Last week I posted a few thoughts on it's not about the logo. At the time I did not realize that the post was Part I of a series of posts. Many of you visited the blog and several of you weighed in with supporting comments on my blog post feed to Facebook. Interesting that most of those agreeing that a brand is not a logo, and a brand strategy is not about the logo, were graphic designers. Yesterday I read about a system of public universities in my state that has hired a consulting firm to unify its logos. After reading the story I felt compelled to continue the dialogue on this topic.
The system of schools and the consulting firm that was hired both have good reputations, and I am not here to attempt to dilute their image. However, I did scratch my head when I read about the branding campaign and logo design plans for the system of schools. Granted the article I read might strictly be the interpretation of the writer of the story, but what I read indicated that someone thinks it's all about the logo. I did not see one mention of institutional mission, culture building, stakeholder engagement, internal brand development and return on investment. In my education brand building world, those are the key components of brand initiatives.
A few years ago when I played a leading role for a brand initiative at another university in this state, our mantra was it's not about the logo. We did not want our stakeholders to think that we were advocating the same old traditional approach to building our brand. We also did not want constituents, especially our faculties, who we would expect to embrace and live the brand to think this was just another exercise in logo design or advertising. In other words we did not want our brand champions to think we were advocating a stereotypical marketing campaign. We wanted to reaffirm that a brand is our name and what that name stands for. They expected a billboard campaign, we gave them a sustainability strategy.
While logos are important in providing visual representation for the brand, and while it is important that graphic standards be a part of the outcomes to brand development, isn't it all about mission and stakeholders in the 21st Century?
Rex Whisman
well i like the logos
Posted by: Custom Logo Design | December 04, 2009 at 01:40 AM
Don't know what is wrong what is rite but i know that every one has there own point of view and same goes to this one..
Posted by: autoboy | July 11, 2010 at 12:55 AM
Don't know what is wrong what is rite but i know that every one has there own point of view and same goes to this one..
Posted by: company logo design | July 14, 2010 at 02:01 AM
Well don't know whats going on but its not a Good way to do this. in my opinion we have to look again about this issue
Posted by: company logo design | July 24, 2010 at 04:18 AM