Note before reading: We DID NOT DESIGN THIS WORK. This is a campaign by Wolff Olins.

We've had the privilege here to watch several talks from the speakers at the Brand New Conference. In the talk by Marina Willer, she speaks about a case study on Amnesty International, which she had directed while at Wolff Olins.

What is Amnesty International?
Amnesty International is a global movement of people fighting injustice and promoting human rights.

The Problem
How can the Amnesty International brand be unified and represented consistently across all countries? How can it stand to deliver a message that is applied to different languages and cultures?

The Approach
Less design.

Marina emphasized creating a visual language "without much design". A simple typeface and the color yellow, signifying hope, were chosen as the brand elements.

Why?

The thought was to create the reverse of oppression. Instead of masking the organization with a new identity to make it look more "well-designed", they courageously chose to present the brand with a simple, yet brutally honest approach, thus freeing the brand to live and breathe on its own.

Even more thoughtfully, the decision was made to keep the existing logo. Marina says, "We thought it would be a crime to change the [Amnesty] logo because it is so well known. Whether we like it or not, it doesn't really matter. It's famous and it can save lives."

The Result

We can all have our own input, but I'd say it is a brilliant and humble way to put the needs of the brand/client first. It's not always about the next revolutionary design, but carefully considering the brand challenge at hand and offering honest solutions.

A Brand's place matters in two ways.

1. Shaping External Perceptions

For consumer brands and business to business brands alike, physical office space isn't just a place for employees to do their jobs. It is a major touch point for any brand. A perception setter. The moment a customer walks through the doors perceptions are forming. The question is, Are they forming into what you want?

Restaurants probably understand this the best, perhaps they suspect food actually tastes better when the environment suggests so. On the contrary, I see business to business brands do this the worst. As a business owner I understand and appreciate the idea of keeping overhead low, but not at the expense of your brand (or perception). Simply defining these three questions is a good start:

How should customer's react when they walk into our office?
What's the first word we want them to say?
What's the worst thing they could say?

2. Inspiring Internal Culture

Our office, our home, or our coffee shop, wherever we are effects our thinking. A few months back Dustin and I had the privilege to attend a 3-day innovation & creative process workshop hosted by the IGNITIOR team at the Coca-Cola company. One of the first things we learned was the importance of an environment for incubating creativity. No one wants to "Brainstorm" in a windowless florescent-lit conference room like the one below. No natural lighting, low ceilings, cramped spaces, and no visual stimulus on the walls make for a depressing creativity nightmare.

Contrast the above environment with two places I toured a few weeks ago in Chicago, Threadless and 37 Signals. Two VERY different brands and experiences but both very successful in creating great external perceptions and internal inspiration.

37 Signals 

Large windows with plenty of natural lighting.

Chalk Wall – They bring in local artists to change it up every so often for new stimulus.

Beautiful Wall Art by a local artist

Full Size Kitchen for large gatherings

Threadless

Exterior of building with a "billboard" space that rotates based on popular user submissions.

Main Lobby- I love the "Make Great Together" rally cry

The Threadless Airstream

Skateboard Deck Art on display

I'm always interested in what else is out there. Any other great work "places" out there?

Eight years ago Facebook was in beta, operating out of a dorm room. Last Friday it became the third largest public offering in the history of the United States. At $104 billion, Facebook's market value is higher than McDonald’s, Citigroup, Amazon.com and most American companies. Mark Zuckerberg is 28 with an 8 year old company of which his stake is worth around $20 billion. That's a lot of Powerballs.

Now, the question on every stockholder's mind is whether Facebook has an expiration date. It's easy to think of Facebook as joining a group of historically overrated draft picks; webvan.com, pets.com, etoys.com, boo.com. All of these late nineties, dot-com brands grew too fast, lasted about three years after IPO and all have essentially been replaced by Amazon.com now fifteen years later. Despite mismanagement, they were either ahead of their time or couldn't keep up with the time. As young as Facebook is, the internet is nothing like it was eight years ago, much less fifteen years ago. Facebook is very much a reason for that. It's certainly not just a good idea with 800 million friends worldwide and $1 billion in net profit last year.

