“Products are created in the factory. Brands are created in the mind.”  - Walter Landon, founder, Landor Associates

Every organization worth its salt has a logo or visual identity that helps distinguish, identify, or describe its brand to audiences. And if you’ve visited the Internet at any point lately, you can see that everyone has opinions on logos. But when people say “I don’t like it!” or “That’s terrible,” what do they actually mean? There is a deeper question beneath such reflexive comments, though. Honestly, how do you evaluate a logo? How do you know if your company has the next Nike swoosh on its hands, or something much less awesome?

Being identity designers, we’ve seen thousands of logos, and have designed many of them ourselves. It can be tricky evaluating a logo’s strength, because there is more involved than just judging good looks. Below are some considerations, based on the criteria we use to judge our own work at Hexanine. Taken together, all of these put combine to form a useful benchmark for determining if the “front door” of your organization is doing what it should. How does your logo rate in each of the following categories?

1: Differentiation. How well does it stand apart from other logos? Is it unique and memorable — especially when compared to your competition? Or does it get lost among other organizations who share adjacent mindshare or audiences? In an age of constant brand bombardment, the Zag is a crucial ingredient in standing out. For some industries, differentiation might be the difference between market dominance and permanent second-class status.

2: Aesthetics. This is traditionally considered the chief responsibility of designers — and rightly so. Having a visually-strong mark is now the cost of doing business, and organizations who don’t pay attention to the power of beauty do so at their peril. Is your logo well-crafted? Does it employ great symbology and excellent/appropriate typography? Are the visual details of layout, color harmony, and illustration executed at the highest levels? Does your logo scale well and reproduce effectively on a variety of platforms? Clients who come to us for identity design or redesigns typically have beauty atop their wish lists, but it’s only part of the overall brand picture. Visuals are the glue that hold an identity together, but they also work in service of all the other following areas.

3: Conceptual Strength. Differentiation and beauty are not enough. Strong, sophisticated conceptual thinking is what separates logo makers from true brand identity designers. A logo that doesn’t tap into the brand’s ethos and business goals is like a cheap Hollywood set  – beautiful to look at, but not strong enough to withstand close scrutiny. How well does your logo echo the brand story? Does it communicate an appropriate metaphor? Does it include necessary chunks of the brand’s essence and heritage? Does it function like a page torn from the larger brand’s tale? Is it correctly aimed at the people and audiences who will draw the most meaning from it?

4: Surprise / Unusual / Aha! Factor. This is that difficult-to-quantify aspect of identity design that causes someone to take a second look, or to dwell on your logo for another moment. That Something Special could be almost anything, as long as it makes sense within the context of your brand. It might be a surprising and unusual combination of symbols, a visual pun, or some hidden element that reveals itself over time. None of this is absolutely required, but it’s certainly icing on the cake of the best identities. This isn’t flash and sizzle, but it’s something that helps an identity remain in the mind, tying itself forever to a set of products, services, or a larger brand.

5: Usage. How well is your logo being used? This seems like it’s outside the purview of logo design, but in truth, some of the most important work is done after a logo is designed. Building a context and visual language around the mark is essential to making sure your overall brand identity is successful. Some visually unimpressive logos benefit from exceptional visual positioning and a proper context that allows them to shine all-the-more brightly. What other visual parts of an overall identity are paired with your logo? Do photography, illustration, original patterns, and imagery add up to help the logo be more than the sum of its parts? Context can become the perfect stage to spotlight the best aspects of a less-than-perfect logo, while also minimizing its weaknesses.

To show how this might work in practice, we’ve rated some well-known logos. Very few corporate identities are going to rate perfect in every category, but the ratings below will show you how well-rounded logos can be successful, and how some brands choose to focus on some aspects at the expense of others.

Nike: Usage makes all the difference
Nike does an amazing job with its very simple logo. But the power of the brand is not in the visual execution of the mark, but in the power of its use. The swoosh has been burned into the brains of billions of people via amazing association with athletes, emotions, and sporting events. Wherever the logo appears, it is always used flawlessly, transcending any issues with the construction of the logo itself.

