Tips for Student Designers and the Small Businesses Who Love Them: OrangeSlyce Life

Ok. Scandal might be a stretch, but there is some real internet hating going on and its directed at the new Gap logo. Here’s what all the fuss is about:

Gone is the classic Spire typeface on a navy black box, and in its place, Helvetica with a floating box (is that supposed to represent faded jeans?) New? Yes. Original? Yeah, right. But maybe originality isn’t the goal. More on that in a bit.

Gap premiered the logo Monday morning, and a day went by with hardly any excitement. Then the hate spewed.  The Consumerist questions if this will be the next Tropicana flop. Ad Age likens the logo to “something a child created using a clip-art gallery“. There are now fake Twitter accounts for both the new logo and the old logo. There’s now a Crap Logo Generator out there so you can create your own crap logo. I made my own Helvetica/Hipster logo in about 5 seconds!

Speaking of hipster, the CEO of Helvetica power-user American Apparel, recently declared the hipster trend dead. By switching typefaces, is Gap headed into a dead space of old fashion trends? Time will tell. Gap may actually be on to something here.

Gap is the world’s 84th most powerful brand, yet sales have stagnated despite the classic look and brand recognition. This new look could be the saving grace they need. A whole new market of consumers who did not grow up with the brand, and are always looking for something new, could be tapped into. This is a market that might not mind a generic logo, and in fact would welcome it, instead of chasing brands all around fashion. Gap could let their product and customer service be what they are known for…but then they screwed up big time.

Gap, being the forward thinking company they are, use many different social media platforms to speak with their customers. This was posted to their Facebook wall yesterday:

Thanks for everyone’s input on the new logo! We’ve had the same logo for 20+ years, and this is just one of the things we’re changing. We know this logo created a lot of buzz and we’re thrilled to see passionate debates unfolding! So much so we’re asking you to share your designs. We love our version, but we’d like to see other ideas. Stay tuned for details in the next few days on this crowd sourcing project.

And now we have a scandal. Buzz? They must still believe that any publicity is good publicity. Passionate debate is a pretty lame way to say everyone hates it. Crowd sourcing works great for things like Wikipedia and Captcha to digitize books, but designing logos? Now they are pandering to, what will now be an ever-growing, internet hate mob. The message I get from this is “Okay, since you’re complaining so much, let’s see if you can do any better.”

When you read crowd sourcing in their statement, you should think spec work. Spec work is an insult to professional graphic designers. Instead, they should have hired a talented designer and let them do what they do best.

The logo was not THAT bad. It was generic and a complete departure from their original logo. They could be forgiven for this but instead are now a joke. They should have had the confidence to stick with their decision instead of turning around and begging their followers for their forgiveness in the form of pandering. After all, if you’re doing something right you’re going to have haters. It just comes with the territory.

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Your logo is your business’ identity. It can take an unlimited number of shapes and sizes and have a nearly infinite number of color schemes to it (color nerds will say there’s more). After browsing the internet for what seems like days, I’ve noticed some patterns in logo design.

1 | Your logo should be just as effective in black and white as it is in color
Just as color is important in your logo, the absence of color is just as important. Your logo should still be functional and recognizable when it’s printed in black and white. This is also the place you should start when designing a logo. Black and white first; color later. Get the shape and form right and then add color to bring it to life. Here’s a great example of the logo I think has and always will stand the test of time.

Despite being nearly three decades old, MTV’s logo still looks fresh. The black and white versions are identifiable and clear.  The logo never changes through the years. Instead it exists inside of a larger changing world with the updated graphics and color changes. It’s hip and timeless at the same time.

Here’s an example of a logo that just doesn’t work in black, white or even color.

To Altria’s credit, you don’t need to know what they do or recognize them. They are a conglomerate that mostly brands of cigarettes and wine. In fact, Altria as a company probably doesn’t want you to know they are related to the products they sell.

