Logo Design Categories

Wordmarks

A wordmark is a text-only design that illustrates a brand’s message, philosophy or position. Effective wordmarks often feature a unique typographical style or custom typeface to create a brand that is simple yet distinctive.

Advantages of Wordmarks
• Simplicity
• Adaptability
• Non-representational
• Name Recognition

Letterform Marks

A letterform mark uses one or more letters as an iconic symbol to represent a brand. Often, these symbols are highly stylized so the mark is distinctive enough to stand alone.

Advantages of Letterform Marks
• Iconic
• Simplicity
• Independent

Pictorial (Iconic) Marks

Pictorial marks, often referred to as iconic marks, are an illustration of a brand metaphor or its product. It is common for companied with pictorial marks to select a tangible item, such as an animal, as the basis for their illustrated brand.

Advantages of Pictorial Marks
• Promotes Brand Culture
• Tangible
• Anthropomorphic Potential

Abstract Marks

Abstract marks use non-representational symbols to convey a brand’s message. Abstract symbols are often the best way to illustrate complex or intangible products,  issues or services. These marks are reliant upon the emotive qualities of shape and color.

Advantages of Abstract Marks
• Ambiguity
• Emotive
• Interpretive

Emblems

Emblems are a sole entity comprised of a marriage of inseparable pictorial elements and typography.

Advantages of Emblems
• Perceived Strength
• Distinctiveness
• Unity

Need inspiration?

Check out Pivot’s design portfolio.

Later in the book, Stevens has a chapter titled “Nothing happens until a sale is made,” a phrase he borrows from Tom Watson of IBM. My sentiment entirely. I haven’t read the chapter, but I get it. When I picked up the Wall Street Journal the day after the Super Bowl, I loved reading the highlights of the ad wars and not whether Wesley Welker’s dropped pass cost the Pats the game. Who won? Who lost? And who is making the judgment anyway on who won or lost one day after the game?

The WSJ article lede: “Clint Eastwood has made Chrysler’s day.” Really? Did Chrysler sell thousands of cars hours after the game, which clearly would make the $14 million ad a success?

“Powerful and one of the best Super Bowl ads EVER,” according to a managing director of a Landor New York (must know what he’s talking about since his firm’s name is followed by New York), a branding firm (ad agency is so yesterday).

Not to be outdone by the hype, a chief executive officer of Digo, a digital marketing firm, said: “Car makers are now among the pantheon of Super Bowl advertisers.”

Wow. Them’s big words for ads that have not sold one thing yet.

More: “Fantastic. This is what a Super Bowl ad should look like,” said a former chairman of Lowe New York (there’s that NAME City thing again) on an ad featuring two comedians of yesteryear, Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno. What bothers me is that good ads should stand out and move people to do something, not meet some idea of what an ad guy thinks a Super Bowl ad should be.

“EPIC,” says a copywriter from another New York ad firm (must be the only city with people doing creative) when describing a GM ad.

And the praise, by ad people about ads created by competitive firms, continues to be heaped on like make-up on Madonna. Although, some ads fell short, we are sad to learn. GE’s, Teleflora’s, Century 21’s and others simply flopped, more New York and Los Angeles ad “gurus” tell us.

I say avoid the selection of winners and losers hours after the Super Bowl, and check back in at intervals of 30, 60, 180 or 360 days. We will not know who won or lost until the sales data is in. As Stevens says: “When you invest marketing dollars, making the sale is the only acceptable return on investment.” Now that’s a winner, in my book.

Some people get squeamish when you talk about blogs because they don’t really know what one is or where to find one (not everyone will admit that, and this is less common with younger people).

We encourage a many of our clients to blog. We explain it’s a platform to offer a glimpse of their expertise. We tell clients that a good, consistent blog can help raise the visibility of their business. We explain that it lives on their website and it improves the website’s visibility overall. That usually gets them to seriously consider blogging.

There are people who are scared of committing to a blog because they don’t know what to write about, or they can’t imagine where they’ll find the time. Legitimate concerns.  Who wants to start something you can’t finish? Truthfully, I’ve read several public relations and marketing firm blogs in recent years, and I’ve seen some casualties. Where there once was a blog, now there is none.  And you don’t want your blog to languish (which reminds me of our Facebook page, but that’s another blog post).  So, what are some tips to overcome blog anxiety?