Will it ever become "old school" to have a Facebook account? Social apps like Foursquare, Instagram, Spotify and Twitter are all much newer than Facebook and would seem to be more relevant. They're all designed around the assumption of social media rather than the invention and focus on one small piece of our social lives. We're OK with this because they're all available as apps on our phone and connected to Facebook. Mobile OS's have provided the platform for a social media mall. I'm sure Facebook would have loved to be the source for what these new apps provide but that's not what we want anymore. In the same way that Sears has become just a long entrance to the mall, we're moving from branded social media to individual social media brands. I wonder if the future of Facebook's relevancy lies in it's willingness to be just the halls of the social media mall. Not always a destination but a connection and place to talk along the way.

I don't think you can force conversations to happen in one place. Social apps seem to only complement Facebook rather than replace it. They fill the figurative halls with friends' whereabouts, photos, music, thoughts, etc. while leaning heavily on the social network Facebook provides. If this is right, then it's in their best interest to keep acquiring popular startups like Instagram but also to keep them independent. If Instagram is reduced to filters for Facebook posts I'd imagine the conversations would just move elsewhere.

AMC's "The Pitch" premiered almost three weeks ago on April 30th. The Reality TV show features two advertising agencies competing against each other to "win" new business – Condensing a one week crash-course of work into hour long episodes that conjure up crystalized versions of an already cut-throat industry.

A Flawed Approach.
Pitching is crafting and presenting speculative work to a potential client, and is one of the Advertising industry's biggest flaws. While pitching is commonplace for agencies, it rarely happens anywhere else. We've all heard the mechanic or doctor analogies… You don't ask a handful of professionals "How would you fix this?" and then only pay one. "The Pitch" tells it's audience that giving away your strategy and ideas for free, for a chance to win new business, is acceptable.

Get Creative.
From a designer's perspective, the results of the work on the show are less than inspiring, i.e. – finding a rapper on YouTube isn't exactly a concept. But what is even more bothersome, is that "The Pitch" skews a client's perspective of what we're doing! Great work is not some dismal, knock-down, drag-out death-match. It takes time, process and a life outside of the office.

You Think You Know, But You Have No Idea.
After The Real World premiered in 1992, it gave everyone the ability to become a star, particularly inspiring youth*, see: YouTube. The problem is Reality TV has a strange way of warping perspectives and priorities. My biggest concern is that aspiring Advertising and Design majors are receiving the wrong message. This industry isn't about becoming the next celebrity, it's about equipping our clients with the tools to make them famous.

* No disrespect to iTrevor, I personally find his Apple Store dances hilarious.

“Building Community One Bike at a Time”

The Beltline Bike Shop is a neighborhood-driven organization that provides the opportunity for kids to earn a bicycle through community service. During this process, kids learn how to repair bikes, generate self-confidence through helping others, and develop lifelong relationships with members of their community.

Challenge

Every year, Matchstic and some of our wonderful partners gift a rebrand to a deserving non-profit that is making our city a better place. Our 2011 recipient, the Beltline Bike Shop, posed some unique challenges. With an existing logo that seemed to completely change in almost every application in addition to the need for a logo that is able to accommodate the potential of opening additional locations, the Beltline Bike Shop needed a flexible mark that symbolizes the Atlanta beltline, community, and hard work.

Our Primary Inspiration

A Few of Our Sketches

Solution

The contained mark echoes the way the Atlanta Beltline contains our city. As a visual capsule, the gear’s rivets represent multiple members of a community that, when combined, create a unified presence. Two wrenches, the most commonly used tool in the shop, come together and form the bicycle's tires. The typographic choice is inspired by the industrial space that the shop lives in and is subtly rounded to match the curves of the gear. Overall, the combination of color and shape creates an ambitious mark that is supported by a subtle 3-dimensionality.

Primary Brand Mark

Supplementary Marks

Rave Card. Special thanks for our printing partner Standard Press!

T-Shirt. Special thanks for our printing partner Zoink!