2 | Don’t follow the crowd
Trends are best left to the fashion industry. You need your logo colors to stand out from all the others. Your form and colors need to stand out from the rest of the logos that are blasted out into media. Those swishes you would see in Web 1.0 logos? Gone. Web 2.0 logos with reflections? Those will be on their way out. I have seen many logos lately (Facebook, I’m looking at you!) that are very “app” like. Small squares with something resembling a logo inside them. Don’t get caught in the trap of designing your logo that looks like an app. Apps won’t be around forever.

When it comes to color, luckily you have a lot of room to be unique. Most corporations play it safe and choose red or blue. There’s a few with green as their main color. This gives you great leeway in choosing the color right for your company. Just don’t pick magenta, T-Mobile actually owns the right to the color magenta.

3 | Break every rule you have ever heard, even these ones
You’ll always read or hear about rules for everything in life. When it comes to logo color choice, these rules came from things I noticed. The best logos though broke every possible rule, even the rule of standing out – sometimes you will want to identify closely with another company, so you emulate their logo. The main “rule” I came across was to create a logo with a prominent single color, and choose red or blue. I came across the perfect counterexample to this. I think this company’s logo will speak for itself.

When it comes to your logo design, take your color very seriously. We here at OrangeSlyce take our design (very) seriously. So save some time and hire a student designer today!

A few weeks ago, a blog post over at 37signal’s blog caught my eye.  The idea was “How cool would it be if you could design signatures as a side job?”.  An intriguing thought.  You don’t see many signature designers around nowadays and calligraphy is almost a lost art.  I tried taking a crack at my own signature and just wasn’t pleased with my results.  I wondered if my muscle memory was too embedded to be able to make any changes to my John Hancock.  Speaking of John Hancock, look how cool his signature was:

I’m also a fan of Barack Obama’s signature as well:

Design shouldn’t be nothing but logos and color schemes.  With personal branding becoming more prevalent, start thinking of other ways you can improve your client’s product including, but not limited to, their signature.  Many years ago, calligraphers would create seals for powerful families to use in their businesses.  If you can carve out a niche like that, you could be the modern day Wang Xizhi.

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Part of being a successful business owner is knowing who your customers even are. Before deciding that you need a logo designed or copy to be written, take some time to figure out who you plan on providing your product or service to. Today, Lifehacker featured MyBestSegments, and showed how you can use this tool from Nielson to see how you are marketed to. This is mildly interesting if you’re a consumer, but a powerful tool as a business.

You Are Where You Live
By entering the zip codes in the area you are hoping to target, You Are Where You Live will show you the major demographics according to Nielsen’s lifestyle segmentation systems. Let’s take beautiful Tempe, Arizona for example.

Tempe ranks high segments like Bohemian Mix and Young Influentials. By clicking on the descriptions of the segments, you get explainations detailing traits like income and age ranges, ethnic diversity and education levels as well as housing arrangements. The site explains “Bohemian Mixers are the early adopters who are quick to check out the latest movie, nightclub, laptop, and microbrew.”

Targeted Design
Knowing the kinds of people living in your area should now help you in your design process. Living in an area with finicky consumers with tastes for new and fresh ideas would warrant having a modern logo design and a marketing campaign showing your new products. Having customers with more conservative wants would guide you to choosing a more classic look with familiar tones and conventional advertising.

Just because you are different than everyone else doesn’t guarantee you business success. Finding where you fall in the location you plan on doing business in will make you more successful than just trying to stand out. Guide your design and marketing programs accordingly and you’ll become a part of the community.

• MyBestSegments – You Are Where You Live

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Our eye was caught today by an excellent post over at logoblog on the warning signs that a client isn’t going to pay for a logo.  While the piece is obviously useful to designers, there’s a lesson in there for business owners, too: don’t do these things.

1) Don’t take days to return phone-calls

You know this already, but in case you don’t: it’s unprofessional to leave anyone hanging for days at a time. We know that running a business is hectic: you’re wearing a lot of hats and (if you’re doing it right) you’re spreading yourself thin sometimes.  That said, your logo design is important (so is your reputation as a legitimate business, for that matter).  Find enough time to make sure the designer you’re working with knows that you’re still alive and ready to work with them.