FedEx: The Godfather of hidden images
While the FedEx logo seems austere, its simplicity and strength are memorable in themselves. Its unique and varied usage across parts of the company was quite provocative in 1994, and allowed the brand to grow and define itself visually on the canvases of its moving delivery trucks. And of course, there is the infamous hidden arrow. 

Microsoft: Simply bland
The Microsoft identity is decently-made and generally unremarkable. The mark is very static, and the typography is completely forgettable, which might be an unforgivable sin in the software industry. The brand took a risky move by porting the brand’s most powerful (only?) brand asset — the Windows color palette and iconography — and poured them into a new corporate identity. Simple logos are not always easy to execute, but in this case, simplicity means losing what little personality the original had. This execution is bland, except when used to great success in its motion graphics applications.

Apple: Cleverness that ages well
Apple’s once-bitten piece of fruit has evolved with the company since its initial rainbow-colored rollout. It has been beveled, liquefied, and stamped on the backs of millions of iPhones and iPads. The original brand story of hidden knowledge (Eve, the Garden of Eden, etc.) has been all-but-lost in its modern incarnations, but the company’s backing with gorgeous, functional product design has only increased. The cleverness of using fruit to sell computers and electronics hasn’t aged a bit.

Starbucks: Pouring a tasty cup of omnipresence
This beautiful and transcendent mark is so ubiquitous that it doesn’t need typography. The logo’s application on thousands of street corners and billions of coffee cups doesn’t hurt, but it succeeds not just because of its constant presence in modern living. It endures because of solid coffee and a whimsical mark that stands for a brand experience that has changed modern retail and the way people think about hot beverages forever.

T-Mobile: Not so pretty in pink
Pink (magenta, really) — is the best thing the T-Mobile identity has going for it. The logo is clunky, seems difficult to use, and has far too many moving parts to be considered visually successful. The typography seems inappropriate for the brand, and suggests the fact that T and Mobile are headed towards a visual divorce, slowly drifting apart. But T-Mobile has ended up owning its magenta brand color in such a powerful way, that it barely needs a logo in its communication. Consistent, repetitive, and effective use of the color has allowed the brand to own that bright, cheery magenta in a way not seen since UPS captured Brown. Someone must have been thinking pink.

It’s easy to critique from afar, and every brand his its own idiosyncrasies and issues, but having a solid framework for success in logo and identity design is the first step in making sure it’s not your organization’s logo in the crosshairs.

It should be obvious, but style is not a strategy. Instead, style is just one tool in the marketer’s arsenal, brandished to help deliver a specific result, whether it is emotional, visual, or otherwise.

Or maybe style is more like a spice or seasoning. It tastes good, adds unique and distinctive flavor, but can’t stand alone as a meal. We need the red meats of strategy and goal-oriented design to deliver the goods, without being tricked into the idea that style can solve a problem on its own. In our lightning-fast culture, the speed of trends is increasing, and marketers, designers, and artists are often at risk of getting “over trended.”

Ephemeral trends and visual styles are at the highest levels — they’re the waves crashing and moving quickly over the top of the water, while the still waters of good design and communication ripple underneath. Great design and branding is knowing when to ride the crests, and when it’s best to dive deep.

If you were a kid in the Midwest and ever visited a zoo or museum, you probably ran into one of these machines. They were — and still are — pure magic. Even if you didn’t recall the name Mold-A-Rama, you might remember the smell and feel of warm, air-molded polyethylene in your hands.

For those who’ve never seen one of these machines in-person, they basically work like this: You insert money (today it’s $2.00) and hear the machine spring to life with a loud hum. Hydraulic arms come together in the middle behind the transparent bubble, where plastic enters the chamber as forced air pushes it into the existing mold. Roughly 45 seconds later, the mold halves pull apart, and another arm pushes the newly-molded piece off the chamber surface and into the opening compartment, where you can retrieve your still-warm plastic toy. See it in action here.

