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.

You will never be able to create or provide something that’s better than the organization you’re working for. It doesn’t matter how brilliant your branding or how excellent the strategy is, the end results will only be as good as the company itself. Paul Rand probably said it better: “[A logo] derives its meaning and usefulness from the quality of that which it symbolizes. If a company is second rate, the logo will eventually be perceived as second rate.” If you can live within those confines, your best bet is to dive in and help make change alongside your client partners. If you believe it’s too hard to live under that ceiling, you’ll need to find better clients.

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.

This redesign of the Gore-Tex identity is the work of Becky Sanders, who just completed Tim’s Brand Standards Manuals class at Chicago Portfolio School. Becky’s redesign of the lackluster logo for Gore-Tex takes the brand to a new level, with her emphasis on the crucial strategic pillars of outdoor technology and innovation. It’s a strong, smart, and engaging redesign, with a nice accompanying standards manual. Good stuff, Becky.

We’re sure this has never happened to you, but sometimes brands misstep and the results aren’t pretty. Whether it’s because of bizarre weather patterns, changing stylistic trends, the rise of American Idol style voting, or slow news cycles, some logos just aren’t well-received. And to be fair, some logos are crappy, objectively. But assuming the work you and your team have launched isn’t a horror show, chances are that it’s decent, solid and professional. But that doesn’t mean everyone will like it. Sometimes the Internet brings the hate.

Take the recent GAP logo debacle, or an even fresher example, the Big10 identity created by Pentagram. Both launches set off firestorms on Twitter and Facebook, with hoards of supposedly-livid commentators going off about how terrible each design was. In a situation like that, what is a brand to do? It’s easy for commentators (who didn’t design the project or pay for it) to say that “public opinion” is king, and encourage a brand to quickly retreat, scrapping months of work and tens of thousands of dollars. But is that the correct response?

In this era of instant Internet feedback, it’s easier than it’s ever been to voice an opinion. We are rapidly becoming a society of people who comment on anything and everything online, from what we ate for lunch, to the people we see picking their noses on the train. There’s also a certain kind of mob mentality and overzealous hatred unique to the bowels of the Internet, message boards and blog comment fields, and when it’s your brand caught in the crossfire, it can be difficult to decide how to respond. It takes a savvy team to sift through the feedback and determine if it’s legitimate, important, and weighty enough to shift the direction of your brand efforts.

So, if you find your organization (or yourself) in front of the Internet firing squad, it’s not advisable to automatically head for the hills. Instead of acting on the instinct, it’s probably worth it to expend the time and effort to figure out what’s truly going on. That time can lead to crucial insights, helping your team determine if a remedy is indeed necessary, and what the possible repercussions might be. Here are some important issues to consider:

Determine Your Audience
Before digging into the feedback you’ve received, it’s helpful to revisit the project goals and creative brief. Who it is your brand/campaign/effort trying to reach? Has your target audience changed, or does it need to change? What are the end results – better word-of-mouth? More website traffic? Increased sales? Bringing your brand back into the spotlight? Without setting a specific benchmark for success in reaching a target audience, it’s nearly impossible to differentiate success from failure. You’ll never know if the logo redesign was successful, much less whether the feedback you’re getting is significant in the life of your brand. Keeping these goalposts in mind as you parse the public feedback will help direct your course of action in beneficial ways.

Look Who’s Talking
Once you’ve firmly established your target audience and goals, it’s time to dig into the feedback itself. What is the quality of the commentary? Who are the people trash talking your new logo? What vehicles are they using to communicate their displeasure? Are there pockets of negativity being riled up by certain outlets? Do certain opinions stem from a few specific tastemakers, or are they more grass-roots driven? Do these people (or representatives of certain demographics) fit into your target audience? Not to put too fine a point on it, but do these people truly matter to your brand? If you’ve redesigned the on-air identity for Lifetime Television (aimed at middle-aged women), then it’s largely inconsequential whether Xbox playing, Mountain Dew chugging 14 year-olds respond negatively or not. This seems obvious, but it’s a major call – not a call based on gut instinct, but a qualitative decision focused on the pre-determined needs of your brand.

