Trends In Logo Design For 2008

Your logo is one of the most important tools you can have in your marketing arsenal. In fact, your logo is your most fundamental mark when it comes to distinguishing your company from the rest of the competition. Hence, your logo would be the most ubiquitous in your marketing tools such as your business brochures, advertising flyers, and even your color business cards. For 2008, here are three from the numerous logo designs that graphic designers and marketers have predicted to become popular trends this year.

Web 2.0

The Web 2.0 is a trendy logo design that speaks of modernity and technology that is being used by many customers nowadays. The name was borne out of the actual use of many consumers of particular technologies such as the Ajax and Ruby. And because of its popularity, the internet has a notable number of tutorials that lets designers create their logos into the web 2.0 design.

What makes this logo design different? They are char acterized by brilliant colors and color levels, with smart and appealing icons and 3D effects, shiny surfaces, shadows and reflexions. The fonts used are typically simple and most of the time rounded. Sometimes graphics designers use the color levels, shines and 3D effects on the actual lettering.

Transparency

Transparency have always exuded a more elegant quality that's why it has always been a fashionable logo design ever since it came out in the industry. With transparency, many designers were able to create quality perspectives that suggest growth, development, as well as both combination and connection especially in brochure printing jobs. In addition, transparency allows you to design effects that are considered unique that can effectively grab the attention of your target audience. Transparency also lets you develop a design that is much brighter, and provides for the fine transition from one element to the next.

Waves

Waves are actually the ne w generation of swooshes, swirls and curves in logo design. Expert marketers and top graphic designers commonly apply this type of logo design to add flexibility and fluid transition into the design itself. It reflects the idea of movement, marked by a technique that applies fading from one color to another. The rounded shapes of the waves also allow for elasticity that provides for qualities of movement and communication. Unfortunately, they are not that easy to use. That's why most designers when they are able to apply the waves to their logo project can maximize its effect which makes it a stand out among the crowd.

These are just three of the trends that are predicted to dominate this year's logo design. Will they stay for long or are they just in fashion for a couple of months? They're definitely something new for the year 2008 that you can use to make your logo design more effective in getting you the leads you need to boost your business.

For more information, you can visit this page on brochure printing and business brochures Branding For A Business-Consumer Relationship A primary fact that should be at the hearts and minds and behind all the efforts of every advertiser is that a brand establishes the relationship between a business and its consumers. Whether you have a strong faithful relationship or a weak seasonal relationship with your consumers would depend entirely on your brand and your management and maintenance of its overall image. A quick example would be to compare Apple and Microsoft. I'm sure most of us would agree if I say that Microsoft can be likened to a rather stiff, purely-business kind of person like your boss, or your calculus professor. And Apple, on the other hand, can be thought of more as a cool pal with the hippest gadgets and what-nots with the funniest jokes and wittiest quips. Both statements on these two companies are neither right nor wrong. Instead of being objective statements, these are the perceptions that might stand for the kind of relationship each brand has on the public. T hey are mostly feelings towards a certain brand and consequently the business behind it. Every businessman should know that before the creation of a business name or symbol, the conceptualization of what perception you desire your business to have in your consumer's minds comes first and foremost. Bring Your Brand To Life If you notice the examples I cited in the previous paragraph, I tied the brands to a person to better illustrate the differences between the two companies. In evaluating, managing and strengthening your brand, this can prove to be a very effective approach. What are the basic elements that we use to identify a person? We associate a person with his eyes, his hair, his laugh, his personality, his talent and sometimes even an experience we witnessed with that person. Same thing applies to your brand. If you ask someone if they know your brand, will they be able to pinpoint the colors present in your logo, the icons you used, the message or slogan tied with it or will they share an experience they had with your business? Answers to these questions help you draw a picture of how your brand is perceived by the public. You can then use this to compare it with the conceptualized perception you came up with earlier on. Identifying Strengths and Diminishing Weaknesses Now that you have breathed life into your brand, you then have a more visual and moving representation of your brand in your mind and no longer just a symbol with