On a recent visit to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, I stumbled onto three separate Mold-A-Rama machines while walking throughout the museum, and was immediately transported back to the time of elementary school field trips, brown bag lunches, and hi-tops. After doing a bit of online digging, it seems that the company that produces and maintains these machines and their models is inexplicably still alive and kicking. (And that’s not a dig on the company or the little toys it produces, but more a commentary on these seemingly “trapped in time” machines and their surprising continued existence.)

But that’s not the end of the story. These little plastic figurines have inspired collectors, fan websites, and even new, designer toys. Even local designer toy store Rotofuji has purchased and reworked a Mold-A-Rama machine so it dispenses custom-designed collector toys. Super cool.

What does all of this have to do with design and branding? Well, it’s just another reminder how experiences, tied to physical objects, are memorable and fun. Process is super important — how much LESS fun would purchasing one of these air-blown plastic mementos be if you just picked one up in the gift shop? The ability to see the toy-making machine in action, to literally be part of the creation of your piece, is key in the experience and makes all the difference. Today we call this “audience engagement” or “co-creation,” but it’s really just a great, one-of-a-kind experience.

Images of giraffe and one Mold-A-Rama machine courtesy of Jinx! and L. Marie, respectively, via Creative Commons license.

I think he’s right on, but there’s more to the story. Brands aren’t solely formed of audience belief or market opportunities. They are the creation of driven, hard-working, vision-casting individuals who put bits of themselves into their organizations, whether it’s their passions, perspective, or merely sweat equity. To completely cede the soul or mission of a brand to the opinions of others means leaving out an essential slice of the organization’s DNA.

We believe that the sweet spot of powerful, authentic brand identity (and communication) lies at the intersection of an organization’s view of itself (the Authorial element) and the connection the brand makes with those in the world (the Responsive element). When a team or organization can weave a brand story and overall identity that integrates both of these elements, it has achieved the sweet spot, a place of lasting connection and success.

The brand identity of your organization is at the heart of all communications with the outside world. It’s an identifier, a signature, a symbol loaded with meaning that flows from the brand itself, and most importantly, from people’s experiences with that brand. Crafting great brand identities is our main focus at Hexanine, and we believe it’s vastly important in business, culture, and the world around us.

However, in the arms race that is today’s business landscape, it can be tempting for those of us in branding and marketing to take shortcuts by looking to the latest in trends, “secret” strategies, or so-called silver bullets to make our brands stand out. It’s so easy to succumb to the latest brand bandwagons or popular approaches, but for good brands, this isn’t necessary. A simple storytelling approach will work powerfully. But what story to tell? How do you create these elusive brand narratives?

The irony is that great organizations are often sitting on gold mines without even realizing it.  Fabulous, valuable riches are at your fingertips — unique drivers, compelling histories, and singular stories waiting to be told. Often, these critical assets are easy to miss because they’re far too familiar, or they’re the buried treasure locked away in some lost closet of organizational knowledge. To recognize the riches your brand already has sometimes only requires re-adjusting your viewpoint, or taking on an outsider’s perspective. We love to play the outsider role, and combine it with the insider knowledge and expertise of those inside organizations. But the groundwork can be so much fun, and deeply rewarding as well. For all of the strategy and identity work we do with client partners, the first steps involve an archaeological dig of sorts, to mine and uncover what brand stories are waiting to be found.

Once a project sets sail, there’s a lot to be done before we ever arrive at the conceptual or strategy-writing phases. Rather than wastefully starting from scratch, we’ll often begin instead by assessing what stories a company or organization already has that are of value — both in the minds of leadership, and in the audiences a brand touches. Our chief roles as strategic brand designers involve excavation, curation, and storytelling — digging deep to find these nuggets of stories, evaluating them for use, and then weaving them into powerful, relevant brand communications.

Good stories are at the heart of every great brand, whether these are explicit and product-centered, or aspirational and loosely connected. Some are association-based, tying themselves to positive experiences and memories. Coke has essentially been evolving this message for decades: “Drinking Coca-Cola is a refreshing, essential part of whatever fun you’re having!” Other brand stories seek to connect to an audience’s shared values and desires, creating a stronger connection to the brand by tapping into already-active beliefs: “TOMS Shoes improves my wardrobe and style, and also lets me help kids in need.” There are many other stories to tell and billions of ways to tell them, but the tales begin with digging through the existing treasures an organization has.