How Is The Criticism Affecting Your Brand?
Whether your target audience if part of the firestorm or not, in this connected era, it’s important to consider how quickly negativity can spread. You might be concerned about your brand receiving a media black eye, but it’s best to set true numbers to those negative impressions. The business bottom line is this: Do you believe that the negative feedback is affecting your business goals? Is working to preserve your brand’s reputation worth the price of scrapping your shiny, new logo? Or does your particular situation support the adage that “there’s no such thing as bad publicity?” Is it enough that people are talking about your brand again? Has your redesign led to a drop in sales? Do your front-line sales associates hear from customers about the logo? Are your other brand touchpoints being affected by the logo’s negative reception? It would be self-serving for us to say that a graphic identity is the end-all, be-all of a company’s brand, but it just isn’t true. There are organizations with amazing products and mediocre visual identities, while some brands hide crappy services behind beautiful design. Design is just part of the equation, and you need to ascertain how large a part it plays in what you do.

What Actions Do You Take?
Even if you decide to stay your present course and weather the storm of criticism, this negative experience can be a fruitful one. What can you learn for future efforts? Are there any nuggets of wisdom you can pull from all the chatter? Are the criticisms specific and concrete, or just generally harsh? Do your dissenters offer up any constructive thoughts or ways to improve? Is the criticism true or valid? Or are people just generally displaying our innate resistance to change? Maybe you can determine if it really was a content issue, or a problem with the way the design was released instead. (Yes, we’re looking at you, GAP.) Perhaps there was a better way to announce your intentions and plans for the future.

In deciding to respond, it’s important to note that there’s a lot of territory between appearing defensive and offended on one end, and seeming aloof and unresponsive on the other. Your answers to the above questions can help you figure out a next-step response. If you do rush to defend your position, what you say (and possibly as important – HOW you say it) is crucial. Possibly there’s a strategic and understanding way to affirm the voices of dissent while still forging ahead with your brand plans. You might engage people on Facebook, or email specific audience influencers and ask for some deeper discussion. Or you might decide to remain silent and let the storms of criticism die down while normal business continues. (Sometimes, engaging in the argument just legitimizes the “opponent’s” arguments, so it might be better to remain above the fray.) You might need to provide additional context – like supporting your new logo with more imagery that shows it in use. Or adapt your positioning accordingly – a more thoughtfully-crafted statement could help clarify your brand position.

Finally, it’s important to remember that even if you’re the client (and it’s your brand), you’re not the only involved party. Your design partners have a huge stake in how their designs are received, and they will be motivated to make sure things go well. If any of the above negativity is visited upon your brand, how will you work with your design firm (in partnership) to right the ship, allowing both parties to save face? Among all the options, surely there’s a scenario where everyone – your brand, your audience, and your design team – can come out positively.

Squaw Valley 1960 Winter Olympics

sneje
Designer: Russ Lobachev, Client: sneje

Snowrider

Reykavik Winter Lights Festival
Firm: Tunglid Advertising Agency ehf., Designer: Tomas Tomasson, Client: Reykavik City

Mt Buller
Firm: SOS Design, Client: Mt Buller

Luxair Snowflake
Firm: Vidale-Gloesener, Client: LuxairGroup

FishFlake
Firm: Bulletpoint Design

Asahiyama Zoo
Designer: Susumu Endo, Client: Asahiyama Zoo

Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympics
Firm: Landor Associates

NixOS

It’s always nice to feel “essential”. That’s exactly how we feel after being included in the recently-released design volume, Brand Identity Essentials. This excellent book by Rockport Publishers showcases our work with Nerdcore and highlights the principles that make up successful identity programs. It’s definitely worth the read.

“It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard … is what makes it great.” -Tom Hanks, in A League Of Their Own

Here’s one of the reasons why I love baseball: Even the very best players, the absolute pinnacle guys — Mickey Mantle, Tony Gwynn, Ryne Sandberg, they all failed basically 70% of the time. Hitting .300 for a career pretty much gives you enshrinement into the Baseball Hall of Fame, but that works out to only getting a hit about 1/3 of the time. That’s a 70% failure rate. These players are the cream of the crop, but they have to learn to live with failure. They breathe it. It follows them around, sleeps in their beds. A 70% failure rate is pretty high, but these guys endure it and push through to levels of greatness, even though failure dogs them at every turn.

