So it seems that Google have outdone themselves today with a fantastic logo to celebrate the 122nd birthday to Charlie Chaplin. The search engine has featured a very brilliant silent movie that is embedded into their logo in honour of the legendary Charlie Chaplin.

Google’s branding efforts never cease to amaze us here at Logotastic - they are constantly coming up with innovative and creative ways to adapt their classic logo in celebration of specific holidays/birthdays/lives. This Charlie Chaplin image is fantastic demonstration of how creativity in branding can be so impressive. Google have been very clever with their new branding angle, they are able to hang on to their classic  and professional corporate identity, but give their branding flavour and interest by sparking it up every now and then in honour of celebrations.

The video that they have created as their logo today is not only a great way for them to showcase their branding but YouTube’s as well. You see the Google logo repeated a number of times throughout the video while the YouTube logo remains respectfully at the bottom of the screen. We think it demonstrates a very classy and A list collaboration of branding - demonstared very nicely by one simple thing….A Logo.

Sir Charles Spencer ‘Charlie’ Chaplin (16th April 1889- December 1977)

The Logotastic website is part of Carvill Creative - a graphic design and marketing services agency based inMaidenhead, Berkshire.  The Logotastic Logo Design service provides professional logo design packages at affordable rates.  Making great logo design accessible for businesses of all shapes and sizes.

B.I Consult is a consultancy offering Business Intelligence Tools. They provide strategy mapping, key performance indicators and business monitoring tools in three main areas - Financial, Customer, Internal Process, learning and growth. B.I Consult have a target audience being mid sized companies that have some processes in place or need to be looking at improving them. The image that they hope to project from their new logo design is one of reliability, accuracy, approachability and attention to detail. The first impressions that Logotastic aimed for the logo to give off are impressions of greatness and confidence in the companies capabilities

B.I provided Logotastic with a detailed design brief that highlighted some colours they hoped to use in their logo design - light blue, red and black. They were keen to avoid green and purple. The Logotastic design team worked to present them with three logo concepts based around this brief, once they had chosen their favourite design Logotastic worked hard to tailor the design to their exact requirements. They seemed throughly pleased with the outcome.

The Logotastic website is part of Carvill Creative - a graphic design and marketing services agency based inMaidenhead, Berkshire.  The Logotastic Logo Design service provides professional logo design packages at affordable rates.  Making great logo design accessible for businesses of all shapes and sizes.

Consultancy Network Intelligence provide business consultancy services to SME and entrepreneurs to assist with business development and growth, and also help the company reach a stage at which it would be investor ready, and subsequently source and secure investment. Network Intelligence provides a platform for various consultants and associates to promote themselves and or their services to each other via the network intelligence website.

In their design brief Network Intelligence told Logotastic that the logo needed to have a real feeling of substance, depth and quality. They also wanted to see some logo concepts that investigated the use of 3D lettering and also images of the logo in a sphere or globe. The values that Network Intelligence wished to attribute in their new brand identity were ideas of quality, exclusivity and creativity. The Logotastic team worked hard to produce three logo concepts that a showed a diverse selections of images that suited their brief. They opted for preferred colours of black,silver, purple and blue in their new logo design and were thoroughly pleased with the outcome.

The Logotastic website is part of Carvill Creative - a graphic design and marketing services agency based inMaidenhead, Berkshire.  The Logotastic Logo Design service provides professional logo design packages at affordable rates.  Making great logo design accessible for businesses of all shapes and sizes.

ASL Partners are a firm of chartered accountants - offering usual accounting, auditing, tax and finance services. Their target audience are good quality SME’s and high net worth individuals; including both UK and overseas companies/individuals.

ASL wanted their new corporate identity to convey images of professionalism, reliability, knowledge, trust and value for money. Logotastic aimed to design a brand image for them that was friendly, modern and creative. The logo needed to give off first impressions of a quality firm that offered excellent advice which could be relied upon. Their design brief stated to avoid bright colours - especially pink!

Logotastic worked hard to tailor their logo concepts to match exactly what they wanted in a new corporate identity and what you can see above is the end result.

The Logotastic website is part of Carvill Creative - a graphic design and marketing services agency based inMaidenhead, Berkshire.  The Logotastic Logo Design service provides professional logo design packages at affordable rates.  Making great logo design accessible for businesses of all shapes and sizes.

It seems like they’re all doing it……..Marks and Spencer’s, John Frieda and now Crabtree and Evelyn. As marketing as we know it, goes through a tidal wave shift, we are witnessing brands and businesses cave into the undeniable power of digital marketing.

You just have to open this weeks copy of Design Week to see how many businesses have jumped on the ‘digital marketing’ bandwagon. Smaller high street brands seem to be embracing social media and spending considerable amounts of their marketing budget on digital activity.

There is an article in Design week that features Crabtree and Evelyn, it interestingly highlights the thought process behind some of the less likely digital marketing advocates. With Crabtree and Evelyn being an older brand with an older cliental you would be forgiven for not expecting them to have a Facebook page. However, Design Week informs me that they have just laid down the plans for a five year digital marketing plan that reportedly contains all the trimmings – facebook, smartphone apps, cloud computing etc.