The best stories and materials that emerge from the excavation become part of the creative process, serving as the raw materials we can polish up, refine, and use strategically as part of the new brand identity, messaging platform, or initiative we’re creating.

Here are some of the high-level steps and questions we ask ourselves (and our clients) as we dive deeper during this process:

Figure out what elements exist.
This is all about mining your history, digging into archives, memories, and previous work. It’s helpful to do categorical and deep dives into campaigns, efforts, internal initiatives, brand books, ads, taglines, and anything else in your archives. This cataloging process is something that many brands avoid, but it’s helpful to take stock of everything that exists before deciding what’s of value. But it’s helpful to use some of these criteria: What do people remember? What campaigns, slogans, or historical images have potential value? What are the pros and cons of those things that people remember? Can they be utilized to stir or germinate something new?

What are the stories that your organization tells itself?
How do you communicate inside the organization about what’s important? What does the organization claim as important externally, and how do those stories and values differ from what the company says in internal communication? How does your organization view itself? What lenses does it use to evaluate history, progression, and the future? Do these lenses change over time, or with shifts in leadership?

What is the organization’s “reason for being” that isn’t about making money?
Being profitable is assumed for any successful organization, but what sets yours apart? Why do people in your organization care? Why did the founders do this instead of something else? What gets your leaders up and out of bed in the morning?

What stories are others telling about your brand?
Is your company known as a great place to work? Do you have a reputation (deserved or not) for something specific? What assets or liabilities are attached to your name? What data do you collect from places like customer service, Twitter mentions, or media overviews? What trends begin to emerge? What are brand interactions like for those not drinking your company’s Kool-Aid? In the name of brutal honesty, it’s easy for these research efforts to become sensitive, because shortcomings often itch for someone to blame. But it’s important to focus on the data-gathering, not problem-solving at this point. Of course, an organization still needs to own any negatives and constructively see each as part of a larger change process for the brand — of correcting issues and moving towards better solutions. Oftentimes, giving first aid to your brand’s reputation can become a brand story in itself. Domino’s is an amazing example.

What is your organization’s culture and personality?
It can be tempting to graft in a new corporate culture or way of working, but the most powerful organizational ethos grows organically. How can you step back and observe what’s happening under your own roof? Is there something unique about your processes, or how you think about those ways of working? What stories are to be found there?

After this process is completed, these stories and many other elements flow into a brand brief, which then becomes the fertile soil for all development, whether it’s strategic, visual, or otherwise. It can seem more sexy, fresh, or interesting to start with a blank sheet of paper, but the greatest brands don’t throw away stories of value. And the best brands and marketers know that unique and authentic stories are gold for the people who see their worth. Stories are the well we all draw from, and ensuring that your company has a strong grasp on its brand stories will help guarantee success long into your future.

Innovation. Inspiration. Creativity. We toss those words around daily. Are they just fancy ways to say “I’ve had an idea?” Those of us who are marketers, designers, and artists are often labeled as creative. But what do people mean by that? There’s a widely-held (and poorly-articulated) image of the stereotypical creative person floating about in our culture. Is it Steve Jobs? Albert Einstein? Thomas Kinkade? Are creative people different than that? Can we better quantify and understand creativity?

Generally, creativity is widely discussed but poorly understood, and the “creative person” even more so. The prevailing stereotype of creative action doesn’t help matters, either. If we can better define what it means to be creative (and the disparate flavors of creativity), maybe we can better harness that creative output — whether it means assembling a team, hiring a firm, or merely understanding how to best exploit our own skills and natural tendencies.

After meeting and interacting with many creatives over the years, I’ve had to continually expand my definition of what creativity looks like. Sure, sometimes it manifests itself in the traditional way: creating something out of nothing. That lightning bolt of inspiration, or ideas from out of the blue. But other times, being creative is a slogging, noodling process that develops at a snail’s pace. This isn’t to denigrate the classical creative mold, or to lower the bar in defining what we see as creative. It just means that there are different types of creative people and methods out there. We don’t all fit into the same mold. In the same way that we now think about smarts as a set of multiple intelligences, this might be a useful lens in considering definitions of creativity.