At Hexanine, we don’t particularly like to fail, but it happens. We’ve screwed up. Projects have meandered or flown off the rails. Client presentations haven’t been received well. Books with poor gluing have fallen apart. Certain logos seemed like good ideas at the time. I could go on.

We don’t like to talk about our failures because it feels weak and permeable. Its easier to fake bulletproof-ness, and I think many of our industry peers do so. But the reality is that all of us fail. We all have work we’d rather not acknowledge, or projects that we’ll never show another living soul.

Out of respect for the past clients and collaborators involved (and in the interest of maintaining good relationships) we won’t showcase those bombs here.

But we can unequivocally say that our failures have made us far better designers than we’d be without them. I’ve personally learned far more from screwups than anything I’ve done successfully. The failures of others have also helped tremendously, as a kind of education, a mental “not-to-do” list that allows us to avoid the trainwrecks of others. So, when you consider it that way, our firm is built on a landfill of failures — of ours and others. But that foundation is strong and solid, a great bedrock to construct upon.

In the interests of dissecting those cornerstones, here are ten things we’ve learned from failure. Think of them as lessons designed to help you fail better — to fail in other new and interesting ways, but not in these areas. These are offered in the hope others might internalize them, and avoid the potholes many have already hit.

1. A good result takes time, and you condense that time at your peril.
There’s more to the work than just completing it. In times when we’ve accepted a client’s aggressively-tight timeline, we’ve always completed the tasks. But sometimes that doesn’t leave enough room for the “touchy-feely” aspects of what we do. Crucial things like consensus building, thoughtful group responses over time, or “white space” for reflection while stepping away from the project all get sacrificed. And those things are more than just helpful–sometimes these “soft skills” can make or break a project, regardless of the quality of the work itself.

2. Be specific and ask lots of questions.
Our shop teachers told us what happens when you A-S-S-U-M-E, and that’s still correct. There’s no such thing as a dumb question, and when it comes to clarifying client desires, nailing down concrete feedback, or asking a printer about a final proof date, that’s doubly true. There are no points awarded for guessing correctly, and we now make it our business to get out of the fortune telling business. If it’s not clear, we just ask. And ask again.

3. Listen more than you talk.
Going into projects thinking we know the answers already has never worked. If you’re so focused on showcasing yourself, it’s hard to find out what others need. Everyone appreciates being listened to, and it seems like others-orientedness is in short supply in our culture. It’s a refreshing change for vendors, clients, employees and colleagues to have someone really be interested in what they’re saying. And shockingly, you will learn things when listening. These things will lead to great success, better relationships, and maybe even your teeth will be whiter too!

4. Try a little tactfulness.
There’s always a nicer, more dipomatic way to say something. Many of us (both Hexanine partners, in fact) are passionate, energetic creatives. We have strong opinions. Things can seem relatively black and white when it comes to revisions, personalities, or how we choose to express ourselves. This isn’t a call to abandon our principles, just to temper our responses. When emotions have finally cooled and you’ve gotten a some distance from an issue, it’s easier to see that bowling people over with unfiltered comments or criticism rarely wins you respect or admiration. Better to speak in measured, tentative language that gains you an audience than to torpedo your working relationship completely. The “bombs-away” attitude doesn’t leave too many friends in its aftermath.

5. Demand a fresh pair of eyes before hitting send.
Get someone who isn’t emotionally involved in your deadline to comb through whatever you’re doing. At the end of a long day working on a project, it can be so tempting to finally finish it up, and reflexively hit send. It’s hard to maintain the clinical objectivity when you’ve been living with a project for an extended time. So, we have a rule–important documents or designs get an unbiased look from someone outside the process before they go out. It’s the last viewer’s responsibility to call out any issues, and our duty to make those changes if they’re needed. Projects almost always need one more round of revision than we think. It’s that +1 that can take something from solid to spectacular.