Stamp

Cupcakes by Becky

Website. Special thanks to our friends at Hybrid Design, Tastemaker Communications, and Ries & Ries.

App Website

iPhone App (Free Download!). Special thanks to Highgroove.

Hand-Painted Sign

This weekend, the Beltline Bike Shop will be hosting Adair Park’s 2012 Spring Porch Crawl. Proceeds from the Porch Crawl will aid the shop and it’s a great way to get to meet members of the Bike Shop and hear stories from the community it has impacted through the years. There will be snax & libations! Visit the Beltline Bike Shop Blog to learn more.

Matchstic T-shirts have been a tradition at our company since 2005.  We are excited to have just received our new t-shirts yesterday, freshly printed by our friends at Zoink.

This run of t-shirts marks two firsts for our t-shirts

1. It's the first time we've printed two designs at once.
2. It's the first time we've reprinted an historic shirt design.

The first shirt is a reprint of our classic and most requested, Matchstic Flag shirt.  This shirt is based on our Matchstic flag, which showcases a color for each of our 3 core values: Harmony, Truth and Courage.

The next shirt is our new Eagle Shirt.  This was designed by the amazing talented Alana Dy.  A few months back I emailed her asking more of the meaning behind the shirt.  Since I couldn't say it any better, I'll just copy and paste her response here:

The design of the shirt, eagle w/ mstic flag, is that since early last year, we have really accentuated our flag (matchstic team flags, matchstic values designed as a flag, lots of blogs about our flag, etc). The eagle itself is not a direct correlation with any of the values since these things are already represented with the flag it carries. However, the eagle's purpose is not only to tie-in with our rebrand (w/ the new set of illustrations), but there is symbolism in its wings – one points forward and one supports or "protects" the flag. If the eagle had to represent one of our values, courage would probably be most fitting (i.e. an eagle is historically viewed as a symbol of amercian patriotism and badassness) – the purpose of the imagery is to reference iconic americana that is highly recognizable (e.g. eagle carrying american flag), while the cleverness is tying it in with the matchstic flag of values. 

Here are a few of our past t-shirt designs:

• Big Bang Shirt
• Flag Shirt
• Alphabet Shirt
• Process Shirt
• Rapping Paper Party Shirt

I've been wanting to write on the topic of Brand Standards for a while now – partly to flush out my own thoughts, but also to share my struggles with the trending topic.

For those that don't know, Brand Standards (or sometimes called Style Guides, Visual Identity Guides, etc.) are multi-page documents traditionally thought of as the do's and don'ts for a brand's visual assets such as logos, trademarks, fonts, colors, graphic elements, copy writing, visual themes, and imagery. They usually contain exciting topics like clear space, minimum sizing, hex colors, and grid requirements.

In reality they should be fun, but I see tons of them that just don't feel usable, interesting, or even human. Often they are formulaic, mechanical, and complex. Most end up as beautifully designed dust collectors tucked away in a desk drawer. The last thing I want to do is create more useless paperwork that clutters up the world. If this is the case, why do brands create them? Why are they needed? What purpose do they serve?

Here's what I believe GREAT brand standards should do:

1. Help establish a consistent and recognizable visual language for the brand.
Simply having a "cool" logo isn't enough anymore. A brand needs to have a differentiated and unique identity system across all applications that is recognizable to it's costumers. Southwest's "No Change Fees" bright yellow billboards can't be confused with Delta's black & white imagery with angled red type. If you remove a logo and can't tell it from the competition, you're in trouble.

2. Define the "sacred" and the "soft" elements equally.
Great standards take time to carefully define what is untouchable (sacred) as well as explain areas for creative freedom (soft). For example, the Coke script logo, contour bottle shape, and color red are untouchable but perhaps everything else is up for grabs. That balance of sacred and soft has led to beautiful things like this.

3. Serve as a central rallying point for all designers, agencies, and/or stakeholders involved in designing elements for the brand.
Almost every designer has an undefined opinion on what they think is "good." When multiple designers get involved they leave their fingerprint of uniqueness on each piece. They want their piece to be special, interesting, and award-winning. They aren't necessarily thinking about brand cohesion. Standards should be the rope that reigns them in but at the same time isn't so tight that is chokes the creativity out of them (which goes back to point #2).