some colors and a tagline. To be able to better identify weak spots and strengths, you can break down Mr. Brand into these parts: his skill, his appearance, his personality. Mr. Brand has skills. Being a business owner, of course you know he has skills. But stepping into the shoes of the consumer, if you look at Mr. Brand, would you know instantly that he is credible enough and reliable enough for a task he claims to be good at? Would you trust that he has sk ills. We know a geek when we see one. We know a jock when we see one. Will people know or at least feel that your business is good at what you are doing when they see or hear your brand? The appearance of your brand depends mostly on the performance of the overall appeal of your logo, the colors you used and the slogan you attached to it if any. Think of it this way, going back to your little mascot, does Mr. Brand look like he can fit in and stand out in a gala with your competitors? Or will he appear meek, amateur and feeble and eventually slink away to a dark corner neglected and then forgotten? Is your brand tied with the visual representation that can stick to people's minds even without associating your symbol with an experience or a commercial? Is it innovative and representative of your business and what you offer? Do you see room for evolution, reinvention and growth if the opportunity for expansion presents itself? If you answered yes to all these questions, then you're on the right track. Going to personality, it may sound weird but images do have personalities. Compare the image of a fork with a flower. See the difference? Same thing goes for your brand. Whether you have a brand with a strong personality or a weak one depends on the initial impression people get by looking at it and remembering your ad history. For instance, someone can say "I think Mac is cool because they have cool icons with cool vector ads for the iPod I remember seeing relentlessly everywhere I go." Right here, we introduced another factor important in establishing a strong brand. Consistency. Consistency develops not just recall but a stronger personality. In this aspect of your brand, we combine, the visual and sentimental appeal with the emotions triggered in the recollection of your past ads. If you showed a consistent theme, mood and overall message all throughout your ad campaigns, you have established a stronger more prominent per sonality and all your color printing efforts have paid off. It is not that easy developing a brand, triggering your desired impression, or the reputation that will eventually shower you with the big bucks. But if you start on the right foot, and pay attention to all these three aspects of your brand, success is a definite possibility. It is pretty fun too! Kaye Z. Marks is a writer and an observer. She is continuously fascinated with the developments in commercial color printing technologies, which greatly help in the marketing and advertising campaigns of small to medium businesses. Your Company's Image - What Are You Portraying? All company directors are aware that much of their company's success can be attributed to the way their company is perceived by its customers. It is not enough simply to offer brilliant customer service or to stock a wide range of products; the company must also project exactly the right kind of image in order for it to remain a memorable supplier. A variety of alternative and eco-friendly corporate gifts can really boost your companies corporate image to customers and employees alike. From pedometers, massagers and luxurious bathroom products to a full range of corporate gifts and merchandise made from recycled materials, these gifts are a great low cost marketing tool for companies of any size. Distributing desirable promotional and corporate gifts is one way to ensure that the company is being marketed effectively. All too often, companies will market themselves purely to their intended customers, through advertising. It is easy to forget the powerful effect that corporate image also has on employees. Choosing top quality promotional gifts can incentivise your employees, enabling them to buy into the company's positive corporate image in the same way as customers. When employees do this, they feel greater levels of commitment and motivation towards the company, usually leading to an increase in productivity which could raise profits. Companies operating across a wide variety of industries are now seeking to promote a much healthier image of themselves by moving away from such marketing staples as branded mouse mats and keyrings, and producing altogether higher quality, more creative promotional products. These include such promotional products as personalised gym equipment, for example skipping ropes and dumb bells, and even company branded mineral water. Liz Logan of Brand It, UKs leading onli ne corporate gifts and promotional items company. 