To sow the seeds of discussion, I’ve identified five unique types of creativity, knowing full well that some people exhibit multiple facets, or bleed into different categories. Here are the each of these five initial categories. Where do you see yourself among these?

The Inventor
This is the traditional idea of creativity, pulling an idea or concept out of the ether, imagining something where there was previously nothing. Poof! This classic Edison or Da Vinci style of creativity (or its trendy cousin, “innovation,”) is what most people think of when they consider being creative. The trick to harnessing these types of people is understanding how to best deploy them. Generally, they are good at solving problems from the gut, intuiting needs that people don’t realize they have yet. But it often takes time, and the journey of imaging worlds that don’t yet exist is rarely a straight line. Set these people free on specific problems, and allow them to loosen the boundaries of what is possible.

Weaknesses: They are typically not as skilled in iterating or creating dozens of slight variations. If you’re managing or partnering with an Inventor, it’s best to focus them on the broad strokes of an issue, a problem, or an idea. Instead of burdening Inventors with working out the finest details of an idea, you might allow them to pass the finishing touches onto other team members, and move on to new problems.

Examples: Leonardo Da Vinci, Archimedes, Thomas Edison

The Craftsman
Women and men who belong in this category are more traditional artisan creators, often seen with their heads down and noses to the grindstone (sometimes literally). They whittle, paint, carve, weld, design — their output has a focus on detail, high quality, possibly bordering on perfectionism. Technology and the accessibility of creative tools has thinned this herd somewhat, but in earlier times, these were the exemplary paste-up artists, sign painters, and carpenters. It might seem like our culture has moved away from this type of creativity, but it’s alive and well in the minds of rock star programmers, silkscreen artists, and DIY moonlighters.

Weaknesses: Look at these people, and you might see them getting lost in the details, because they’ve narrowed like a laser beam on to a particular facet, issue, or detail. Sometimes that focused state can be counterproductive when no one else is providing the bigger picture. To balance out a Craftsman, make sure you have great project managers or others committed to keeping the overall project goals, deadlines, and 10,000-foot view in mind.

Examples: Ed Fella, Chris Ware

The Connector
When you look at one of these people, you might not see a traditional, inspirational creative type. There’s no genre-inventing or trendsetting happening in front of them. Instead, the Connector is someone who draws on the knowledge, styles, and thoughts of others — remixing, reworking, and building them into new things. This might be the sampling artist, the collage creator, or someone who more generally gets great results while standing on the shoulders of others. But make no mistake about it — there is a deep creativity at work here, because these people broaden our world when they provide new contexts, weld disparate ideas together, and basically make something new out of the old.

Weaknesses: Because Connectors tend to work above the typical level of idea generation, they’re often focused on creative process. This is valuable when it’s usefully repeatable, but can also become a crutch that replaces fresh thinking. To get the most from Connectors, it’s important to allow them to partner with Craftsman types or others who will keep feeding them ideas that can be combined, remixed, and revisited. Connectors are often excellent team members, and tend to thrive in those environments, helping draw more out of all other players.

Examples: Andy Warhol, Shepard Fairey

The Curator
For this type of person, the sum is often greater than the whole. With Curators, the bird’s eye view is the thing. They bring value by making creative decisions that categorize, sort, and organize by deciding what stays in the picture, or what belongs in a series. Curation is defined by assembling things and observing how the act of categorization changes their individual parts. Steve Jobs did this exceptionally well, by gathering existing technologies, concepts, and ideas– then choosing what to leave out, narrowing down to only the best designs and features he believed were necessary. Curation also provides a unique value in sizing up and contextualizing work.

Weaknesses: Because their value comes from the thoughts that tie together elements and ideas, Curators can fall into the trap of lowering their standards to fit something into a larger body of work. If they are not vigilant, it can be easy to miss the trees for the forest, and Inventors and Craftsmen need to be on hand to keep standards high.

