My First Logo
A makeover for Toni Cross’ container gardening website. Toni and I worked together choosing a new, softer palette for her site – while I dug into my first logo design. Technically, it’s a font treatment for her company name, and tagline: beauty in small spaces.
I converted Toni’s nested table-based website to a hybrid CSS-table site last season. In the future, we can use CSS to implement seasonal colors for her site skin too.
Imitation — the sincerest form of flattery?
This week, PUMP (Portland United Mountain Pedalers) unveiled a new name and logo for the mountain bike advocacy organization. The new name, Northwest Trail Alliance, sounds flat and uninspiring compared to PUMP.
The new logo, however, is what’s really unoriginal. When you borrow another organization’s logo, that’s not called rebranding. Let’s call it copybranding.
Seattle’s Backcountry Bicycle Trails Club recently rebranded and chose a controversial name– Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance. Did Kris Schamp (former marketing specialist for Bike Gallery) unconsciously, or consciously, misappropriate the logo (below) that BBTC had used for over ten years?
The recently retired BBTC logo was created by Ross Cattelan, a long-time BBTC supporter and professional graphic designer. After I developed a concept with another designer, Ross added depth to the imagery and he created a new color palette that was used across all BBTC marketing materials (until last year when BBTC evolved to Evergreen).
Legally, Northwest Trail Alliance is not in danger of trademark violation. Its new design deviates significantly enough from the BBTC logo that it is probably not “confusingly similar.”
When determining infringement, the Court considers the following elements:
- Strength of the mark
- Proximity of the goods
- Similarity of the marks
- Evidence of actual confusion
- Marketing channels used
- Type of goods and the degree of care likely to be exercised by the purchaser
- Defendant’s intent in selecting the mark
- Likelihood of expansion of the product lines
A little market research and common courtesy can help ward off trademark suits.
Emotional Branding
In an out-of-control world it is the most human instinct of all to want to be able to impact our immediate surroundings with things of beauty and originality: This gives us a sense of control…Finding an element of human touch reconnects us to what’s real.
from Emotional Branding by Marc Gobé.
Make the Logo BIGGER (.mp3)
As a marketer, I focus more on communications and development than issues like branding and design. Still, I appreciate professional design, particularly when form follows function. That’s why I love CreativeTech’s Make The Logo BIGGER .mp3 song.
got cheese?
Trader Joe’s in Seattle now carries Cabot cheddar cheese from Vermont!
The Got Milk ad campaign was created by the advertising agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners for the California Milk Processor Board. The ad campaign has effectively promoted dairy products since 1993.
Launching: Brand X
Gretchen Mueller, a fellow Indiana University alumnus, is working with me to update her website. Watch the changes at www.brandexplorations.com where you can learn more about Gretchen’s branding services.