Messages By Marlow » branding

My First Logo

Scott Marlow — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:03:25 +0000

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?

Scott Marlow — Fri, 29 May 2009 15:15:00 +0000

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

Scott Marlow — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:27:00 +0000

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)

Scott Marlow — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 21:59:00 +0000

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.