To further your journey into the wonderful world of creating identities, I present to you Brand New, a blog that in its own words discusses “opinions, and focusing solely, on corporate and brand identity work.” Groovy. I can’t say I always agree with their breakdown, but they almost always have good background information on the process and reasonings behind the (re)designs. You should by now be able to read their opinions but form your own opinion of the work.

On a related note, I’d also like you to add LogoPond to your design quiver. Basically a design gallery for logos, the site also offers up resources for you to check out. So check it out.

This is old, but worth looking at and evaluating. Back in the summer of ‘05 a call went out to the design community for logo design submissions for Simplified Standards. Sixty-four (ish) entries were submitted and voted on by the community. Some are great. Some are not so great (see #53 and #58).

And can you specifically tell me what’s wrong with number 41?

Simplified Standards logo submissions

Check out the redesign of TIME Magazine, as well as Will Ferrell’s hair. Crazy. Anyway, the article does a great job of explaining the “whys” of the redesign. That crazy conscious thought - we just hoped it was a fad!

Well, remember that conversation we had last night about Duncan’s article (where he posits that Adobe is hurting its Photoshop brand by adding other pieces of software to the brand umbrella)? Well, Adobe has upped the ante yet again.

Adobe will expand its Photoshop product line in Spring 2007, to better meet the needs of its users. There will soon be two editions of Photoshop® CS3 software for both the Macintosh and Windows platforms: Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended.

Ideal for film, video, and multimedia professionals and graphic and web designers using 3D and motion, as well as professionals in engineering and science, Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended software delivers everything in Photoshop CS3 and more. Render and incorporate 3D images into your 2D composites. Stop time with easy editing of motion graphics on video layers. And probe your images with measurement, analysis, and visualization tools. For all that is the professional standard in digital imaging and more, choose Photoshop CS3 Extended.

Coke Extreme, the caffeine, green tea, and guarana infused version?

FAQ (PDF) from Adobe.

Continuing the tread on our conversation on branding issues, James Duncan Davidson provides some thoughts on Adobe’s plans to continue to stretch their venerable Photoshop brand. Adobe’s first foray into extending this brand was with a stripped down version of Photoshop called Photoshop Elements. Lightroom, Adobe’s new software for the management of photo shoots, has come out of beta as Photoshop Lightroom. And now Adobe has announced they have a free online version of Photoshop in the works.

James presents some doubts that this is a smart move:

It’s the soft-drink and beer branding approach applied to software. Except that it’s a lot easier to understand that Diet Coke is the sugar-free version of Coke. They’re both soft drinks (or “soda” or “pop” depending where you’re from). Placing the Photoshop brand onto Lightroom is like calling lemon cookies something like “Coke Crunchies”. And putting the Photoshop brand onto a web-based too [sic] like like calling a pizza something like “Coke Cheesy”.

Give the whole article (it’s short) a look and determine your own opinion on whether this is a good or bad move for Adobe.

As we touched on in only the briefest of fashions a few weeks back, different cultures have different sensitives. Verbal or visual messages that are fine for the United States can and will offend an entire other continent. Using blue for a corporate website here is fine; using blue in certain parts of Asia for the same need will lose you customers.

The Wall Street Journal has a story dealing with Apple’s ongoing Mac/PC ads and the changes Apple has had to make to be effective and be culturally sensitive.

But in Japanese culture, where direct-comparison ads have long been frowned upon, it’s rude to brag about one’s strengths. So for Japanese versions of the ads that rolled out last fall, two local comedians from a troupe called the Rahmens made subtle changes to emphasize that Macs and PCs are not that different. Instead of clothes that cast PC clearly as a nerd and Mac as a hipster, PC wears plain office attire and Mac weekend fashion, highlighting the work/home divide between the devices more than personality differences.

Please read the entire article and make note of the various cultural differences. We will discuss your observations in class.

As promised, here are the links to the discussions that erupted late last year about Adobe’s plans for their new icons and branding campaign surrounding the Spring ‘07 release of Creative Suite 3. Be sure to read both sides.

The Icons
Adobe (sort of) on the new icons (pro)
Dave Shea’s take (con)
Veerle’s take (pro)
Jason Santa Maria’s take (con)

What’s your take?