all we want for christmas...

pie cases

Although they've been available in the shops for quite a few weeks, now seems like an appropriate time to share these mince pie packs that make nice use of the festive design we created for Planet Organic to use across a whole range of packaging and point of sale.

the x factor

There was a bit of a buzz in the studio on Monday morning, after one of our clients - Aerobility, who we've talked about before here - featured on Sunday evening's X Factor. Click here to watch the clip on Aerobility's blog.

post secret

Last night I went to the RCA's annual Secret Postcard exhibition. I've heard of it before, but never been, and really enjoyed it. The thing is that a whole load of artists - from famous ones to students - are given a standard issue blank postcard to do what they like with/on, then the cards are sold anonymously for £45 each, and only once you've bought it do you find out who the artist behind it is. You can find out more here. And here are some of my favourites (I seem to go for the prettier ones, but there really is something for everyone there)...

Bess

cake porn

A top tip from Nik for next time you're out and about in Soho. Swing by Brewer Street and treat yourself to something sweet from Cox Cookies & Cakes. It's a new "bakery" by the shoe designer Patrick Cox. "When I first heard he was doing it, I just thought he'd be jumping on the cupcake bandwagon, but when I stumbled across the shop, I was pleasantly surprised. Imagine a black, neon sex shop staffed by preposterously handsome young men in studded leather aprons selling nothing more than innocent little cakes and the like. It's quite amazing, and just shows you don't have to be girly to do sweet..."

sweet charity

Would you visit your bank manager for a loan wearing a tracksuit? (writes Julia)

Its probably an outdated question given that nobody even has a bank manager these days (and banks aren't handling out loans that easily either)! However, the relevance of the question refers to a conundrum facing a client of ours recently. They are a small, ambitious, driven and extremely needy charity. Through a timely set of circumstances, we offered our services pro bono to develop their identity and presence. This was largely in response to the usual charity objectives: to increase membership, sponsorship and awareness in a very busy and competitive market.

In much of our other work with a diverse range of corporate and FMCG clients, we help develop brands with similar objectives in mind. However, never in my experience with these clients have I heard concern in the form of the question I was asked by the charity's CEO:

"Now we look so great, will we be perceived as less needy and therefore not achieve our objectives?"

Slightly taken aback - after month of hard work to get to this point - I thought that maybe he was right. After all he is the CEO of the charity and has a lot more experience in the industry than we could ever claim. Had we overlooked a fundamental aspect of the challenge of working with a charity?

But, after some thought, I decided that we were absolutely right in our approach. Charity or not, there can only be a positive outcome from a brand being assured of its place in the market. Possession of a clear set of values, a distinctive personality and a unique and relevant position can only be a positive. And presenting this in a consistent manner across all touchpoints with consumers can surely only build awareness?

Anyone investing money or time in an organisation - charitable or not - could only be reassured by the fact that these resources aren't being wasted on inconsistent sales material, recreating the wheel every time a quarterly newsletter has to be sent out.

Creating a brand model, templates and guidelines that offer consistency yet allow flexibility for creative interpretation is the key - every time. After all, why do businessmen wear suits to meetings, and why did women wear short skirts to visit the bank manager (in the old days)? Because it was the template for success.

So, having been reassured of all this, was our charity client rewarded with a positive result? Launched at the 2010 Farnborough Air Show, it's too early for quantitative results, but the new identity has brought fresh energy to the team of volunteers running the charity, a consistent look and feel across web, print and all other media, and an increased drive to get out there and spread the word. Their Air Show stand was one of the most-visited, and the team are still following up on all the leads received, a much greater percentage of which seem to be leading somewhere than in previous years.

However, I can't say it's all down to the fresh look, after all the CEO was wearing a suit and that must have said something for them too.

spotted in Stockholm

Our eagle-eyed Creative Director Nik often comes back from business trips with news of new products and designs to share with the studio. His latest dispatch concerned Unilever's Swedish Flora packs. Says Nik: "Very odd... looks like something your Gran might have in her bathroom. That said, I bizarrely quite like it!"

our favourite colour combinations

Seeing as our last post was about colour, we'll follow it with the next in our series of favourite things. These are a few of our favourite ...colour combinations!