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Banner ad click-throughs are almost non-existent, yet ad-buying continues onward and upward, ignoring the cold hard facts, (click-through rates are so low that time spent on a site is now considered a unit of measurement). Social networking, e-shopping, viral videos and mobile phone content are in, banner ads out. The Internet is a golden opportunity for marketers to create a 1:1 relationship, but all too often, getting that close to a customer is too scary for most. Time to think out of the box with your Web initiative. Here are just a few clues to get you to stop treating Web 2.0 like a television commercial and kick your Search Engine Optimization strategy into high gear. The following are mistakes to avoid: Mistake 1: You're treating your online brand like a brick and mortar brand. According to The Cluetrain Manifesto, markets are conversations an d the Internet is one of the biggest, most fragmented conversations ever created. It's a broadcast arena, a storefront, a publisher, a support group, a social network and something else we've yet to discover. It's about physical borders disappearing in favor of common networks - people gathering together to talk and it is anything but passive. If people are hanging out on the Internet doing their thing, how do you think marketing is viewed? Marketing to this giant conversation is viewed as a mechanical intrusion to be completely ignored. Doc Searls, in his preface to The Cluetrain Manifesto, points out that, "Markets are conversations; and conversation is fire. Therefore, Marketing is arson." What marketers assume is that consumers can't see this fake conversation, and that is where the big disconnect is taking place. Consumers have formed a story about your brand that has nothing to do with the official corporate message. Time to wake up. Brands that have been created exclusively for the Internet, get this. They know that the Web is about creating trust not banner ads. They have formed a relationship with an Internet-savvy customer that respects their individuality. People are not "consumers" in cyberspace - they are people. Commerce in the Internet Marketplace is secondary to the Internet's main purpose: conversation. Today a brand must romance the digital native and give them what they want, when they want it and how they want it. It may take you months to develop a relationship before getting a sale. Brands that started in the Brick and Mortar World are seen as the outsider - a buzz- kill attending the biggest party in the world. You just won't be accepted as a Web brand no matter how hard you try. This is why Amazon is the leader on the Internet while Barnes & Noble is number 2. What if Amazon tried to build a store in every mall in America? They'd fail. An Internet brand can't compete against a real wor ld brand anymore than a real world brand can compete with an Internet brand. The overhead alone would drive the Cyber company out of business. Read my Blog article, The Online Brand Vs. The Real World Brand for a rough idea of what I am talking about. Want to reach your online audience? Try hiring an Internet-savvy marketer. That's the first step to winning some credibility. Don't just look at the resume, ask her what was the most unusual way she reached her target and met her goals. The cyber- savvy is the one you hire. Mistake 2: You have nothing more than an online brochure. I was recently consulting with one of the largest consumer brands in the U.S. when their VP of Interactive Development asked me why their site wasn't getting any return visitors. I told them point blank that, although they had flash all over their site and it was well designed and had SEM software and support staff, they had nothing more than a very expensive brochure. Look, Web 2.0 is about figuring out from your customers what they like, then give it to them, even if it doesn't appear to affect the bottom line. Figure out how to create that one-to-one relationship with them and your brand will be golden. Stay on your toes - today social networks and viral videos are hot, tomorrow, who knows? But, here's the scary part of all this: You have to get rid of the wall between your brand and your customer - it's no longer a closed system. It's not about a bevy of corporate lawyers giving you a list of stuff to say on your FAQ section. It's about one human being forming a relationship with another group of human beings that just happen to be working for your brand. It's a chance to be a part of the online conversation and join in on what is being said about you. Scary yes, but rewarding. When your people talk with customers, remove the shackles of corporate speak you have locked around their necks. Train them instead to be thems elves. Remember, people can sense a lack of authenticity. If you aren't part of their online conversation, the real conversation, you are dead. Mistake 3: Your content is old. This one needs very little explanation. If you haven't updated your site's content, there is no reason for people to revisit. Do you think that might be the reason no one is coming back to that web site you built a year ago? Take a page from your favorite Blogger. Some Web Log Authors give us new and fresh musings everyday, while others only once a month. Either way, be consistent, personal and in-depth. Give your audience something to sink their teeth into, otherwise forget it. Try twittering. It allows you to send out mini content to a list of cell phone surfers and online supporters. Keep it short though, twitter is about one or two sentences. Steve Jobs twittered that he was nervous before a keynote address. The audience picked it up on their iphones and were more rec eptive when he came on stage. It also allows for a human connection to a very popular executive. I wish more CEOs twittered. It would go a long way to building their company's brand and engender trust by their shareholders. The Information Age is about staying in touch. Mistake 