As much as I love movies, I still enjoy a good show on TV.

The big dilemma with TV is all the choices I have…and there are a ton. I have shows that I’ve been loyally following for a while – LOST, Top Chef, 30 Rock, & Mad Men. And with the time commitment it takes to really get into a new show, I’m pretty selective, no matter how good the advertisement/commercial may seem.

Enter glee – a new show I’ve seen quite a few commercials for (and that’s with TiVo’s fast-forwarding feature in-use).

So why in the world have I stopped to see what the deal is while fast-forwarding through commercials?

Answer: the design actually caught my attention…and made me pause.

Its not very often I see a TV show with logo, colors, and style that come across as uniquely as I have with glee.

The show could very well be terrible, but they’ve done a solid job getting me to pay attention thusfar. And that will give them their chance; the only chance they really deserve – to prove whether or not its worth watching a second episode.

In addition to food, drink, cars, and type, music probably rounds out my five favorite things ever. It’s been a huge obsession since the first CD (remember those?) I bought — Ace of Base’s “The Sign” (I’m not proud of it). From there, I’ve been through all kinds of phases.

Beginning with the aforementioned Swedish foursome and their brethren, moving on to chart-topping R&B, then of course rocking flannel to “alternative” radio in high school, to digging up underground hip-hop in college and now settling into what could arguably be the high point of modern music — a democratized, endlessly varied, no-excuses landscape in which major labels have no stranglehold and the increasing ease of discovering good bands.

One thing about being obsessed with design, you end up noticing things based on their “cover” — be it books, music, clothing or food packaging. Luckily, instead of disappearing along with the compact disc, album art seems to have found a nice little niche to hang on to in the form of vinyl records. With digital copies becoming the norm, vinyl has the advantage over CD of feeling somewhat like a collectible format. Something with a little bit more substance, durability and quality. The art is big enough to be displayed and being hard to skip tracks, it really embraces the album format holistically — forcing the listener to just sit back and let it play from beginning to end.

Album art has a lot of interesting qualities — how it was conceived, how it relates to the artist, it’s connection to the album, and just plain aesthetic value. Here are of some of my favorites.

What do you think makes a good album cover?

Who has the better strategy here?

• Is Pepsi better at “staying with the times” while coke is stubborn?

• Did Coke just happen to get it right the first time while it’s taken Pepsi over 100 years to get the right logo?

• Or are both just different, yet equally strong strategies that fit two different organizations?

What do you think?

“Comfort is the enemy of greatness” – Todd Henry, Accidental Creative

The process of naming a company is incredibly emotional and difficult, especially considering it is arguably one of the most valuable parts of a brand. It is uncomfortable (at-least it should be). Great names are always different and sometimes challenge us to go against the grain of our friends or colleagues advice. Why? Because most people gravitate towards the familiar, to what’s already out there. You do have to respect their motives, they simply want you to be safe. But what’s safer? A forgettable vanilla name that blends in or something mnemonic and distinct with potential? It’s easy to come up with a bland name that pleases everyone, but it’s hard to be different.

We are rereading one of my favorite books here and I came across this great check list from Marty Neumeier’s book, Zag, on a good brand name. They must be…

1. Different than the competitors (I would possibly clarify as “radically different”)
2. Brief- four syllables or less
3. Appropriate, but not so descriptive that it sounds generic
4. Easy To Spell
5. Satisfying to pronounce
6. Suitable for “brandplay” (it has legs to run)
7. Legally Defensible

He also continues with, “A poor name is a drag on the brand building process, but a good name accelerates it”.

A good name merely sets up a brand to be distinct and memorable; it serves as a platform for success, not a constraint, and rarely an explanation of meaning.

What your favorite brand names?

Or better yet, what are the worst names you’ve ever heard?

These are a few examples of the recent Jeep advertising campaign for Chrysler/Korea. The goal was to advertise Jeep’s all weather design and capability. Silhouetted shapes representing contrasting climates are overlapped to create a silhouette of a Jeep. An alligator with a mountain goat, bushman with an eskimo and camel with a wolf. The concept says a Jeep can handle anything anywhere. But it says it much more cerebrally than would be expected. For this I applaud them. For being thought provoking and clever. For asking us to think, not just feel.

“You always fear…what you don’t understand”
- Carmine Falcone, Batman Begins

You also fear what you can’t control, especially if you risk loosing something you feel you need to “make it”.

Fear is one of those weird drivers that doesn’t make sense, but often seems to get the best of us; reaching its height of feeding frenzy at the worst possible moments.

Afraid of loosing a client?
Watch fear kick in and cause you to do the very dumb things you don’t want to do if you want to keep your footing.