First, if you have a team to participate, it spreads out the work. With just four people, if everyone contributes one blog a month, that’s one post a week. That’s a great start.

What to write about? Something you’ve noticed, experienced or seen that might be valuable to people in your industry, clients or potential clients. That’s a pretty broad category. I’ve started to notice “blogs” in my day-to-day business. Something that a client does or says, an event, a piece of news, results from a project, trends that emerge.  There are potential blog posts everywhere. Jot them down. Blog posts are short, maybe 300 words.  Write one on the airplane or in the dentist’s waiting room.  Write three; unless it’s a timely event, they’ll keep.

I’ve seen firsthand that blogs improve website visibility and traffic—it’s worth overcoming the fear and taking the leap.

Google algorithm tweak

Google tweaks its algorithm relatively often, so its announcement of yet another tweak in the way Googlebot crawls web pages might have gone unremarked. This tweak, however, affects web design and page layout in relation to page rank, so design professionals and others who rely on page rank should pay close attention.

To sum up the change, Google’s search algorithm will now punish pages that push advertising at users beyond a normal degree, especially “above the fold.” The idea is to improve user experience by downgrading pages that irritate users by putting too much unrelated content in premiere web page real estate.

Google mentions that it only one in 100 searches will show a user a different page order than before the change. The user feedback-prompted change does show Google’s commitment to using its algorithm to provide the best search experience, not just on the results page, but also on the pages that float to the top of those results. Design and web marketing professionals should take this as a continued step in that direction.

Google+ integration with search

The search giant’s recent foray into social media with Google+ has earned mixed results, but Google’s recent actions show its determination to make the new social media platform an integral part of its search experience. Google recently started showing “personal” results above regular search results – meaning that if a user searches for a TV show, their Google+ acquaintances’ posts about that show will appear above the Wikipedia entry.

The change has upset some media commentators, and it remains to be seen whether this is a permanent change for Google, or if it will be short-lived like its Buzz platform. While the change is in place, however, personal results have the highest placement in the results page, meaning that social engagement on Google+ could, at least temporarily, be just as important as the No. 1 page rank.

It might not push Google+, with its 90 million users, past Facebook, but at least in the short-term, it raises the platform’s viability as a marketing tool.

Google Web Fonts

If you’re a fan of the popular blog I Love Typography, no one needs to tell you what role typeface plays in design and everyday life. Fonts can often be an expensive investment, but Google has turned that on its head, as it did for books and scholarly articles years ago. With Google Web Fonts, users can download a huge library of font files for free. The repository of open-source fonts will open up typography to people beyond designers and typeface enthusiasts, and should be a wonderful resource for print and web designers.

We recently met with a long-time client (10 years) to make plans for 2012. In that meeting I clearly heard that the client only thought of us as a PR firm, when in fact we’ve added so much in the last few years. Pivot provides social media tools, marketing support, design, and more. It may take some time to change a client’s perception of what you do, but it’s key that you educate them when you add services or products.

Something we’ve started to do to remind people of our capabilities is sending out a short, bi-monthly e-newsletter. It highlights client projects and successes while illustrating what we did for the client.

Remember, your existing clients are the low-hanging fruit for increasing business. If you’ve added services or products, be sure to let those who are closest to you know about it.

In J-school, a professor encouraged our class to read broadly. I took that to heart and still – 20 some years later – am a junkie for the cheap magazine subscriptions. My wife is always chiding me that there is no way I can read to so many publications – current count includes Fortune, Seattle Business, Bicycling, Money, Advertising Age, Food & Wine, Fast Company, Communication Arts, Utne Reader. She is right; I can’t. Rather than drive myself crazy trying, though, I flip through the table of contents and make sure to digest one or two of the best articles from each issue. It is a wonderful way to read different writing styles, see what is going on in a variety of industries, and gather ideas that might be applicable in my clients’ world.

My wife and business partner had an internship within a city public affairs department years ago. Her boss told her if she really wanted to know what is going on in the world, read People magazine and watch daytime television. While I am not sure I can go there, his point was valid. I would prefer to watch the PBS Newshour, but I might learn a whole lot more from taking in an episode of Jerry Springer once in a while.