2) Don’t continuously mock the designer’s work

Criticism is good–it’s how you help the designer make something you want.  But you should never just outright mock the designers’ work.  Mocking:

• Makes you look like a jerk.  You never know who else that designer knows, and establishing a reputation as a jerk won’t help you get your business off the ground.
• Dampens the designers’ enthusiasm for your project and reduces your chance of getting a good design.  Yes, you pay them to be professional even if you’re mean to them.  No, they’re not robots.  Making fun of your designer is a great way to offend them and make them hate doing work for you.
• Accomplishes absolutely nothing positive for your business.  Your singular focus as a small business needs to be making your business succeed.  It can’t be about you, your ego, your feelings or anything else (if it is, you will fail). It doesn’t matter if you’re frustrated by the designers’ output.  Mocking doesn’t solve that problem, so hold it in (and don’t do it to get laughs either–those laughs won’t add one penny to your bottom line).

Instead of mocking, stick to constructive criticism.  If that doesn’t work, move on. Be professional and tell your designer outright that things aren’t working out.  Don’t waste her time (and yours!) by passive-aggressively mocking work that you’re not satisfied with.

3) Don’t Try to Stiff Your Designer

As a small business, you live and die by your reputation.  We doubt that we need to tell this to anyone reading our site, but just for the sake of completion: don’t try to weasel out of paying somebody whom you agreed to pay.  There are obviously situations that complicate this rule (and how you handle those “shades of gray” is another matter for another day).  But the basic principle is sound: don’t try to worm out of paying your designer for work that you agreed to pay for.

Don’t be that business that takes a designers’ work, “alters” it slightly, and then refuses to pay the designer because you “went in a different direction.”  It might seem like a clever way to save a couple hundred bucks, but the risk you take greatly outweighs the reward.  We’re not talking about your conscience (although we hope that would be enough to keep you from stealing) we’re talking about your businesses’ reputation.

Remember: a major corporation can afford to launch a PR blitz when they get caught doing something slimy; your business can’t.  So be the good guy–it’s the better long-term investment.

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Finding a good logo designer is easier than ever in the internet age, but picking that designer out of a crowd can be tough if you don’t have a lot of expertise.  After all, if you knew a ton about logo design, you probably wouldn’t need to hire a logo designer in the first place!  As daunting as finding (and working with) the right designer might  seem, there are a few basic lessons that can help you seperate the proverbial wheat from the metaphorical chaffe.  In today’s lesson, we’re going to talk about knowing what you want in a logo in the first place.

While this lesson may seem pretty clear-cut, it’s arguably the biggest pitfall that you have to overcome.  Knowing what you want in a logo isn’t quite as simple as you might think.  Fortunately, there are some simple, easy to learn guidelines that can get you started.

It’s not critical to know exactly what you want in a logo–again, you’re hiring a designer for their expertise–but knowing the basics will help you work with your designer to get a great result.  Before you even start thinking about what you’re looking for, we strongly recommend reading this article by David Airey. Airey lays down the five critical guidelines that every great logo should follow. As he explains:

Iconic logos are:
1.Describable
2.Memorable
3.Effective without colour
4.Scalable i.e. work when just an inch in size
5.Relevant to the industry in question

There are two items we’d add to this list.  The first thing that we’d add–as sort of a logical conclusion to the five points–is that simplicity is your friend.  If your logo is a complicated piece, it will be difficult for your audience to describe (and, by extension, remember) it will be difficult to scale, and, in all likelihood, it will lose its effectiveness without color.

The next point we’d add is that a good logo should be something you can love.    At the end of the day, any small business is going to live and die with the decisions that its owner makes. You don’t want to be overcritical, you don’t want to be paralyzed by perfectionism, but you also don’t want to represent your business (and, by extension,  yourself) with a logo that you hate.

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