(clockwise from top: nautical blue and white stripes; grey with dusky pink/peachy orange; charcoal grey and neon yellow; blue and amber; really bright acid orange with either shocking pink or an electric aqua; the dark blue vs. orange bit just above a sunset; black with bright pinging colours like magenta, yellow, cyan, luminous greens etc.; cement grey and white; sky blue and chocolate brown; pink, red and orange)

flying colours

I've always wondered what would have happened if Paul Rand had chosen a different colour for his famous IBM logo (writes Peter). Maybe a bright orange, a lush green or a rich purple?

Or was 'corporate blue' already the default back in the late 1950s? {Must re-watch Mad Men to find out}

IBM even gained the nickname 'The Big Blue', and for as long as I can recall blue has been the safe colour of choice for corporations.

Move on 50 years from the design of IBM's logo, and surely the web has started to dilute corporate blue? No expensive multi-coloured inks to mix and print, plus access to may 1,000s of web safe colours - major corporates must be a riot of colour on the web?

Well, this chart from colourlovers.com suggests not - or at least not yet.

Skype, Twitter, AOL, PayPal, RealPlayer, WordPress, LinkedIn - all major brands born out of the web. And their corporate colour of choice? Paul Rand would be proud.

namestorming

We're increasingly being asked by clients to generate names for new brands or ranges. Having been through the process a few times recently, we've found that many heads really are better than one, so everyone in the studio gets involved in the first stages. Here are a few pictures from one of our latest 'namestorming' sessions...

launch pad

Over the past year or so, we've been putting together 'launch books' whenever a project is completed. They're printed as A5 booklets, and now make quite a good collection, with each one showcasing a different brand issue or brief. We do have some spares, so if any readers would like to receive one relevant to them, email info@wonderlandwpa.com or leave a comment.

how being too nice put paid to the banks

I used to have a mortgage with Abbey (writes Lawrence). They were brilliant - easy to read statements, I could talk to them on the phone quickly, even visit a branch where someone would be happy to sit me down in an office, give me a coffee and answer any questions. I even took a credit card out with them because they were so efficient and easy to deal with.

Then came the crunch. And a name change from Abbey to the less convincing Santander coincided with a greater change, not just for Abbey but for all the banks and insurance companies.

Prior to the crunch the high street banks had become rather good at talking to people. They were approachable, generally easy to deal with, and were more than happy to sell you anything from investments to insurance.

This nice and easy approach stemmed from changes in the early nineties. I remember working with NatWest (who'd recently changed from from the stiffer National Westminster Bank), as they embarked on a programme to move the perception of the bank away from a corporate institution towards a more customer-friendly business.

The bank tore down the steel bars and thick glass separating cashiers from customers. They were replaced with comfy sofas, open plan areas with discreet screening and plenty of pot plants. Simple, friendly illustrations adorned the covers of its in-branch booklets and window displays. The NatWest logo and its complementary typefaces became rounder and softer to reflect its newfound love of the customer.

And the other banks followed suit. Adverts for banks became the ones you didn't mind watching and plain English was enforced on every piece of written communication to make sure real people could understand.

Marketers who trained in FMCG environments started to infiltrate financial services. Banks became nice places to visit, to the extent that coffee shops were given concessions in branches. And at that point, it had gone too far. Banks forgot what they were about - there to deal with important aspects of people's lives. Essentially they lost their authority and with it their integrity.

So perhaps what started at NatWest all those years ago contributed to the downfall of the high street banks. They had become too easy, too nice and too friendly, handing out cash like they'd hand out a café latte. It become the norm.

But when everything changed, all those lessons in approachability were forgotten overnight, and banks went from "couldn't do more for you" to "we don't want to talk to you".

