Design – Page 21 – all said and done

Published September 5, 2008 by Rebecca Matheson

Sorry state

The current state of the world in regards to school logos is utterly appalling. Every designer should cry, and cry and cry some more, and then get busy in doing something to remedy the situation.

This is my chance: MECS

This is my branding project (so a uni assignment) as it so happens, it may or may not result in my final solution being used as their new logo. They have other designers at work.

So I have the privilege of creating ‘new’ identity for my lovely old school to draw it out of the 90’s and into the light. I had a meeting with the principal this morning. Now it’s all heads down to work (I currently only have one of those… so it’ll be working triple time).

The shields in 95% of school logos are the only thing protecting the stakeholders getting shot. No more freaking shields!

Branding Create Design Life Uni

branding logos mecs research

Published August 21, 2008 by Rebecca Matheson

Post of the Day – Runnning your own race

Ripper post over at ideasonideas. Geoff put me onto Eric Karjaluoto’s blog this morning.

Golly I love designers who can think AND can write about what they think.

Design Post of the Day

Published August 16, 2008 by Rebecca Matheson

Brand collaboration – XoÃ§ai

This semester I am taking a class on Branding and Identity. Although not very far into the head space, I’ve had some exposure to Brand beyond just logo and hey, I have half a brain on me.

That is why last night didn’t work.

As a favor for a friend, Mandy (a friend of ours) hosted a ‘healthy chocolate’ party for a product called Xocai.

I am quite naturally a big cynic, so like every old sales party, I sit through it for laughs and free samples and never buy a thing. They make me edgy but are rather amusing at the same time.

The XoÃ§ai logo speaks of energy and probably runs on par with something like Powerade. I don’t particularly like the logo, it’s too slasher or samauri sword and you cannot pronounce the product name…

But then comes the antonym of marketing. XoÃ§ai – an angry, energetic power logo is being marketed tuperware style with the swishy happiness of sharing the chocolate we all love.

I don’t eat chocolate for energy. I eat it because it feels good, is comfort food and it goes exceptionally well with coffee.

XoÃ§ai is non-guilty healthy chocolate, there isn’t a problem with that – but their sales pitch attempts to plug the chocolate of enjoyment while their logo simultaneously demands that you eat it on the run, just doesn’t work.

So if brand encompasses logo, lifestyle, marketing and generally the whole package, then XoÃ§ai doesn’t really cut it. The fault here lies with a lack of collaboration between, design, marketing and business strategy.

…it doesn’t really taste very good anyway.

Design Humor Life Uni

Published August 1, 2008 by Rebecca Matheson