Chances are if these three points aren't relevant to you then you don't need standards. If they are, then what's important is to to clarify the problem(s) you're trying to solve, create standards unique to that problem (and you), and create them with the end user in mind. Most of all, make them human, useful, living, and inspirational. The world has enough dead documents laying around in drawers. Create something great. Create something people want to use.

Big thanks to Intern Devin for the blog image.

“To design is much more than simply to assemble, to order, or even to edit; it is to add value and meaning, to illuminate, to simplify, to clarify, to modify, to dignify, to dramatize, to persuade, and perhaps even to amuse. To design is to transform prose into poetry. Design broadens perception, magnifies experience, and enhances vision. Design is the product of feeling and awareness, of ideas that originate in the mind of the designer and culminate, one hopes, in the mind of the spectator.”
Paul Rand
Design Form and Chaos

Illustration by Craig Frazier

Last Friday I was fortunate enough to spend the morning listening to some great speakers at Chick-fil-A Leadercast – And for someone as un-fashion-savvy as myself, I found speaker Angela Ahrendts, CEO of Burberry, to be surprisingly interesting. She spoke about creating a work culture that acknowledges the past, while pushing forward through trust and intuition.

Know your roots.
In the beginning, Burberry made trench coats for the British military. Their brand mark (above), developed in 1901, an illustration of a soldier on a horse carrying a flag, reads "prorsum" which is latin for "forwards". Simply put, the brand has always been British and has always had a desire to be progressive. Acknowledge your past and what you stand for. Put your egos and agendas aside. Don't do it for yourself, do it for the brand. It's bigger than you are.

Trust each other.
Burberry's internal structure is exactly the opposite of the traditional corporate structure. Their young creatives make the decisions, while their experienced veterans use their know-how to execute those ideas correctly. They do this so that they're actually speaking to this generation of consumers. Finding this balance has got to be challenging, but it's only possible by doing the job you're asked to do correctly, and trusting that the person next to you is doing the same.

Lead by intuition.
Once you know what you stand for, and your trust issues are out of the way, follow that little guy yelling inside you. It's so easy to get hung up here, trying to decide where to go, and then not really going at all. Trust your gut and move forward. You can't actually prove that something will be successful, you just have to trust that feeling.

This past weekend, Aldi opened three new stores on the northside of Atlanta. These are part of the 80 stores the chain plans to open in 2012, up from 75 last year. Aldi has more than 1,200 U.S. stores located in 32 states.

Aldi's US growth is aggressive, and  stirs an interesting conversation on brand loyalty. It invites consumers to give up their loyalties to specific household brands, perhaps on their favorite snack food or cleaning supply, and instead, become a loyalist to their store brand. That trade doesn't come without commitment on the part of the consumer: shoppers have to insert a quarter to retrieve a cart, bring or purchase their own bags, and cannot use credit cards for their purchases. In addition, with only about 1,000 regular products in its store, consumers are limited in what they can purchase. The return on this investment is lower prices and often a faster grocery shopping experience.

With all these caveats however, when you meet an Aldi loyalist, their loyalty is often genuine and deep. My husband and I are two loyal Aldi brand advocates. We have been shopping at Aldi for about four years now, and when we meet other Aldi loyalists, we feel as though we've met someone "in the know". We feel an immediate bond with this commonality. We have bought into their culture, no longer being put off by an intensely quick check-out process or if a featured product is no longer in stock. Finally, we advocate, consistently celebrating our loyalty and inviting others to ‘join the club'.

What can we learn from Aldi? While in no way an in-depth analysis, Aldi is celebrated by its loyalists because of two obvious brand essentials: clear messaging and positioning. They have positioned themselves as the grocer of quality and value. They know what sets them apart and they say it over and over again. And they stand behind their product. If you're ever unhappy with an Aldi product they'll refund you twice the amount of the product. What a powerful statement of belief in one's brand.

Photo from Flickr.com.