Graphic Design Services - London, UK

Continuing our series demonstrating innovate uses of graphic design services - this is the first in a series of logo designs which catch the eye. Inspirational, creative and definately not clip art - a good logo design can connect a name with a visual image to help create and support a brand and its values.

 

The different ways this can be done reflects the nature of the business and the intended target audience. 

 

Hopefully the three examples of logo design for 3 separate businesses shown below should help highlight this differentiation

 

What would you expect for around $1 million investment on a rebranding excercise? And how risky is it tampering with a classic, well known logo in an attempt to engage the general public?

 

The questions which have to be asked in a project like this - is exactly who is being targetted? Will the rebranding affect the current Pepsi lovers? Or - does anyone really care? After all, tampering with a globally recognised brand is a risky business. By putting it up for public scrutiny, end trying to engage the market through various social media sites using sites such as You Tube and Flikr to reach out and, try to generate some buzz around the new loo, they have to be commended for moving into new ways of interacting with customer base.

 

A quick look at the redesign quickly brings to mind a multi-colored Pac-man. Some of the comments from the last few weeks on their flikr site give an insight into some possible perceptions, including "Wate of money!", "Miliions over Millions goin to the trash" to "I love it, it is totally minimilistic".

 

Whataver your opinion might be, the lack of sustained excitement or interaction around the released pictures is not surprising given that the US was going through the throes of a presidential election and in the opening stages of a severe economic downturn. The Pepsi strategy of trying to engage through social media using the proposed new design as a focal point for discussions, is pretty innovative for such a large corporation, and though the timing may not have been perfect it was a brave move. We'll have to wait and see whether any of the criticisms, advice and comments are taken on board, and what there plans are for moving this forward.

 

 

 

 

A look at some of the more clever uses of innovative graphic design services

Exhibit 1 - Receiving the right message

 

How do graphic design services tie in with a company's positioning? We can take a look at a large corporate as a case study, to see what importance they attach to their logo design within their brand image.

According to the CISCO creative standards handbook "Positioning is how our company is viewed by others in our target marketplace. While we have goals for positioning ourselves, ultimately our position is what others think and say about us. We can, however, greatly influence how we are positioned by communicating to our external audiences in a clear and consistent way."

Within the handbook guidelines are given with respect to the writing style you should use when communicating with your customers, how the company tag line fits into the overall branding and positioning. And of course, the logo -

 

"The Cisco Systems logo is our signature to the world and must not be compromised. It is integral to our worldwide corporate identity."

"Good graphic design tells a visual story. Good graphic design is a visual expression that functions in optimised interaction with communication and strategy. This makes heavy demands on the designer's ability to integrate design into the whole. It also calls for considerable insight into the customer's firm, the purpose of the message and the underlying strategic thinking. Because like communication, design must reflect the customer's profile, appeal to the customer's buyers/partners, and also distance the customer from his competitors.

A good designer must therefore be able to be creative within the framework laid down by the customer. Bubbling creativity is of no use without a sense of context and economic realism. A designer must be capable of focused working within financial and time limitations. This is the challenge, and it is one of the areas a good designer gets paid to master."

Jan Nielsen, Creative Manager, Kuhl+co

 

There are many great designers out there with artistic flair, creativity and innovative thinking - after all, we're some of them :)

 

An important challenge is to be able to manage that creativity and innovation within a business context. Though creativity is an important attribute, it is of no use if left without focus and not harnessed in a productive manner. It is important that any project involving heavy elements of graphic design should have clear milestones and agreed deliverables, set within fixed timescales. This type of management of talent comes with experience across several clients and industry types.

 

So not only is good graphic design about delivering an effective message, but for it to be practically viable in a business sense, creativity and innovation need to be managed within a controlled environment to ensure that the client's business goals are met.