They began by trialling a Mothers Day themed app in the attempt to encourage smartphone users to purchase Crabtree and Evelyn gifts. They have also struck a deal with BT’s retail division BT Expedite to install a cloud based kiosk system in all of its outlets, which will let the brand track customer behaviour in real time.

All sounding very snazzy…

Annie Pithie, Crabtree and Evelyn marketing director said that ‘ the strategy will involve allocating a significant amount of the company’s marketing budget to digital activity, The strategy will allow us to improve our data capture and to target communications at a younger audience who might not necessarily be aware of the brand.’ Pithie specifically commented on social media, claiming that Crabtree and Evelyn would be ‘ramping up their social media activity because it’s a gift brand’

Pithie really hits the nail on the head with the ‘younger audience’ reference, any brand that needs to showcase itself to younger audiences must be involved with digital marketing. It also must be duly noted that the ‘younger audiences’ term actually really refers to anybody who’s in touch with digital marketing. From experience we would say that could be anyone aged from roughly 15 – 50, a rather huge proportion of the population to not be targeting.

Logotastic will be keeping you updated on any other unlikely brands that might be joining the digital marketing world. In our opinion, the more the better, after all it only makes life easier for all of us!

The Logotastic website is part of Carvill Creative - a graphic design and marketing services agency based inMaidenhead, Berkshire.  The Logotastic Logo Design service provides professional logo design packages at affordable rates.  Making great logo design accessible for businesses of all shapes and sizes.

I recently read some very interesting branding tips from none other than the branding genius himself, Richard Branson. Branson begun by talking about his company Virgin - one of the top 20 most successful and famous brands in the world. Although it’s one of the top 20 brands in the world, it’s particularly special because it’s one of the very few brands in the world that covers a vast range of business activities.

Virgin specialises in a wide collection of industry areas, something that barely any other globally successful businesses have set out to do – others prefer to stick to what they know. Branson likes to have his fingers in lots of different pies – trains, aeroplanes, mobile phones, media, internet, health care, just to name a few. One major advantage of this business plan is that Virgin have covered for all eventualities. They must be the most recession proof business around…they have no niche and cater for everyone. There is no danger of Branson putting all his eggs in one basket; he’s too clever for that.

Q. So how did he do it? - A. He built a brand

Branson went on to explain how he sees Virgin, he sees it as the ‘Virgin Experience’ – he and his team created the ‘Virgin Brand’ and then marketed it across a variety of different industry sectors. Branson aimed to build a versatile brand that people feel they can trust, whatever they are using it for. The consistent quality of service that they aim to provide in all areas of the company, has built up a respect for their brand and a following of consumers that are ready to jump on the bandwagon with every new venture - hence their monumental success.

Now this all sounds very easy – build a brand, make millions of pounds and invest in lots of different areas of business. Done

Not quite…..

What Branson was trying to demonstrate was that it all starts with your branding - your branding is the most crucial part of your business plan, it’s where the magic happens.If you can start and build upon a successful brand then you’re on your way. Branson defined branding as ‘your promise to your customer, it tells them what they can expect from your products or services’ and the foundation of your brand lies in your logo.

Branson argued that the most important thing to bear in mind when designing your logo and defining your brand is  - honesty. There’s always the danger of businesses thinking that they need to reflect a perfect and pristene corporate image, but if that’s not really what you’re about then you’re sending a false message to your customer and they’ll be undoubtedly disappointed by the reality of your brand.

With social media being so vibrant in businesses these days you can’t escape the opinions and criticisms of clients and customers - creating a fancy logo or ad won’t do you any favours if it conveys the wrong message about your company. The same people who see your logo are also the same people who can search for you on Twitter and monitor what people are saying about your brand - so make the brands image true to life. If you start by being honest in your logo and advertisements you are much more likely to attract the right clientele for your business, be consistent in your branding message and give people the service or product quality that they expect.

Some Branding Tips

1. Get a logo – Showcase it everywhere

2. Write down your brand message – be clear on what you want your businesses message to be and ensure that anyone who works for you has this message ingrained in everything they do

3. Create a voice for your company that reflects your brand and your message – this tone needs to be consistently delivered by everyone and to everyone

4. Create a tagline that will capture the basic message of the brand in a short sentence and market it everywhere

5. Be consistent – the most important message of all. In order to build any kind of brand you need to have a consistent level of service and a consistent message. Without consistency there is nothing to build.

The Logotastic website is part of Carvill Creative - a graphic design and marketing services agency based in Maidenhead, Berkshire.  The Logotastic Logo Design service provides professional logo design packages at affordable rates.  Making great logo design accessible for businesses of all shapes and sizes.

Orbital training are a brand new start-up training & consulting company focusing on Lean, Six sigma, Project Management, Leadership skills, Change Management as well as global delivery via live online instructor led courses and traditional classroom courses. Orbitals target audience are global corporate businesses so their new corporate identity needed to be universally powerful and professional. Orbital were also keen to make the logo a bit quirky alongside attributing values of quality, expense and exclusivity.