Which takes me back to my Santander situation. When I recently sold my house and needed a new mortgage my experience with Santander was tortuous. I gave them all the information they asked for but they kept asking for more. No-one with authority would speak to me, no mortgage offer was forthcoming. So I gave up. And when I tried to notify them of even the simplest of administrative tasks - a change of address - another long-winded battle ensued.

So while it's understandable that banks have pulled in the reins, they need to strike a balance between being discerning and being plain unhelpful, lacking in the most basic forms of common sense.

Perhaps all the advertising and design agencies working with banks - or indeed hoping to work with them - could think about how they can help their clients become customer-focussed and approachable again, without losing their integrity.

lighten up

Some of our latest Swedish work - for retail giant Axfood - is being rolled out this/next week. We've designed the packaging and instore communications for a new range of low energy lightbulbs. Ever heard of a lumen? Well, it's what the light output of these bulbs is measured in (rather than watts) so a big part of the challenge was to educate the consumer and take any confusion out of the equation. The bulbs are both energy and money saving in the long run, so pretty good all round!

And here they are in situ...

crayfish and cloudberries

Last Friday we held our August Final Friday (well, September First Friday really) at the studio. The theme was Sweden, and our International Client Director Anna did a great job of teaching us a few choice Swedish phrases, enlightening us with some surprising facts about the country, and most importantly introducing us to an array of traditional Swedish food and drink (please ignore the Kettle Chips that crept into a couple of the pictures)...

is the logo dead?

A logo is broadly defined as a graphic mark or emblem used by organisations to promote and gain recognition. In the good old days they sat proudly on corporate letterheads, plastered as big as possible on packaging, hung enticingly above shop fronts and featured prominently in advertising. Designers slaved religiously on logo bibles explaining in minute detail how the logo should be used and what you could (or more often couldn't) do with it.

The logo was the ultimate expression of a company's beliefs, personality and values, feverishly protected and consistently applied. Could this art form that can be traced back over 4,000 years be nearing extinction?

There's been much talk in the design press and blogs in the last few months predicting the death of the logo as we know it. Indeed some experts claim that the logo is nothing more than "an old fashioned approach to identifying products and services" and "a waste of time, money and effort." What is the role of a logo in today's branded world and have we really reached a point where the logo has become so commonplace that there's not much to be gained by having one?

why is the logo under threat?

Brand blindness is a term that's gaining currency online. Apparently the average person is subjected to over 30,000 commercial messages every day, most of them visual. Because of this, today's consumers are adept at quickly editing the information passed before them, looking for recognition in the sea of the unfamiliar. Is there any point crafting a new logo when anything 'new' is mostly ignored? If brand blindness becomes an epidemic, how does any brand stand out?

The digital environment has had profound influence on logo design development. Previously, the black and white fax was the ultimate logo test. Today it's ensuring your logo works on an ever changing palette of platforms and devices, whether it's on your company's website or as a Facebook icon. May logos just don't work on screen because they weren't designed to be seen on screen - many brands are now racing to solve this problem.

Digital also provides a tempting platform to bring the logo to life - make it move, wink, shimmer - desperately (and often inappropriately) trying to 'modernise' the mark and make it more relevant to today's social networking audience.

The most profound shift in logo design was undoubtedly when organisations and companies became brands. This seismic change saw a shift from a company's product or service to a focus on emotion; Apple no longer sell computers, they market a lifestyle. This shift has led to a flurry of complicated 'touchy-feely' logos that try to capture the desired emotion but often just lack clear focus.

Look at the new Kraft Foods corporate logo, a desperate example of this trend. Emotions are blurred and difficult to grasp concepts that need a bigger canvas than a single logo can provide. Logos function best when they simply and memorably explain who you are (Apple) or what you do (FedEx). Try to load too much meaning in your logo at your peril.

The public (and the press) love to hate logos too. £400,000 for the London 2012 logos? Waste of money! Especially when you can buy a ready-made logo online for $50 or less. The value of what a good logo can bring (and the skill and expertise required to create it) is slowly but surely being eroded.

the new logo

Some brave pioneers are challenging the traditional understanding of what a logo is and how it should be used. No weighty corporate manuals for these guys. Instead, a logo is created in the traditional sense, but then colour, texture, application, size, weight, orientation are all exploited to provide not just one logo but a multitude of variations and possibilities for any and every application.