4: Your strategy is not bold enough. Recently Burger King decided to take the Whopper off the menu. They did it half-heartedly by doing it at a few of their restaurants, and then filmed people's response. It did nothing to affect the bottom line. We yawn and life goes on. But Starbucks, on the other hand, closed down all their stores all across the United States for an entire evening. Bold and decisive, Howard Schultz took a stand against mediocrity, closed every store and retrained every Starbucks employee on what coffee meant. The next day Starbucks opened to fanfare and a return to great customer service. People noticed and wrote about it in The New York Times. Bold moves like that can only get bold results, and I predict Starbucks will have a 15% increase in revenue this quarter as a result of such action. It creates a buzz on the street. Try it sometime. Mistake 5: You're not facing the truth about your Brand. Dunkin' Donuts recently started to provide lattes on their menu. They've had flavored coffee for years, but the lattes were an attempt to compete with Starbucks, and with that one action, I could see just how much of a disconnect Dunkin' Donuts has with their customers. You see, Dunkin' Donuts is an all-American brand that served a working nation for over half a century with delicious donuts. Coffee is necessary for their brand because coffee and donuts go together like hamburgers and French fries. But coffee is their secondary market, (sales may seem like coffee is their primary market, but tell that to the customer). Dunkin' Donuts may try, but they have very little in common with a high-end coffe e chain that provides coffees from around the world. Remember, your brand has a position in the customers' mind, and that position represents one thing and one thing only. Starbucks represents coffee. Dunkin' Donuts represents donuts. One is a white-collar brand and the other is a blue-collar brand. The customer for Starbucks wants to pay top dollar to feel as if they are getting the Italian coffee shop experience, while the Dunkin' Donuts customer is looking for value and speed. The consumer will NEVER see them as equals, because consumers NEVER change their minds about a brand. For Dunkin' Donuts to think they can compete with Starbucks is a lesson in futility. But try telling that to the board of directors. Don't be afraid to listen to the online conversation about your brand. David Felton was so frustrated with his local Dunkin' Donuts that he built an online message board to complain about his local franchise. The complaints from regular customers were so gr eat that the 5,000 franchise owners were forced to respond and correct the mistakes...sometimes within hours. It made Dunkin' Donuts a better, stronger and customer-focused company. But somewhere in the executive suite, they didn't get it. Felton's Website was shut down after much harassment from Dunkin' Donuts. They paid Felton an undisclosed sum, but DD never seemed to understand what was happening. The market was telling them they weren't perfect. Instead of being the first company to listen to complaints and adjust accordingly, they chose to silence their customer - the lifeblood of their brand. They didn't like the message they were hearing and instead of listening, they ended the conversation. Take a lesson for your own brand. Yes, it may not be what you want to hear, but at least it will be honest. After that, work on meeting and exceeding customers' needs. Mistake 6: Are you focused too much on the Internet, traditional marketing or both? Y ears ago, many a business needed nothing more than an online brochure. Today, the online store is so easy to build and maintain that not having a web presence is seen as a major red flag to a company's stability. Many a mega-brand has an online store because it is a duel channel for sales. Best Buy is a good example of this. I love to browse their brick and mortar stores and grab some bargains. But their online brand is very important as well when I have no time to physically shop. Maintaining a 1-800 number and a Web store at the same time can be hard. But if you want to do it right, then I suggest that you take a look at QVC, HSN, the above- mentioned Best Buy, Circuit City, B&H Photo and others too numerous to mention. Take a good look at how they promote one store against the other. QVC and HSN promote their sites from their popular television shows. They drive traffic through a live broadcast, but it doesn't end with the program. The site continues to run th e promotion for a limited time. Updated content and limited time offers will drive traffic and if the offering is a good one, it will create conversion, (browsers who buy). On the other hand, maybe you are a restaurant and need to have a web presence. Try offering take-out orders through your website with an automatic discount for orders over $25. I've seen restaurants do 70% of their evening business through take-out. Some even have to shut down the restaurant so the kitchen can handle the online orders. Try it. You may find a nice blend between your Web presence and your brick and mortar stores. Mistake 7: You're too literal in your message. Many years ago I attended the annual stockholders meeting for a company in which I I was heavily invested. The executive team took several actions that irked me. These changes made me realize they would be going out of business. The first mistake they made was a name