More New Work: Laemmle Website and Branding

Hexanine: Laemmle Theatres website and branding

At Hexanine, we are huge film buffs, so it’s with great pride that we finally showcase our work with Laemmle Theatres. This great group of movie theaters in the LA area are stalwarts of excellent foreign, indy, and art house film. We were recruited by Three Thirty and Innfusion Studios to help expand their brand identity and design the current website. Check out the portfolio entry for more deets.

Good, Great, or Hated: How to Rate Your Own Logo

Hexanine: Rating Your Logo

“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?

Read on…

Musings: The Successful Logo

Our short musings on design, branding, business, and the human condition.

“Well-designed logos are the work of the designers. Successful logos imply the company’s use of the logo.”

-Per Mollerup, quoted in Steve Heller’s interview at The Atlantic.

Fire Your Celebrity “Creative Director”

Hexanine: Fire Your Celebrity Creative Directors

The glowing age of celebrity endorsements is fading. Sure, large corporations still hand out millions to basketball players and pop stars to attach themselves to some level of current “cool,” but no savvy audience truly believes this is anything less than a financial transaction — a paid endorsement, dollars for smiles. Insert cash, and a celebrity will say whatever you like. But is this good or bad for your brand?

Read on…

Q&A With Alina Wheeler On “Designing Brand Identity” 4th Edition

Hexanine: Alina Wheeler and Designing Brand Identity 4

Alina Wheeler wrote the book on identity design. Literally. She is the author of Designing Brand Identity, which is just about to be released in its fourth edition. It’s an excellent resource and is arguably the textbook on the discipline of overarching identity design. Over the years, we’ve found Alina’s thoughts, insight, and process to be an invaluable roadmap in developing and shaping our own identity design process, leading to greater results for us, and our clients. The book is a great 50,000 foot view, allowing readers the ability to see the design journey from beginning to end, but also allowing them to zoom in on how each part of the process contributes to overall project success.

On the eve of the book launch, we wanted to chat with our friend and colleague about this latest version, and also pick her brain about the state of identity design today.

Read on…

The Branding Sweet Spot

Hexanine: The Branding Sweet Spot
Trying to stake out intellectual and emotional territory for an organization’s brand is a challenging proposition — so many viewpoints, stakeholders, and ideas to juggle and consider. You have the business and marketing goals of the organization, the reality on the ground, and the thoughts and emotions of the brand’s audiences. Marty Neumeier said in “The Brand Gap” that a brand is “what they say it is,” — that what the world thinks about your brand is incredibly powerful and often definitive.

I think he’s right on, but there’s more to the story. Read on…

Mining Your Brand For Stories

Hexanine: Mining Your Brand For Stories

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?

Read on…

Writing For LogoNest 01

LogoNest book cover Hexanine

We’ve just received our copy of the brand-new inspiration book by LogoNest. The book was an outgrowth of the popular logo website, and we were asked to lend our voice to this first collected volume. Hexanine partner Tim contributed the case study/tutorial “Marrying Symbol And Metaphor.” It’s at home among other great writing by Steve Zelle (of Processed Identity), Leighton Hubbell, and a slew of other design authors.

Hexanine article for LogoNest 01

Below is an excerpt from “Marrying Symbol And Metaphor.” For the rest of the story and more great logo inspiration, you can purchase the limited-edition book at the LogoNest website.

Defining The Symbol
A symbol is roughly defined as an image, object or depiction that represents something else. Understanding the basics of symbology is at the core of what we do as designers. It’s crucial for identity designers to absorb the basic symbols of culture, whether they are derived by association, resemblance, or convention. Symbols are super-valuable, because they communicate a vast amount of information with simplified visual depictions. Think of a stop sign’s associations, or the cross that represents a broad array of religious thought. These symbols don’t tell a complete story, but they stand in for much more complex thoughts or concepts. So, the first step of crafting an excellent logo is to generate a library of relevant symbols.