As a reputable designer I would never restrict an identity solution to such simple parameters. When contemplating identity design I need to know all the usage requirements and which are the primary ones. This is especially true if the mark is to be incorporated on a website or in package design.

Still, every brand needs a solution for the square. If your logo fits well enough to be recognizable as a small avatar, great. If not, consider other elements of your branding that identify you. It could be an initial, a product, a colour or some other graphic element associated with your brand presence. Think outside the box to fit inside the box.

The square requirement is now embedded as part of the new brand marketing realty. It may not drive the shape of identity design but it will be an important consideration in the solution.

Not another social network! I still feel that way about Google+. We don’t need more of the same. Beyond its surging popularity, that’s one of the reasons Pinterest caught my attention. It’s different and yet familiar. Pinterest incorporates the visual impact of Facebook with the open sharing and relationship building of Twitter.

So, what is Pinterest? According to their website, “Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. Pinterest allows you to organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. You can browse pinboards created by other people to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.” You can also upload your own content from your computer. There’s also a smartphone app.

Currently, Pinterest is still in its naive beginning stage. It isn’t intended for marketing or self promotion. A note on Pinterest etiquette states “Pinterest is designed to curate and share things you love. If there is a photo or project you’re proud of, pin away! However, try not to use Pinterest purely as a tool for self-promotion.” Still, brands are finding a way to integrate Pinterest. Read the Mashable article, Pinterest for Brands: 5 Hot Tips.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time on Pinterest recently, observing the way people use it and interact but also evaluating opportunities for personal and brand promotion that fits within Pinterest community culture. Here’s my introduction and usage guide.

Define Your Interests

Using the pinboard metaphor, Pinterest allows you to create boards for different subject matter. It even suggests a starting set to begin which you add to or subtract from. I initially chose Design as one but I’ve since added separate boards for Logos, Packaging, Advertising and Type.

Collect and Pin Material

You can add a Pinterest button to your browser tool bar. Once installed, it’s easy to add content to your boards. When you find an image on a website you want to save, click the Pin It button and an overlay of the page with all the page images appears. Select the one you want and a dialogue box appears to let you choose a board to pin to and add a title or comment.

Pin Your Own Content

As mentioned above, you can pin your own content from your computer or the Pinterest phone app. I’ve used both successfully but some complain about the app being a little buggy.

Share and Interact

This is a social network. Sharing is the objective. Pinterest presents columns of visual content displayed in various categories. You can see your own content, that of people you follow (they start you off with some interesting ones) or content from predefined categories. There’s also a search function. When you see something that interests you, you have the options to like, comment or repin. If you repin, that image gets added to one of your boards.

Build Relationships

When it comes to relationship building, Pinterest is very much like Twitter. You can follow anyone whose content you find interesting. You can also follow individual boards. Your network expands when you follow new people whose content is posted by someone else you follow.

Market Your Brand

Whether you’re promoting your own skills or marketing a brand, a little creativity is required here. It’s best to sell by association. Define yourself or brand experience with visual references. Context is key. See the Mashable link above to for examples.

Add a Price

This is a little confusing. Inconsistent with the anti-promotion mantra is the ability to add a price banner to your pin. Technically, you could create an entire catalogue on Pinterest. The transaction wouldn’t occur on the site but the product image could be pinned from your own e-commerce website.

Support Other Social Platforms

This might be where Pinterest shows its greatest potential value. It includes options for sharing to Twitter and Facebook likes. You could share your own content but you could also share content of people you follow to enrich your customer experience on the other platforms. Food and beverage companies for instance could share recipes from the plethora of pins available. Pinterest adds another level of engagement and interaction to the process. Original source > Pinterest > secondary social platform.

Like many other social networks, Pinterest wasn’t created as a marketing platform. It appears to resist. But as Gary Vaynerchuk says, “Money follows eyeballs”. Right now, there’s a lot of eyeballs on Pinterest. Shrewd marketers have noticed. Keep an eye on it.

Check my boards or follow me on Pinterest.

