect with more positive reporting? Was everyone just waiting and watching, and collectively decided it was time to make up for lost time?

The economy (U.S. in particular) may be one of the most interesting brands to consider when you think of all the ways we consumers make decisions based on the slightest of nuances.

I wonder what's in store for us in the post-Big-Co era we'll be facing in the months/years ahead…

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For the past couple of years, I've been using a pair of trusty resuable shopping bags for weekly groceries. I got them from Kroger right around the time before they became the obligatory enviro-cool-thing-to-have, with almost every major store selling their own version now. So why reusable bags?

1. I'm not out to make a statement — by design, they simply hold way more than plastic bags and don't rip. (I haven't had to replace a bag yet, and two bags will do the work of five plastic ones).

2. Economical. The Kroger bags I originally bought were ninety nine cents when Publix and Whole Foods were selling their fancy green bags for $3 or more. (That was two years ago; today, prices are more even across the board.)

A surprising thing happened a few months ago. I was checking out at the Publix on Ponce/Highland when a manager came to me with an offer. He cheerfully asked if I'd be willing to exchange one of my Kroger bags for two Publix bags, at no cost. I gladly accepted and asked him what he would do with the competitor's bag. "Destroy it," he said, with a wink and smile.

I've been a regular Publix customer since I moved to Florida over ten years ago, and this occasion once again solidified what a good brand is really about. Strip away the visual "branding" — the logo and pretty designs (which were amazingly redone just a couple years ago) — and you're left with a company that is deadly focused. They lack the we-have-it-all vibe of a Kroger or Walmart Supercenter, and they don't give you their best price only if you carry a "Member Rewards" card on your keychain.

What Publix does offer is a limited selection of the good stuff, and their stores are small and easy to navigate. Combine that with warm, personal service and you have a place "Where shopping [really] is a pleasure."

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Recently I met with an 30+ year old organization going through drastic changes.  Change in leadership.  Change in staff.  Change in values.   Change in vision of the future.

Whenever I hear of an organization going through something like this, I always default to thinking about what changes are needed in an organization's brand identity.

The question always arises, "Why do we need to rebrand?"  It's a great question and one that can be answered by looking back into history.

The best example of a collective identity is a country flag.  And throughout history, whenever there is a change in leadership, values, and most importantly vision, a "country rebrand" is always quick to follow.

Could the Germans have decided that they were going to keep the Swastika and over time have it stand for something positive instead of evil?  Sure, they could have tried.  Would it have worked?  I seriously doubt it.  It was much more effective to develop a symbol that could bring people together around new values and a new vision of what the future could be.

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Everyone from architects to inventors to presidents to professional wrestlers, fail. They've all failed more times than they've succeeded. Thomas Edison, while trying to invent the light bulb, failed constantly with prototypes (1000 times according to Nicolas Cage in the movie National Treasure, but the exact number is speculated anywhere from 100 to 6,000). He is believed to have said in response to that many failures, "I didn't fail, I just found 2,000 ways how not to make a light bulb". The same is true with the Wright Brothers. Even after their inaugural flight they attempted 2,000 other versions of their glider with little to no success. Failure.

As a professional creative (meaning I get paid to be creative), how can you not be bound for failure? When we do however, it shows courage and innovation; It shows our ability to push the norm and take risk.

I'm going to challenge our creative team to fail three times a day. I'm not sure why three, but its more than 2 and less that 4. Besides, If we fail that much, ground breaking revelation is bound flow from this place.

How can you fail today?

If you want to laugh at other people's failures, check out fail blog: http://failblog.org/

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Im pulling for GM. I really want them to be a great American car company. I really want to buy with confidence, an great American car. I know they did this to themselves. They drove themselves off the cliff. And knew they were headed here for a long time. My hope is that necessity breeds innovation for GM. That they let the outside in and not be so hubristic to think they have all the best ideas. Open source? That they give the ownership back to the people. (I suppose I already own part of GM at this point.)

I want to drive the future, not the past. Get that dang electric car going…make them all electric…make them reliable. Pioneer a new supply system where I can get "charged up" at any American gas station like Texaco or Chevron, no problem. Make the prices affordable. Offer me transparent incentives, no more commercials with a ton of fine print.

Just keep it simple and build great cars. I want you to win!

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I've never given that much thought to why I choose the soda I drink.

Coke has always been the real thing as far as my palette was concerned. And after I got married, Diet Coke became the primary.

Enter Coke Zero.

I could care less about drinking something with fewer calories. But for some reason, I still like and choose to drink Coke Zero. My wife – not that big of a fan. It hit me for the first time yesterday as I was looking at the can that I was drinking something that was meant for a calorie-conscious consumer. So why did I even choose to try Coke Zero?

My first thought, Coke is genius. They designed this product using black as the primary color – which has got to be a move to cater to guys. Pretty sure if it was in pink cans, I would refuse to have even tried it. They're even featuring commercials with NASCAR.

I have no idea whether Coke is actually gearing the product toward men with intention. Nevertheless, it seems to be working.

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Every now and then (especially in the summertime) it's good to escape the heat of South. So I went to hang out in Boston for the past few days.

First order of agenda: eat myself silly. This wasn't hard to do in Chinatown. Taking a stroll through the busy streets there, one gets tempted by whole barbecue birds hanging in windows, Vietnamese delis and dollar-menu bakeries. We ended up at a sketchy downstairs seafood place oddly named Peach Farm (the food was better than the name or storefront implied). Other gastronomic endeavors included some amazing vegetarian pizza at Veggie Planet in Cambridge, super-fresh lobster straight from the sea in Rockport and Beard-Award-nominated Hungry Mother.

It was easy to get around to most places of interest by a combination of bus, train, walking and biking — which also helped burn all those calories. Biking was especially nice up there, as there were lots of paths leading from nearby suburbs to downtown and Cambridge. On our side of the world, MARTA is only useful for going to the airport and biking a mere 4 miles to work down Moreland will undoubtedly lead to death.

The last part of the trip was somewhat educational — we made our rounds through bookstores and museums. Mike, my former colleague at Portfolio Center and the friend whom I was visiting, has been working for the past year on Harvard Art Museum‘s new identity. Only the beginnings of it have started to materialize, but it's an unbelieveably well-designed and considered system. Next stop, the MIT Press Bookstore, where a designer could spend hours browsing specialty, hard-to-find and limited-print books (and leave with an empty wallet). The final stop before heading back down south was the Institute of Contemporary Arts for the Shepard Fairey (the "Obey" guy) exhibit. The commercialized "street art" seemed a bit off to me, but overall the extensive body of work was really impressive, and some of the giant floor-to-ceiling pieces were cool.

Next up in the near future: The Pacific Northwest — Seattle.

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