change. Someone believed that adding t he word Digital to their brand would change the markets' perception of what they did, (They were an interactive design agency). The second thing that irked me was they changed the company's tag line to "A Full-Service Interactive Agency that Forges 1:1 Relationships through Channel Marketing Partnerships with Strategic Players in the Online World." I felt like I was reading an article for a science magazine instead of a company whose job was to bring powerful experiences to the web-savvy visitor. I dumped my stock as quickly as possible. If your primary marketing message is attempting to convince shareholders how great you are in dry corporate-speak, you have a problem. Your message should be simple, on target to your consumer audience and, most importantly, stir the emotions. When your marketing message sounds like a bank poster, time to rethink your marketing...quickly. What will help most is that you begin to understand that the Web is not a passive media. People go online to do research for every product they buy. The research they get is not from a corporation telling them how great the product is, they are getting their insight from regular people who are using the product now. They're asking questions about how well your products work, and what isn't so great about your brand. Try listening to your consumer by creating advocacy sites and real dialogue through social networking. Listen to the conversation and follow through with the changes. Or you can continue as usual - ignore the marketplace, market around the problem and hope the next version will fix itself. If your product stinks, no amount of marketing can fix it on the Web. Word gets around fast these days and the one thing Netizens are really into is telling the truth. Listen to the conversation and change with it. By focusing on getting it right, your SEO strategy will become easier and more profitable. Jumping on a band wagon because ev erybody else is will teach you a lesson on how to waste money. Being strategic and listening to the market will help build a better relationship with your customers. Let me know how it works. Thanks again for reading, Brad Szollose May I recommend?: Check out Umbro. http://www.umbro.com on the ultimate soccer experience alongside great content and a mega store. They are always updating the site with complete makeovers, flash, videos, and driving rock music. Well done. SEO: Search Engine Optimization Bible by Jerri L. Ledford http://www.amazon.com/SEO-Search-Engine-Optimization-Bible/dp/0470175001/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qi d=1207770716&sr=8-1 Former Dot Com IPO Boomer Brad Szollose, is an award winning leadership strategist, author and professional speaker who coaches executives and entrepreneurs on how to operate in the Information Age. For more info, go to http://bradszollose.com Hollywood Stars As Brand Promoters Brand, in the viewpoint of the manufacturer or service provider, is a feature that distinguishes the product or service in a market. A user may define brand as one that he can recognize and identify as an integral part of his life. In this age of modernization and industrialization, the consumer has emerged as the uncrowned king. He is the monarch of all he surveys. In addition, to attract his attention, organizations are ready to innovate and upgrade the ideas of promoting Hollywood stars as brand promoters. The 4P basic idea of Product, Pricing, Promotion and Place has come to evolve mostly around Promotion, as market surveys indicate that consumers likes to buy a brand, not a product or service. Moreover, to display promotion, companies are making a beeline for the most sellable of products, that is, the Hollywood stars. A popular proverb says that one can even sell dreams in Hollywood. It is but natural that when the celebrities, who ar e the substance of our dreams, wave to us from the silver screen or stare at us from flashy bill boards endorsing a product, we simply cannot ignore the plea. After all, even for a flitting second, the user will feel that he or she is sharing something with his favorite idol. Brand promotion by Hollywood stars not only enhance the longevity of the product, but also add to its quality and mass appeal. The conveyed image of a successful individual using the product creates a sense of demand and urgency for the consumer to get hold of it.. Better still, he begins to identify the product with the star, thus adding immensely to its recall value. A user only sees a product when it is seen. Brand Promoters need some external factors and internal conditions to help them. Perception of familiarity, trust and contentment are foremost conditions that influence the choice of a particular brand over another. Since the flashy world of entertainment and razzmatazz has eas y recall value, the faces we adore and the style we follow compel a consumer to select that particular brand from the bouquet of choicest of products existing in the market. Market analysts have even noticed the trend of consumers to shift from one product to another once their favorite star leaves one company and starts to endorse another. As Hollywood spawns the magic over almost the entire world, enticing the young and old, the poor and rich by its continued tales of fantasies and glory, emotions and intricacies, fervent admirers of the stars follow the fashion and style with bated breath. To some of them, turning