Update: Mashable reports Pinterest Becomes Top Traffic Driver for Retailers

Novello del Veneto is an Italian wine released annually along side French Beaujolais Nouveau. It’s a flash in the market expected to sell out in about six weeks. To me that’s an opportunity todo something riskier than I would with a long term product.

I designed the first packaging for the product in 1999. It was based on a piece of art taken from an antique map. The winery sent the image – an illustration of the winged lion of Venice – and asked me design packaging using it. It was surprisingly successful. What I’ve never forgotten though was what my client said at a party celebrating the product launch. “This is great but next year, do something totally different.” I’ve approached it that way ever since.

I should explain that getting this product to market is never a sure thing. There is a selection process involved and to get the contract you have to be chosen as best in category. Not for the wine. The grapes are still on the vine when this decision is made. It’s based on packaging and marketing. Novello del Veneto with my designs has been chosen for 13 consecutive years.

Here’s the punk marketing part. I totally ignore the program design brief. Let the French do the bright colours and flowers and fight each other for attention. My direction is simple. The design is based on a lion – the symbol of the winery. Beyond that, anything goes. Some of the designs are dark gothic fantasies. Inspirations have included Dali, Erte and tribal tattoos. Some of the designs are admittedly pretty wild. Submitting this work every year scares the crap out of us. It’s no guts, no glory and I can’t praise my client enough for having faith in this. Then again it’s hard not to appreciate getting the highest volume order and outselling your foreign competitor at their own game.

Punk marketing part two. The wine label has never been designed as a wine label. One of the requirements for this program was to produce display pieces. We overprinted the runs and distributed the overage as posters along side the wine. Consumers loved the posters. That’s the secret. I designed the posters first. The labels were an adaptation of the posters not the other way around.

Unfortunately, we aren’t allowed to produce the posters any more. The retailer has opted instead for generic program displays. I get calls and emails from fans asking for the posters. Yes, fans. Since the second edition, my name has been on the back label (not my idea) with my explanation of the design concept. I used to sign the posters at the product launch. I found that strange but loved the connection. I still design the label as a poster first. I still design the poster and send the file to anyone who wants to print it themselves.

In a Facebook group I created (that seems to be impossible to find without this link) I described this year’s design as a Symphony in Blue which is also the title of one of my favourite Kate Bush songs. Of course it’s very different from any of the previous twelve designs. Reaction has been great both live and through social media. The client is thrilled. I took the photo below at the launch. There were three or four shelves stacked like this. According to an inventory check for this store, at the end of the day, there was one bottle left. Some punk probably hid it.

Related posts:

Novello del Veneto – No. 12
The New, Nouveau, Novello Wines

I was scheduled to attend a conference today but it was cancelled. Though I regret the loss of a great learning opportunity that’s not why I’m extremely disappointed. I signed up because attending would give me the chance to meet two people I’ve communicated with through social media. Both were to be speakers at the conference.The first was Joshua Garity, a user experience expert who I’ve had many exchanges with in the past year or so. We were really looking forward to meeting in real life (IRL for the 140 crowd). The other was Olivier Blanchard (see last post).

For those who think social media is for anti-social types who never take their eyes off their screens and can’t separate themselves from a keyboard, nothing could be further from the truth. We may start relationships online but we live for chance to meet in person. Conferences are great for that.

Fortunately I did have the opportunity this week to meet with another online friend for the first time. We’ve exchanged a plethora of tweets, comments and messages in the last two years and our meeting was like one of two old friends. The comfort was immediate. As we sat and discussed a range of topics I realized how much deeper the connection became face to face. She often sought advice from me on design and communication issues and I’ve helped as best I could but I now had a better understanding of the problems as the result of our conversation. New ideas continue to pop into my head to help her business.

Which brings me to the way we too often do business now. Let’s face it, we’re mailing it in – electronically. In the design world, that means, “Just send me a PDF”. And that request, not following a thought provoking meeting but at the end of a far too brief email message. I realize it can’t always be avoided. My own clientele is international. We can’t always fly back and forth from Europe to Canada but getting that opportunity a few times a year makes a big difference in communication.

