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.
“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?
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.
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?
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.
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…
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?
Like a plot twist gone astray, the streaming film company, Netflix, has once again befuddled customers by reversing course with a recent brand announcement. Weeks ago, Netflix announced its intention to divide its streaming and physical mail business units into two separate entities, while simultaneously apologizing for recent price hikes. This effort was intended to kick off the renamed DVD mail service, christening it Qwikster. Apparently, public outcry and common sense won the day, as Netflix backtracked and rejiggered its plans.
This on-again, off-again game of brand Twister has damaged the Netflix name and its brand cache. While we can only guess at the business reasons that motivated these decisions, it’s plain to see how Netflix shot itself in the foot from a brand perspective.
At Hexanine, we believe it’s important to help nurture the next generation of designers, and that’s why we’re involved in mentorship and teaching. Also, we benefit from brushing up against the passion and growth of young designers, and find we get almost as much out of the experience as our students. To that end, we also like to occasionally showcase the standout work of our students here at our blog.
So, as part of Tim’s Brand Standards and Identity class at Chicago Portfolio School, here are identity redesign projects from two students, Diane Johns and Megan King.
Megan has redesigned the logo for the DVD/Blu-Ray publishers, Criterion. She’s done a great job customizing and streamlining an existing typeface for wordmark use, and subtly works in the traditional “widescreen” proportions as part of her mark.
And Diane has reimagined Barnes & Noble with her own redesign. This clever mark is cobbled together from typographic punctuation, with an approachable, offbeat style for 21st century reading.
Great work all the way around, ladies!
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.
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.