identity

Naming, branding and identity creation are all rewarding aspects of communications design. And yes, most times fun. In this line of work we’re exposed to all manner of specialty products and services that provide solutions to very specific needs. Indeed, there’s a niche for everything.

Enter Lava Shield. A new product offering from client Dyna-Purge (a division of Shuman Plastics), Lava Shield answers an important need of plastics workers. Lava Shield addresses the safety and environmental risks of cleaning (purging) molten excess plastic material from molding machinery by providing a catch surface that is safe and efficient to utilize, and has properties that allow recycling of the purged plastic material after it's captured.

Defining the Audience
We were asked by Dyna-Purge to help brand the product by developing its name and visual identity. The naming process began by working with our client to understand the buyer persona of the product. As it turned out, we needed to consider two personae: the-end user of the product, and the person with buying authority for the product.

Interests in motorsports, American motorcycles and “rough” outdoor activities characterize the end-user persona. The persona that has buying authority is typically in management and will have additional corporate responsibilities.

A Name is Born
Initial naming ideas spoke mainly to the functionality of the product, but the team realized that more personality needed to be brought to the name – it needed to be evocative and contain a certain amount of symbolism. After all, the end-user is dealing with hot, dangerous molten plastic that needs to be controlled and directed as it comes out of the machine so it doesn’t do any damage to equipment or operator. The product name needed to capture the imagination. As part of naming the product, we ended up naming the danger to be addressed: “lava”. Lava was then married up to the solution: “shield” – the surface that protects against the danger. Lava Shield was born as the product name.

Conveying the Name in Visual Form
With the name approved, we developed a visual identity that captured the essence of the name and that would appeal to both the end-user and purchaser of the product. The identity’s visual treatment strikes that balance, while maintaining a clear visual unity and hierarchy between Shuman Plastics, Dyna-Purge and Lava Shield.

We’re currently in the process of designing product graphics. We’ll then move on to website design and programming.

Contributing to Safety
A rewarding aspect of branding a new offering is the learning opportunity that exists. It was a pleasure learning more about the safety and environmental needs of the plastics processing business, and to contribute to the launch of an important product to address those needs.

Gap's actions over the last week expose some deep problems—problems that even great design can't fix.

The new Gap logo is old news. If you've been following their marketing train wreck you know that after getting tarred and feathered by the online community they backtracked by announcing they would crowdsource their brand in hopes of finding an identity that really gets the job done.

Besides the fact that their agency who created the new logo, Laird+Partners, must feel pretty unhappy and that Gap's management must be under intense shareholder scrutiny, the idea that a crowd is the solution is just wrong.

For the uninitiated, crowdsourcing is a problem-solving and production model that broadcasts a challenge to the public, asking it to put the power of a distributed network to work. It's been a hot topic ever since Wired's Jeff Howe coined the term in 2006.

I'm all about the idea of distributed networks and leveraging the power of thousands to get a job done. In fact, I love open source software, like Drupal's awesome CMS. It's a great example of a type of crowdsourcing as people all over the world work to make Drupal better, fixing problems, collaborating and generally delivering an awesome solution.

But, the people working on Drupal are all programming experts; they’re specialists. There are no good natured retired factory workers with a little spare time hacking code—unless of course they know code! If you're working on Drupal you're a programmer.

Gap's proposed solution is to throw the doors open to anyone with MS Paint. Forget any qualifications, experience or skills. Gap says they think you can fix their brand, and that's troubling on two levels.

First, does Gap disrespect their brand so much that they are willing to let just anyone work on it? Can a company that does hundreds of millions of dollars in sales, all based on its brand, actually just throw that brand out to the crowd and think that's responsible brand management? Forget the fact that a huge corporation that makes millions of dollars is asking hundreds of thousands of people to work for free. What makes Gap think the masses can fix their failure? Why don’t they understand that they need the help of experts?

Second, is Gap is really being sincere in asking the crowd for help? If they respect their brand and they know they need the help of experts, then they don't really think the crowd will have the right answer. Crowdsourching is just a PR ploy; manipulation to put a good face on a really stupid move and to get everyone to just shut up. If they don't expect the crowd, their customers, to have the right answer, then why insult them by asking for help? And let’s face it, if they really believed in crowdsourcning they'd put all their clothing designs up for grabs.

Gap does not respect its brand or its customers. They have a problem that runs much deeper than a design or marketing issue. They've got a leadership problem. I don't care how good a design solution is, paid or crowdsourced, great design can't fix a lack of integrity or broken leadership.

What's going on with Gap? Their seemingly new identity looks like it belongs to Initech. New logo or a late April Fool's joke?

It looks like Gap has redesigned its identity, as it showed up on the Gap website without as much as a press release.

What do you think?

Honestly, I don't get it. It's cold and corporate. It reminds me of lifeless putty desk accessories and lunch out of the vending machine under florescent lights. This is supposed to be a consumer fashion brand! Where's the energy and life?

Here's the old logo, which at least had some personality.

It's still not clear who did this work, if it's the new company brand or what's really going on. I'll do some sleuthing and update this post as I learn more. Leave a comment and let us know what you think of the identity.

Update 11:20 PM 10/06/10: There's speculation that this new logo could be a PR stunt to help boost Gap's lagging sales. Gap has not been responding to any media inquiries at this stage. Read this Ad Age article for more info.

Update 8:00 AM 10/07/10: And the people pile on. A new account has opened on Twitter purporting to be the new Gap logo. Follow @gaplogo for a humorous string of comments and arguments in defense of the logo. Its bio reads, "I have feelings too, jerks"!

Still no word if the new logo is a PR stunt or a misguided rebrand.

Update 7 PM 10/07/10: Mashable reports Gap is asking its Facebook fans to design the new logo. Wow. A multimillion dollar brand and you're going to hand it off to the crowd after your effort is greeted with widespread criticism. Who's in charge over there?

Update: 10:00 PM 10/07/10: Gap President North America, Marka Hansen talks! Link to her statement on HuffPo here. Read it and decide for yourself. Sounds like a lil bit 'o BS to me. I think Gap was completely surprised by the hostile response to their new brand and they're scrambling to fix the problem. I predict Marka will be looking for a new job in six months or less.

We're really happy for our client, Financial Institutions (Nasdaq: FISI). According to the Rochester Business Journal they just posted 80% growth in quarterly net income!

You can read the RBJ article about it here.

Really, it's no surprise to us. Financial Institutions is a great company to work with. The many years working together—designing annual reports or redesigning their corporate identity—have been filled with great collaboration and respect. Congratulations!