The London 2012 logo was an early adopter of this approach. The initial reaction to the logo was one of near universal derision. Look beyond the jagged shapes and you'll see a clever way to use the logo to hold many different feelings, meanings and subjects without compromising the immediate impact and recognition of those sharp, pointy numbers.

The recent redesign of AOL takes this principles several steps further. Those much hated BA tail fins from the 80s were perhaps the first example of new logo thinking. Why have one logo when you can have (literally) hundreds?

Or why have any logo at all? Burnley, a small town in Lancashire famous only for electing a BNP member onto the council, recently rebranded itself to present the town in a new light. Any expected small town logo design is thrown out of the window, replaced by a squiggly, swirling, scribbly animation - visit burnley.co.uk to see it in full effect. It's not a logo, it's something entirely brave and new - a living identity perhaps? Whether it's appropriate for a town like Burnley remains to be seen.

future-brand

One of the biggest threats to the logo is the so-called 'brand world'. This is a hot phrase recently coined to describe the visual and verbal noise that surrounds a brand. The thinking goes that a brand world can create a rich tapestry of colours, images, sounds, textures and typography across any medium to engage the audience emotionally whilst being unique and recognised as identifying a brand or organisation. So identifiable in fact, the role of the logo could be about to be redundant.

Think of O2 and you will inevitably picture bubbles, shades of blue and perhaps even hear that nice man with the very reassuring and friendly voice. The actual O2 logo, whilst simple and effective, is actually pretty forgettable - it's the brand world that is memorable.

Deli Garage is a food brand in Germany that treats the packaging for its products as a brand world. There is no big logo, no typical food cues; instead a collection of products unified by strong colour, illustration, typography and physical structure that create a unique and effective packaged brand world. It's an intriguing idea, and one that potentially offers consumers a much deeper and more rewarding experience than the standard big logo approach.

rest in peace

So is the logo dead? Does the pressure from digital platforms, meaningless metaphors and public outrage sound the death knell for identity? Is the brand world approach really the brave new world?

Undoubtedly the traditional role of the logo is facing many challenged. By being pushed to communicate more and more it has actually become meaningless. On the flipside, the brand world is really nothing new, but the strength of a coherent and relevant brand experience is only just starting to be realised. One is not a replacement for the other - a logo can never tell the full story of your brand. Similarly a brand world can't ever be trademarked.

in remembrance

Let the logo do what it does best - simply say who you are or what you do. Leave it to the brand world to immerse and engage your audience. Don't get the two mixed up but make sure they work together.

In today's connected world, the bigger the palette your brand owns, the greater its reach and flexibility across the ever growing number of touchpoints. Consistency is old news. Coherency is the new visual currency.

form vs. function

form

{via TheCoolist}

Is this the world's most jaw-dropping car? The 1948 Buick Streamliner (by Norman E. Timbs) was found in the LA desert in 2002 and restored by Dave Crouse at Custom Auto, who spent 2 years bringing the car back to life.

How beautiful is this car? And what a strangely compelling paradox...

Who wouldn't want to drive it along Highway 101 with the stereo on full blast? But think again - perhaps this car's a piece of junk. After all, it's completely inadequate at providing even the most basic function of a real life car. Imagine that journey on Highway 101. It starts to rain - where's the roof? You need to take a suitcase - where's the boot? Passengers? Hope they're small. Let's not even think about parking. Highway 101? Not in this car.

function

For those of us who live in crowded, polluted cities the G-Wiz must be the perfect vehicle. Small (very), electric, easy to park, quiet, it even has a roof. But as a car it looks repellant. I couldn't bring myself to touch it let alone drive it.

If design is about matching form and function, which is more important? Maybe good design is no more than the sum of the best compromises.

Peter

our favourite {London} shops