The Logotastic design team wanted the first impressions of their new logo to show that they are a global, professional and stable business that people would remember and recognise instantly from their logo. Orbitals design brief stated that they wished to avoid red,yellow and green and base the logo design around the colour blue. Orbital also highlighted the FedEx logo as an image that they particularly liked.

Logotastic designed a number of logos for Orbital to take a look at, before they chose the perfect image to represent their company.

CW Investments are a property investment company which hold a large portfolio of properties. They do not have a target audience  but wanted to create a new image for their company that was professional and exclusive. They expressed to the Logotastic design team that they really liked the idea of the C and the W being built in bricks like a development. They also thought they might like to see the tops of the letters not quite completed, in order to emphasis the development imagery. Logotastic designed a number of different logo concepts for them to choose from and what you see here is the end result. CW Investments seemed throughly delighted with their new corporate identity.

The Logotastic website is part of Carvill Creative - a graphic design and marketing services agency based in Maidenhead, Berkshire.  The Logotastic Logo Design service provides professional logo design packages at affordable rates.  Making great logo design accessible for businesses of all shapes and sizes.

For the last two years it’s been a case of survival of the fittest among brands everywhere. The economic climate has made business even more cut throat as only the strongest businesses have been able to survive cost cuts, less public spending and fewer jobs. We just have to look at our supermarket shelves and see how many more of supermarkets own brands have popped up – we simply can’t afford to buy the top end brands for every single item on the shopping list and if we’re being offered the basics at a lower price…its not surprising people are opting for it.

Luckily for consumers, there is no longer the need to constantly buy big household brands nowadays in order to get the quality we want, we can rely on Mr Waitrose or Mr Sainsbury’s to provide us with the good quality basics at a lower price. This is good for us, the average consumer, but not so great for brands like Heinz, Hovis, Batchelor, Premier Food and Unilever.

So what are these classic household brands doing about this problem – how do you stop people reaching for Sainsbury’s ketchup instead of their old friend Heinz?

David Benady in ‘Design Week’ this month reminds us that the answer to this problem lies in packing design. Benady says that:

‘Packaging design – the silent salesman – plays a key role in reminding people why they fell in love with the brand in the first place. One tactic to reignite that old spark is to strip back cluttered pack designs to boost the clarity and impact of a classic logo’

But is it as easy as all that – we are in a recession after all, bringing back old brands in a nostalgic attempt to reach out shoppers may not be enough.

Ben Marshall is the associative creative director at Landor and makes the very basic point that ‘Big grocery brands have to be remarkable, not just very good, because own labels have already filled that space. They have to be seen as leaders by tapping into something that nobody else can own. They have to be relevant and unique. Marshall adds that ‘there is a danger with food photography being on packaging that every brand ends up looking alike, with fruit and vegetable shots creating similar packaging colours to rival brands.’

We are in a new era so it seems, a new era that has created a new shopper. Sainsbury’s head of packaging is Stuart Lendrum – he says that ‘the economic downturn has created a new shopper. Savvy shoppers are here to stay. They shop across brands and own labels, up and down and across both tiers.’ It looks like big household brands are going to have to put their thinking caps on – an old logo and an old branding may not be enough to keep in the race.

The Logotastic website is part of Carvill Creative - a graphic design and marketing services agency based in Maidenhead, Berkshire.  The Logotastic Logo Design service provides professional logo design packages at affordable rates.  Making great logo design accessible for businesses of all shapes and sizes.

It was only a matter of time before we started to see brand advertising next to the side of our Skype calls. I suppose we should be grateful that they haven’t started charging us for the use of the service, it still seems crazy to me that we can make international phone calls for free. Major brands such as BT Infinity, Disney, Groupon, Visa, Universal Studios and Volkswagon are paying the big bucks to have their logo and brand identity pop up next to our skype phone calls.

It could be very powerful if we think about it….how often do we sit staring at the same web page, looking for something to read, while Aunt Mildred drones on about how the weather is in Canada? Most of us will be grateful of some colourful advertising to feast our eyes on during our less thrilling conversations or conference calls on Skype.

Facebook advertising doesn’t possess the same power - we can become easily distracted by pictures of ex-partners rather than ads– Skype however, doesn’t have this problem. There’s really not much else to do other than look at the screen when speaking to someone through Skype - so why not look at an advertisement?

We’re not suprised by the brands who have opted to advertise through Skype in the UK. Disney and Universal could very well be on to a winner with their brand advertising. Many of us use Skype to speak to loved ones who live abroad - seeing an advertisement for Disney or Universal might be just what you need to tip you over the edge when talking to someone who’s in a hotter, more desirable destination. You’re far more likely to book an indulgent holiday when you’re feeling envious of the person at the end of the line who’s abroad and having a great time!

Logotastic will report back with any results we receive in the next few months!

Have a good weekend everyone!

The Logotastic website is part of Carvill Creative - a graphic design and marketing services agency based in Maidenhead, Berkshire.  The Logotastic Logo Design service provides professional logo design packages at affordable rates.  Making great logo design accessible for businesses of all shapes and sizes.