6. Forget praise, but internalize failure.
This isn’t a call for rumination or kicking ourselves unnecessarily. It’s just an acknowledgement that success can breed the “I’m hot sh*t!” mentality that doesn’t lead to humility or willingness to learn. Post-mortem meetings after every project should celebrate the successes, but also analyze what could have gone better, refining the process for next time. And we always gratefully accept praise, but acknowledge that we learn more from our shortcomings. The people who seek-and-destroy their weaknesses are the ones who keep growing.

7. Be flexible, but don’t let the client subvert your process.
Our processes are born from trial-and-error, and years of doing things with a history of success. It’s a season of your career to figure out how you work best, and there are no easy roadmaps, no one-size-fits-all solutions. So, once you’ve gotten there, it’s important to stand firmly on what works, while still allowing the creative business processes to shift and breathe. That being said, some clients will come in, bowl you over, and demand a certain way of working. You can accept that, at your peril.

Every time we’ve gone down this road, we’ve paid for it — whether it’s in a lackluster end result, an unhappy client, dissatisfaction our end, or all of the above. Now, it is reasonable to flex a little bit in some circumstances, while still maintaining a grip on your way of doing things. As professionals, we need to remind our clients that they come to us, in part, because of our track record of successfully navigating the creative waters, and how we’ve led other clients to the Promised Land of success. If your prospect is unyielding, this might be time to part ways.

8. Work and act in a way that lets you sleep well at night.
It’s always a temptation to fight fire with fire. Clients who habitually yell or disrespect you, question your integrity, or hit on your co-workers don’t generally deserve your business. This is work, not war. Of course, everyone loses their cool from time to time, and it’s up to you to decide if the relationship can be mended. We can’t control the behavior of others, as much as we sometimes want to. We can, however, manage our reactions to these kinds of situations. At Hexanine, we sometimes take it as a challenge to behave better than “that guy”, always making it a point to react with patience and kindness. Sometimes that posture has diffused a situation before it gets out of control, or shames a client back into civility. But even if you’re unsuccessful it tamping down a fiery situation, acting in a respectful, professional manner will let you rest easy at night, knowing you took the high road.

9. Use the right form of communication for the right situation.
In this age of clients texting, webinars, Skype conference calls and IM chatting with prospects, it can be easy to default to our comfortable, on-screen ways of communicating. This goes particularly for us, a design firm split between two cities. We live and breath remotely, and work with many of our clients this way. But regardless of what you might have heard, old school business is not dead. There are times when phone calls and traditional face-to-face meetings are still the best methods. We’ve gone around and around on email project feedback with clients, when a simple phone call probably would have cleared up all the confusion. This isn’t a judgment on one method or another, just an encouragement to make sure you’re using the best one.

10. Set boundaries and stick to them.
This one can be challenging in our creative world, because what we do as designers walks the line between service provider and creator. We often create end products or specific deliverables, but we also need to make sure our clients’ needs are met throughout the process. Deadlines can cause people to do crazy things, and at times we’ve answered emails at midnight or picked up the phone during a late night at the office. This might make your clients and vendors feel important, but it also sets a precedent and creates an expectation. If you answer the phone at 9pm, clients will expect you to be available to discuss those copyediting changes at 9pm, even if you’re at home, watching King Kong in your underwear. And while it has become more acceptable to give out cel phone numbers to clients, this sort of disclosure might lead to a blurring of work lines that isn’t helpful for anyone. So, decide what you will and won’t do, and then stick to it.

We are big fans of Steve Zelle’s design blog, Processed Identity. He digs in deep with identity designers on how they strategically solve clients’ logo issues, highlighting the inherent value of custom logo design. It’s all about the process, and we’re excited to once again be featured on PI, with a case study of our work with BevReview.

Thanks to Steve for his great continuing work.

Just released is Peleg Top’s powerful, pint-sized logo volume, Logolicious! With more than 1,000 inspiring logo examples within its pages, we’re proud to have five of our projects represented, including work for Geek Monthly, Prominic.NET, Park Community Church, Nerdcore, and our own Hexanine logo. Thanks to Collins Design for putting out another great design book.