Afraid of saying the wrong thing?
Fear loves to distract you to the point of keeping you bound up and at a loss for the boldness you need to say the right thing.

Afraid of not making someone happy?
Guess what, you’ll never make everyone happy. A focus on pleasing people = pending disaster.

Afraid of saying no?
You won’t be respected enough for someone to trust you when they need to say yes.

Afraid of going against the flow?
So are most people, which means you’ll just fit right into the vanilla school of everyone else.

Recognize fear for what it is and then get rid of it. It has no place in the office of a good manager…nor a good company or brand for that matter.

How has fear proven effective (or defective) in your work-life?

Repost: edited from an original post on The Squeeze.

Forget government healthcare, the state of American public design is in critical condition. A recent article in the Times discusses the relationship of graphic design and economic policy — and how good design can help us through the process of recovery. From our currency to mortgage loan documents, our economic system could use a serious redesign. Besides, presenting information properly can only help one’s case when rolling out new policies or agendas. (Republicans, this is exactly how not to get your point across – although it does work in making government health care look really scary).

With the short time the Obama administration has been in charge, we’ve already begun seeing an improvement in how design is incorporated in government — on the web, and even identities for departments.

There’s a lot of good details in the article, but what I thought was really interesting is the recent push for a National Design Policy, backed by groups such as the IDSA and AIGA. More interesting is how we’ve gone so long without one, when the UK, Japan and Scandinavian countries have had them for over half a century. It’s a no brainer to them, and really shows when you look at the elegant design solutions found everywhere from road signs to currency.

The U.S. has a great design history and culture, and it would be nice to see it applied more to the public sector. Selfishly I just want to see prettier road signs, but there’s no doubt that better design will lead to a better quality of life.

So, what do you think? Should our nation institute the National Design Policy? Or let the free market run rampant with Photoshop?

Image: AIGA proposal for credit card disclosure information.

This past weekend, I was in South Florida with 5 of my closest business advisers and friends.  We get together 2-3 times per year to catch up on our businesses and push each other to be better men in business as well as at home.

During each trip, we take a trip to Barnes & Noble and load up on new learning material.  This year I only walked away with four new books (the norm is 6-7), but excited about each.  The first one I picked up was How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins, author of Good to Great.  The book was so good that I started and finished it on my flight home.

As I was reading I started thinking about how people sometimes see branding philosophies and business principles as two different topics all together.  But as I was reading Jim’s book about how once-great companies fell, I noticed how the business principles they compromised were really just restated branding philosophies.

There are five stages that lead to a mighty company falling, the second one being the Undisciplined Pursuit of More.  In this stage, companies lose sight of what is at the core of their business and what makes them great.  In branding, this would be described as their focus or their core distinction.  When companies move away from that, even if more short term money is made, it eventually leads to their downfall.

It really got me thinking more about this whole topic of business principles in relation to branding philosophies.  They may be separate, but must be complimentary.  More than anything, I wish that executives would see branding philosophies not as just a part of the marketing department, but rather branding is an integral part of achieving a companies vision and the results along the way of building a great company.

What do you think?  Am I wrong to think these two go hand-in-hand?

Did you know that every 3 minutes someone misuses the word “Brand”?

Ok, I can’t back that up, but the word “brand” does get used pretty liberally these days, and I often hear it interchanged with the word “logo” or “identity” (ie. i wanted to put my branding in the top left corner of the website).

Let’s try and offer some clarity to the confusion.

A logo is a symbol that embodies and represents the brand, but it is only one sliver of a much bigger branding pie. Sometimes its hard to explain but a brand is a living, breathing, organic creature constantly being shaped and shuffled with meaning.  To put your “branding” in the top left corner of your website would be to squeeze in your people, your attitudes, your values, your promises, your product offerings, your look and feel, your personality, your distinctions, your loves, and your loathes. That’s a big website.

Together we can all work together to stop the mistreatment of brand terminology.

Now, its your turn! How would you describe the word “Brand”?

I was reading an article in Wired recently about Facebook and Google competing for online domination. The article was interesting and well worth a read but the photography caught my attention more so. I thought it was great the way that they posed Google and Facebook in their appropriate “uniforms” based on their brand colors. I thought this is a great illustration on how choosing colors ought to be viewed. Branding is born out of a competitive need, the need for differentiation. To separate one from the other. Just as battles for land necessitated uniforms to know friend from foe, market driven competition requires “uniforms” for space of mind. Brands need to be different and memorable on all levels.

You know that there is a McDonalds off this exit first because you see arches and second because they are golden. And if you’re in the mood for a Big Mac… sold. Unique product, symbol and color.

So what would your uniform look like?