Examples: Ken Burns, Tina Roth Eisenberg, Steven Heller

The Critic
These are the people who attempt to bring order to creations, to assess, challenge, and understand the things we’ve made as a culture. Judgment, understanding, and evaluation are arts in themselves, worthy of respect. The contributions of the Critic are completely dependant on other kinds of creators, but that doesn’t diminish the need for someone to take the time and do the difficult (and underappreciated) work of criticism. The role of critic is simultaneously growing and disappearing in our creative culture. Ease of publishing online (blogs, videos, etc.) can make anyone an instant Critic, and there is no shortage of opinions on the Internet. But opinions alone don’t birth a Critic. The true and valued Critic has extensive knowledge in a subject matter, wide view, and the ability to articulate thoughts that add wisdom and foster discourse. These creatives don’t just tell us what is good or bad, but instead, help us understand how, why, and when to make such distinctions.

Weaknesses: In an increasingly cynical world, many forms of criticism are seen as negative — just know-it-alls spouting their snooty (and often negative) opinions. Critics must work hard to avoid falling into the stereotypical destructive behavior we sometimes associate with the Critic. The true critical work is more about adding, building, and creating than it is about tearing down or ripping apart creative work. Even the word criticism has negative connotations, but Critics should be wary of turning into a fount of negativism that is the caricature of constructive, helpful criticism.

Examples: Marcia Lausen, Alice Twemlow

Again, these creative categorizations are not hard and fast definitions. Many of us exhibit multiple qualities in lesser or greater amounts, but these creations might be the most helpful for the individual person. With some self-reflection and evaluation, these roles are useful in trying to understand our own creative strengths, and how we can best work in isolation or as part of a larger team. And for those building their own creative teams — as part of a staff, internally, or in partnering with firms and individuals — it seems prudent to have a broad representation of the types on this list for a well-balanced and effective team. We’re very interested in your thoughts with these constructions, and welcome dialogue about these types of creativity.

I haven’t been in a comic book store in at least seven months. I get pubs electronically on my iPad now. I just happened by a comic book store last week, in Chicago’s Loop, and was drawn in. It’s a different experience.

Electronic everything is turning whole industries and business models on their heads. It happened to music. Publishing is the latest. But just because songs, stories and images can be served up on a screen and delivered much like their printed or published counterparts doesn’t mean that the entire experience is duplicated.

Browsing is different than searching. Searching is “need it today,” task oriented, goal-focused — all on the act of getting or acquiring, comparing or contrasting.

Browsing is different. It’s the longer, meandering road to the same destination. But along the way it introduces nuance, context, and the serendipity of discovery. Things look different when categorized in ways the don’t bend to the whim of user-generated search results or keyword association.

Magazine racks have context. Book stores have ambiance. Clothing displays create connection in ways that disassociated products do not. A thin layer of rich, nuanced, personal experience can often get stripped away if a brand isn’t careful. It takes smart people to understand the value of that experience and know when it can’t be replicated.

When you talk to startups, CEOs, and others, it seems like everyone wants to be the “next Apple,” “just like Nike,” or to do things “the way Starbucks does.” Admittedly, these companies are icons and have surpassed the competition to become larger-than-life brands, symbols that stand for things both larger and more sweeping than the commerce they generate. But it’s not like any of them pushed a magic icon button to make it all happen. There’s no road map to guaranteed iconic status, or our world would be vastly different, to say the least. But if we dissect these kinds of rockstar brands, and remove the lucky breaks, the passion, sweat equity, and visionary leaders, what is left? We believe there are some fundamental activities remaining that help illuminate the roads a brand must take to becoming an icon.

Here are a few of them:

Ubiquity
You need to be everywhere your audience is. That doesn’t necessarily mean event-driven Super Bowl commercials or plastering your brand messages on every free inch of real estate. But it does require an intimate knowledge and understanding of the people you’re trying to reach, and then unobtrusively inserting your brand into their lives in useful and meaningful ways. This is less the persistent stalker syndrome and more the reliable, friendly presence. And it requires more than holding a sign that says “Remember, we’re here!” Today’s audiences want more from your brand than just a pathetic “Call me…?” Give them the means and a reason to follow you and follow up when their need arrives.