We’ve experienced a few great upgrades and new finds in the last few weeks – all of which help us do work better and faster, and provide a better product for our clients.

WordPress 3.3

The gang at WordPress just released WordPress 3.3, or “Sonny,” the latest version of the content management system we recommend to our clients. The 3.3 release is chock-full of new features for developers, of course, but we also appreciate the improvements to the user interface, such as mouse-over menus and drag-and-drop media uploads. These upgrades make the back-end of WordPress even easier for us and our clients to use.

Jing

We’ve all had one or both of these problems before. Maybe you’ve shown someone how to do something on the computer a thousand times, even written it down in painstaking detail, but every time they come back to you with questions. Or maybe you want to show someone a procedure but don’t have time or don’t want to schedule a GoToMeeting. Screen-capture software has been around for a while, but Jing rises above the rest because of its ease of use and the free hosting of your screen-capture videos on Screencast. We’ve had some great success in the past week creating Jing videos to demonstrate specific procedures for our clients – and with the Screencast hosting, we can quickly email the link or permanently place it into a list of FAQs.

Shortstack

Facebook is an essential item in the toolbox, so we’re all for anything that makes it more customizable and easier to use as a promotional tool. The folks over at Shortstack have created an easy way to create sweepstakes, voting forms, custom tabs and more – all with full design control in a drag-and-drop interface. No programming experience needed. We see endless possibilities to help our clients run contests and increase “Likes” by creating exclusive content behind a “Like” wall.

Truth is, you’re right. Your company or product probably isn’t that interesting.

Contrary to popular belief, social media users are not waiting anxiously for their favorite brand of dinner rolls or laundry detergent to launch a Twitter feed. As marketers, the problem we face is presenting our advertisements in a way that generates enough interest that our audience will tolerate and even want to see our ads.

This is by no means a new challenge for marketers. In the 1950s, manufacturers of household products struggled to find a way to market their products to stay-at-home women on then-new television. The iconic “soap opera” was born.

The soap opera used a formula where 80 percent of the television broadcast was aimed at entertaining the audience with compelling, an often over sensationalized, stories and just 20 percent aimed at advertising. The entertainment value these broadcasts provided to women who were often confined to their homes for the majority of the day was well received. This formula worked then and works now.

Providing your audience with value is still the most successful strategy in today’s new social media world. So the question instead becomes…

“What value can you provide your customers through social media?”

People become devout followers of a social media presence because they feel the channel provides them value. This value can be in the form of entertainment, exclusive deals, prizes, exclusive content, or as a source of local or industry news. Base your social media efforts on providing your audience these values, and they will in turn engage with your brand.

To convert visitors to leads, a first step toward creating a customer, you must create compelling and appropriate calls to action. To move viewers forward, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, authors of “Inbound Marketing, Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs,” say ask the following questions:

1. “Why should I click this button (or link) and give my information?”
2. “What’s in it for me?”
3. “Is the value of the thing I am getting worth giving up my email address for?”

To engage your visitors and get them to say yes to these questions so you can follow up with them, create a series of calls to action that appeal to them on a direct or indirect level. Direct calls to action are for visitors who need your product or service now. These might include questions like: “Call for a quote today,” or “Add to cart.” The person who clicks one of these buttons is ready to move forward; they are not looking to be convinced to move to a next level of the sales cycles.

Indirect calls to action are less intrusive, but designed for individuals not quite ready to make a transaction. These folks might be trying to research their options or gain general knowledge about a product or service. For these folks, you can offer links to items such as webinars, white papers, tip sheets, trial demos. To access information you have created – in the form of a white paper, for example – you will ask for information from visitors. If they are not interested in providing an email address, at minimum, they are probably not very serious regarding your product or service.  For these low-level prospects, provide a link to an RSS to allow them some level of information with little friction.

Good calls to action should be clear and simple, and they should tell the visitor what action to take and the result of that action. For Pivot, it might be: “Free Trial: 2 press releases in the next 20 days,” as an example. Every page on a website should include a call to action, says Steve Krug, author of “Don’t Make Me Think.” Additionally, you should track what calls to action visitors are clicking, test locations on the page for performance, and even test button colors, graphics or size in an effort to optimize results.

Getting people to your site is important. Converting these visitors to qualified leads and paying customer should be equally as important.  Carefully consider your calls to action, and monitor their success.