down the plea of Hollywood stars to use his product is akin to sacrilege. It gives a sense of vicarious pleasure to the consumer and awards him a sense of supremacy over his idol, as he feels that he is doing a favor by adopting the product promoted by the star. As the company and Hollywood stars laugh together all the way to the bank, the consumer i s left clutching with his straw of imagination that has been so well played upon by the promotional blitz of a brand by a Hollywood star. Victor Epand is an expert consultant for used DVDs, used movies, and used car stereos. You can find the best marketplace for used DVDs, used movies, and used car stereos at these sites for used DVDs, used movies, and Hollywood star, products, service provider, brand promoters. Using Colors in your Brand Color is the most important part of your brand image, as that is the literal picture people think of when they imagine your business. If your brand has colors that fit your business, the results can be quite powerful. Unlike other business decisions, choosing colors takes knowledge of psychology and art, plus the designer must also be very creative and unique if they wish to make an appealing and thought-provoking color scheme. Choosing the colors for your business is difficult, as you need to take a long time to think about what would work. Once you pick your colors, it is difficult to change them, because then the majority of previous branding work would have gone to waste. Color schemes should match the aura and feel of your business. If you sell a light, calm product and want to be seen as easy-going, you should use a mix of two or three tinted colors. If you want to be seen as a very strong, powerful company, then multiple, heavily contrasti ng colors should be used. Unlike other parts of your brand, color scheme cannot be changed later on without drastic negative effects. If your business goes through a large change, such as moving from a medium sized company to a large company, or adding several additional categories of products, then some changes to the scheme could be made. However, it is not the colors that should be changed, but the way they are arranged. For example, if your color scheme was gradients of black and red in a rectangle, you could change to gradients of black and red in a yin-yang as a symbol of your growth. As long as the shape change is not too drastic (a yin-yang is essentially a circle and rectangle to circle is still consistent with geometric shapes), it can be executed successfully. Changes can potentially work out very well, especially pre-planned changes. Letting your customers know of a big alteration can stir excitement and anticipation. Websites that pre-announce redesigns usually see substantial response from their visitors/members, and the same could work for any business. Whatever changes are made, the colors must stay the same, because those colors are in everybody's mind and you do not want to throw all that away. Justin Kander is the marketing director of http://www.getprocash.com, which allows users to easily make money online. Don't You Wish You Were A Magnetic Brand? Ever felt one of those days when your confidence was lagging? Many of us would have gone through such occasions surely. And if you have, did you notice how no matter what you did during such occasions you did not feel competent enough. You are not alone. A competent person is a confident person. Both confidence and competency share the same bed...with you in it of course! The power that you feel in being confident and competent attracts people to you. You radiate magnetism that others will notice and make them trust you - and enables you to influence them too. And at this point you become the brand YOU. Many of us want to become the brand? The brand that we see in others and yearn for! Can this personal brand be developed? Can we learn the "how to'? If you set yourself the goal and motivation to become the brand YOU, you can do it. The SECRETS to "Brand YOU" can be in yours if you only know what it really takes and follow them well. "Brand YOU" is all about you developing the qualities that attract people to you - and research has shown that people would be drawn and influenced by YOU if you are ethical, positive minded, knowledgeable, purposeful, a good communicator, forward looking, have high EQ, confident, competent, credible and motivational. Develop these traits and watch how your personal power and influence increases with the people you meet and work with. Learn from those who have these traits, look up books, magazines and ezines that can help you understand and grow these traits and make it a point to choose you who move around with - birds of a feather flock together for good reason! Do all these with passion, with a zeal driven by your wish to be that somebody, the magnetic "Brand YOU" that you want others to see yourself as - confident and competent! The brand that attracts others to you. T. Vijay is the owner of http://www.PeerComms.com. Contact me for your company's needs in communications and branding that can help set them on the path to a more profitable future. Click here to subscribe to my Newsletter that is worth US$37. Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Blog Archive ►  2009 (12) ►  January (12) Kevin Keller - The Man Who is Everything a Good Br... Promotional Planners Sell Quite Well and Will Be S... 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