Repetition
To remain in that elusive “top-of-mind” position, it requires some sort of regular and consistent presence in the lives of your target audience. It’s up to you to determine the how and who, and which messages and means are crucial elements in your brand strategy. Repeat these in a way that doesn’t feel monotonous or self-absorbed (no one likes the people who only talk about themselves!), but slowly unfolds what you’re doing, what you’re about, and why it matters. This means that your brand’s messaging, look, feel, style, voice — all need to be consistent, working in concert to provide synergy that makes it sound like your organization speaks with one voice.

Emotional Connection
This might seem silly to a company that sells toilet brushes or distributes freight containers, but the honest truth is that nearly every purchase or product decision carries some sort of emotional weight to it, however slight. The hard part is finding out what that bit of caring is, and when it’s liable to happen to your audience. Someone might care very much about getting their morning coffee quickly, so the brand touchpoint of a fast line is crucial to evoking satisfaction. Simple, bold nutritional graphics might make a harried parent’s shopping a bit easier at the point of purchase. Audience empathy will lead to the discovery of these moments of emotional connection, allowing you to use your service, product, or offering to make a positive difference to them.

Spark
This is one of the least quantifiable aspects, but no less important in stepping up the ladder to brand stardom. What is a spark? It’s that “new and different” aspect that sets your brand apart from others. It could mean providing something that’s never been seen before (a Segway?), revamping an existing category (the iPad), or just offering a completely fresh point of view on familiar products (like Method did with cleaning supplies). The commonality in all of these is some type of “unique selling proposition” in marketing parlance, but we prefer to think of it as a brand’s soul, it’s spark, or reason for being. (And making money doesn’t count as a “reason for being.”)

Something Worth Sharing
Finally, you know you’ll have an iconic brand in-the-making when you have something people want to share with others. Sharing is a highly-overused term in our sphere of retweets, Likes, and thumbs up , but this principle has been around a lot longer than social media. In fact, it’s centuries old and very simple. Your brand needs to contain something that people want to tell others about. Other than the occasional brand train wreck, what brands are truly worth discussing? You need fans and people who want to selflessly evangelize about what you do, because they love it and want to tell others. The motivation might come from wanting to be the first kid on the block with the new toy, a desire to be the resident expert on something, or just an overflow of genuine delight.

These five aspects are no magic recipe, but instead, we hope that they’re a handful of crucial steps on the painstaking road towards brand greatness. Now get going.

With apologies and a tip of the hat to Kevin Costner for his wonderful Crash Davis speech in “Bull Durham”:

“Well, I believe in the Big Idea, the pitch, the hands, the power of a well-crafted phrase, the value of sketching, exquisite craft, late nights, that the work of David Carson belongs in the 1990s. I believe Paul Rand acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing advertising as branding and horizontal scaling of typography. I believe in the group critique, eyeball-searing visuals, under-promising and over-delivering, and I believe in long-term, ambitious, deep, professional dreams that will last the next three decades.”

It’s not just the hipsters who are doing it. Analog seems to be making a comeback. LP sales are climbing, people are resurrecting Polaroid-style film, preserving wooden type, buying vintage furniture and old-style printing with a vengeance. These are all natural reactions to seismic changes in technology and the ways in which we interact with objects. We can understand these sometimes-oddball interests and activities if they’re viewed through the lens of history. For hundreds — nay, thousands of years, human beings have interacted with physical objects and spaces in a particular way, whether it was hoeing in a dusty Nebraskan field, or signing a paper contract. But then digital devices arrived on the scene, and voila! Things have changed.

The Internet, cloud computing, capacative touchscreen devices, virtual models, avatars, message boards, electronic mail, Short Message Service texting on phones, and many other innovations have served to sever our centuries-old, hard-wired relationship with the good, old-fashioned physical object. But it seems like there’s a cultural memory or vestige of longing for some touch still hanging around, because the desire for analog experiences seems to be on the rise. So, what in the name of Thomas Alva Edison is going on? There are some things that physical objects do very well, where their digital cousins leave us a little cold. Here are a few reasons why yesterday’s gadgets, technologies, and ways of working just won’t die.