I do a lot of local work in Toronto as well. Here, there are so many advantages to meeting. My best solutions come from thorough discussions. It could take days of email exchanges to clarify the direction set in a one hour meeting. And the solution will be better.

Next, allow me the opportunity to present my ideas. I can’t tell you how many times ”Why did you do that?” changes to “That’s freakin’ brilliant!” once I’m able to explain the strategically driven direction of the solution. Yes, I know I can include all that in message or document but here’s the problem. Nobody reads what a designer writes. Boom! Straight to pictures. The questions and comments make it obvious when they address issues that are clearly explained in the text.

I want to do the absolute best work I can for you. If we sit and discuss your needs my brain will explode with ideas. Your feedback on my presentation will help to refine the solution to a stellar final outcome.

So. When can we meet?

I contacted Olivier Blanchard (@thebrandbuilder) on Twitter to see if he could help.

Here’s the string of tweets.

Olivier responded very quickly with a suggestion.

I opened the Kindle app as Olivier suggested. There was “If you are a non-US customer…” fine print at the bottom of the screen. It would not allow me to create an account.

Another suggestion. Contact the publisher on Twitter.

The publisher responds with a link to their site where I can buy the eBook version directly.

At this point I had to do a little research myself. I wasn’t familiar with the ePub format and didn’t know if it was compatible with the iPad. My search found a page on apple.com that not only confirmed compatibility but described the process to load the file on the iPad. All you need to do is drag the file into iTunes, connect the iPad to your computer and synch content. Make sure you have books checked in your synching preferences. After following this procedure, I launched the iBooks app and found the book at the top of my bookshelf. I opened it and was thrilled to discover a fully-functioning version with all the iBooks bells and whistles.

Apparently, ePub is the native file format for iBooks. That’s good to know. There are other books I want that aren’t on the iBookstore. Now I know I have options.

As I said at the beginning, I’m not qualified to write a dissertation on Social Media ROI. But I think the scenario above demonstrates, in a small way, the value of social media interaction. I was able to contact the author. He cared enough to reply and involve the publisher in a solution. Bottom line. Another sale. This all took place in less than an hour. It would have taken me longer to go out to a store and buy a hard copy.

I know what you’re thinking. That’s a lot of effort for one sale. One sale? Really? I have more than a copy of the book. I have a story that goes with it. How many people will I tell? The experience inspired me to write this post. How many people will read it? You just did. How many more people are now aware of Olivier Blanchard, of his book, will check out his awesome blog and follow him on Twitter?

Blanchard believes very strongly in social media with clear objectives. His own objective here was to simply enable the sale of one book. It took two tweets. The ROI will likely be greater than a single sale.

Advertising is not the most reputable business to be in. In terms of respect for professions, ad people are pretty close to the bottom – just above lawyers. It’s little wonder. Much of what we do is attempt to persuade people to buy things they neither need or even want. We can be pretty good at it too. But occasionally we get the opportunity to do something worthwhile. Something that in some small way will make a difference in someone’s life.

For the past five years I’ve had that kind of opportunity, producing an advertising campaign for Santa Margherita that supports the Scotiabank AIDS Walk for Life in Canada. The objective of the campaign is to create awareness for the events and highlight the brand’s donation campaign. It’s an integrated effort that includes magazine and online ads, POS displays and social media. Online media is great for tracking response both socially and statistically but how do you know if your traditional advertising is working? How do you know if your message is being received? For the most part, you don’t. But sometimes, you really get through and someone lets know. We received this message from a reader of one of the magazines we placed the above ad in.

“Today, simply because of your ad I saw in this months Chatelaine (page 33), I purchased two bottles of your Pinot Grigio.

My reason for doing this was because of your support of the Scotiabank Aids Walk for Life, included in your ad. I wanted you to know because of this ad I will also support you…good on you!

Thank you for bringing your wine to my attention and I look forward to a nice chilled glass this evening.

All the best and keep up the good work of supporting people who need it.”