Holding something is like a relationship
It’s not just collectors who like to hold something in their hands. Whether it’s a baby, a baseball bat, or a diamond ring, the nature of the tactile experience brings us closer to a thing. Physical touch is a singular experience, creating a specific haptic bond, even with inanimate objects. Textures and touch hot-stamp our memories with emotion, and all of that is stored together in the recesses of our brains. That’s why running a hand over the polished fender of a ‘58 Impala brings some Boomers back to their teenage years. It’s very difficult to create a physical bond with an iTunes thumbnail.

This is one reason why many are experimenting with cassette-only music labels, collecting vinyl, and connecting with methods of creating and playing that date back to earlier eras. Previously it was assumed that to complete a task, to work or play with an object, that a person would have a specific interaction and get particular feedback or influence from a physical object. But with technological sea changes, many of the experiences we’ve had in the past — reading a newspaper, sketching a model, penning a poem, playing an arcade game — now come to us by way of glowing screens and digital devices. (The irony that I’ve written this entire article on my iPad and computer is not lost on me.) That’s not to say that these new ways of working and interacting are bad, but where they excel in efficiency and transferability, they can fall short in connection and permanence.

Old things connect us with history
For many in Generations X and Y , anything that isn’t the newest and shiniest falls out of fashion. To them, old stuff seems lame, antiquated, and worthless. Why watch a “boring” silent film when you can be rocked back in your chair by the sweet strains of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol in Dolby 7.1 IMAX? And who wouldn’t prefer a Taylor Swift ringtone to some Stevie Nicks album? But for a growing group on the margins, there is value in connecting with a time period before your own. Sure, some of it is probably a fascination with “otherness” — something we didn’t grow up with has a alien nature to it, a patina of authenticity because it came from a “simpler time.”

But some of the appeal is also true curiosity about how things were done before. And not just for novelty’s sake, but because those experiences offer a time-rooted and unique interaction that modern creation doesn’t always afford us.  There is also an archaeological aspect to the search, a seeking for truth in what other generations did — what was it like? How do their creative impulses and executions compare to the way I do things? These are valid questions that need to be worked out, and sometimes the “analog way” might be the best path to explore.

Making something tangible is a richer experience
There is something satisfying about pulling a screen, developing film in a darkroom, or making Super 8 films. The act of connecting to an activity in a physical manner builds a sort of physical memory and satisfaction that mediated experiences can’t match. The output is something that can be held, turned over, cherished, filed, and admired. While we’ve tried to recreate these interactions (like the website page flips or iPhone apps), they come off as pale imitations of analog experiences.

In the end, our parents were right. There is such a thing as sweat equity — and building, assembling, or initiating creation with some physical expression leaves a lasting imprint on the world and the creator herself. I doubt we’ll be auctioning off the digital signatures or iPad sketches of famous people fifty years from now. The connection is not the same when something has never been touched.

They lead us to belonging
Finally, in discovering these analog means of creation or consumption, we seek to connect with other like-minded folks. Not everyone will appreciate these analog experiences, but in finding fellow students of physicality, we are also searching for identification and belonging to a group, tribe, or class of others who fundamentally understand us. Musicians jam together. Knitting circles knit. Audiophiles swap albums. This connection, this very human sense of belonging, seems to be even more fragile and scarce in a disconnected world that offers hollow, one-dimensional versions of “community” at the hands of Facebook, message boards, and LinkedIn groups. It’s a fundamental hunger for human relationship, and shared physical experiences are often more meaty than their appetizer-size digital counterparts.

All of this has to be postscripted with a disclaimer. It’s an ignorant and short-sighted man who scoffs at the future, and we certainly aren’t shaking our fists at the amazing innovations and technologies that tomorrow is ushering in. The future has afforded us amazing abundance, new experiences, and in many cases, deeply satisfying careers. But we’ll miss out on a treasure trove of beauty, creativity, and connectedness if we don’t truly consider all that the analog experiences have to offer.