Related Posts:

The walk will do us good

Advertising messages that work – Part 3: Supporting a cause

29 WAYS TO STAY CREATIVE from TO-FU on Vimeo.

I love this video by TO-FU. Very inspiring. Enjoy!

If you come here often, you might be surprised by such a straight forward post title — a direct tie-in to the visual. But you won’t be surprised by the segue into a discussion of web analytics which is the real reason I’m writing this.

The ad is pretty direct. Headline. Visual. No copy. The product is white Sambuca. Though clear, it is considered a white spirit (think white rum). Sambuca is often served straight in a shot glass and set on fire for a few seconds. Hence the “White Hot” headline and flaming background behind the bottle. The ad is targeted at people who know the product. It directs attention to this brand and reminds the occasional Sambuca drinker of their appreciation for the product.

Segue time. There’s another reason for title of this post. This ad is currently the hottest piece in my portfolio on Flickr. I pay attention to statistics like this. It’s like an ongoing critique of my work. People view what they like. Similarly, I review the analytics of this website to understand what readers find most interesting.

Website analytics are extremely valuable. Make sure you understand what they tell you about your site. Especially if your site drives sales. What are people looking at? What actions are they taking? Are your pages getting the results you expect? Where is your traffic coming from? All this information and more is available to scrutinize.

I’m barely scratching the surface here in terms of the data available to you and how to analyze it. The important thing is that you do pay attention and take informed action.

The most savvy online marketers and communicators make continuous adjustments to their websites and content based on the data in their analytics. Are you paying attention to yours?

Credible brand identity is a tremendous asset to startup companies. Look like the company you want to be from the beginning. It demonstrates serious commitment and marketing prowess.

Right Channel Speakers is a startup speakers bureau I’ve been working with recently to establish their brand identity. I already knew the principals of the company and they consulted me early in the process of developing their brand, including creating the brand name. They were very clear on the mandate for the company – deliver the right speaker with the right message for the audience.

The name Right Channel Speakers is derived from terminology relating to stereo sound equipment. It’s strength is that it cleverly conveys the promise of the right speaker and message. Right is a very powerful word. It reinforces confidence when spoken or read. A channel is a source. Right channel equals best source.

Visually, the brand identity is based on a sound system speaker to reflect the name. I explored many variations of this theme. The final logo employs the shape of the familiar speaker graphic used as a symbol in modern electronics. The challenge was creating a design with this shape that was unique and meaningful. The solution was to break the shape down into a combination of triangles. The resulting mosaic pattern represents a variety of voices and thoughts. The blues convey trust. The yellow element is the enlightening message.

If you’re building a new company, follow these steps to get your branding right from the start.

Define your brand

When you start a business, you have complete control of your brand. You know what you plan to sell but you need to define your company. What will differentiate you? How will you be positioned? What is your brand character?

Create your brand name

This is one of the hardest steps in starting a business. Although a name that communicates the essence of your company’s business is desirable there are many successful examples to the contrary. What’s a Google? It’s not even enough that your name expresses something about your company. It has to be unique in a world saturated with brands. Then of course there’s the elusive, exclusive .com url.

Design your brand identity

This is typically the stage I become involved in the branding process. A designer needs a great deal of information about your company to create a successful brand identity. A thorough brief that defines your brand, outlines your product or service and  describes your market and customer is helpful.

Understand that design is a process. A good designer will explore many directions and present you with a range of potential solutions. It may require several exchanges to complete the final design. You will have more confidence in the result because of the alternatives you considered and eliminated.

Brand your marketing

Once you establish your brand identity you need to apply it – to your website, your stationery, your product, your signage. The most important thing is to be consistent with the implementation. Work with your designer. Too many companies send their logo off to disparate services that interpret its usage in their own way. The results can be catastrophic and defeat the purpose of effective brand identity.

Strong branding creates positive impressions and opens doors. Your professionalism can be judged as soon as you present your business card. The quality of your product is communicated by your packaging. Your sign alone can incite interest. Get your branding right. It’s important. Right from the start.