brainstorming

Branding or Marketing: Which Comes First?

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? We’ve debated this question for generations, have we not? Thankfully, when it comes to branding vs. marketing, the answer is much less scrambled (sorry, I couldn’t resist).

Regardless of size or industry, successful businesses practice both branding and marketing. But it’s the order in which they approach them that really matters.

Branding first. Marketing second.

Branding and marketing are often interchanged but in truth they’re completely separate entities. Branding is determining who you are. Marketing is telling who you are. You must know who you are first, then you can tell who you are.

But what is a brand?

Your brand is not your product. It’s not even your name or logo specifically (although those develop through branding). Your brand is the whole of who you are, what makes your business (product or service) what it is. It’s the image of your business in the eyes of your customer.

In the third (episode 61) of our In Her Boots podcast series, Lisa Kivirist and I discuss the elements of branding, namely the Five W’s and an H—who, what, when, where, why and how. What is your business? Who is your target market? How do you want to be perceived? Answering these questions and more lays the foundation for your brand. They convey who you are.

Once you’ve examined yourself and determined your brand, you can then go forth and visually present your business. You can create your logo. Hang your sign. Begin your marketing!

Those Five W’s and an H

In the corporate world, much time and expense is used for brand strategizing. Small businesses commonly don’t have that luxury, but we can build a brand nonetheless. I’ve come up with a fun questionnaire to get you started. These are the same Five W’s and an H questions I ask new clients in our initial interview.

Once you complete the front side, flip the sheet over and continue asking and answering your own questions. Your goal should be 50 questions minimum! The more you brainstorm, the more questions come to mind, and the clearer you see your business!

Check out my questionnaire. It’s Free!

 

Kicking Off a Creative New Year

Project Creativity

Would it be terribly punny of me to say that creatives are creative with their New Year’s resolutions? Check out this calligrapher who in 2015 hand-lettered the entire Book of Proverbs. Absolutely stunning, not to mention a work of perseverance and inspiration.

Creative resolutions are wonderful exercises for those of us who make a living on our ideas. They challenge us to try new things. They broaden our thinking. They combat the dreaded creative block. How do I know this? Easy. Over the years I’ve made a gazillion resolutions, from photo-a-days to sketch-a-days, from gratitude journals to blogging. Some resolutions I kept faithfully, others I lost interest by week two. And through them all, I’ve come away a more creative and focused professional.

Because I have a short attention span (multipotentialism—how exciting there’s now a label for us :-), I’ve learned my most successful creative resolutions are year-long blogs. Twelve months is ample time for me to master a topic and ramp my writing skills. Posting once a week, give or take, doesn’t overwhelm my schedule, yet it requires some major self-discipline. By the end of twelve months I’ll be completely bored of the blog, but I know if I stick it through I’ll feel highly accomplished.

So that’s what I’m doing.

My creative resolution for 2017 is a year-long blog called Project Creativity. What is creativity? Why is creativity important? How we can further our creativity? These are some of the discussions I hope to cover. I’ve done a lot of research on the subject, but all the books and studies have nothing on a broad scope of personal experiences. That’s why I’m hoping you’ll participate in this exciting project.

That means you! Whether you’re a creative professional or creative as a door knob, please participate. Please peruse regularly and offer lots of comments—you know what they say, it’s the comments that make a blog.

Click here and check it out!

And, hey, have an awesome 2017!

Difference Between Giving and Taking? NYPL’s 187,000 Images

Dinner by Food and Cookery Magazine“DINNER [held by] FOOD AND COOKERY (MAGAZINE) [at] “THE MONICO, LONDON, [ENGLAND]”

Generally, professional designers don’t like crowdsourcing. We hold little enthusiasm for so-called “opportunities” offered by profitable companies to submit work—for free, of course—in hopes of winning their approval (like when Dog é Style Restaurant announced its logo contest). In most cases, crowdsourcing results in companies taking a lot for themselves and giving very little to designers.

That’s one side of the issue. Here’s another, more positive side:

The New York Public Library

The New York Public Library (NYPL) is “chronically underfunded,” as PCMag says in this article. Yet, the 105-year-old public institution initiates brilliant crowdsourcing programs that benefit the givers (doers) and much as the receiver (NYPL). Take, for example, What’s On the Menu?. Launched in 2011, this epicurean’s delight crowdsources the transcription of 45,000 historical restaurant menus, which, by virtue of their type and design, are indiscernible to optical character recognition when digitalized. To date, online volunteers have transcribed more than 1,331,929 dishes from 17,545 menus.

In return? We, the people, whether we volunteer or not, are given viewing access to NYPL’s magnificent collections.

Just last week, NYPL thrilled the world once again with this news release:

“Today we are proud to announce that out-of-copyright materials in NYPL Digital Collections are now available as high-resolution downloads. No permission required, no hoops to jump through: just go forth and reuse!”

That’s right, 187,000 public domain images for digital download. For free! For artists, historians, educators, scientists, well, for everyone, this is an unimaginable treasure trove. Oh, the glory of it all!

In celebration of this release, NYPL invites us to participate in its Labs Remix Residency. Yes, this is crowdsourcing of sorts (the PR will certainly generate donations). And yes, it’s a contest. But once again, NYPL puts the people back in public and offers us something in return—creative use of 187,000 images!

So here’s the dish:

NYPL invites us to brainstorm “transformative, interesting, beautiful new uses” of its digital collections. They’re looking for projects that use pre-existing works to create new things (you know, a remix). Maybe a menu? Maybe a quilt? Maybe a board game? They encourage us to surprise them!

Here’s another way NYPL is unique in its crowdsourcing: Participants are only required to submit a proposal of their project. From there, NYPL will choose two proposals and award them each a $2000 stipend for completing their project. How cool is that?

Start brainstorming! Proposals are due February 19, 2016.

Looking for ideas? Here’s a good article. In fact, any one of the NYPL blogs is a good article!

Want to show your appreciation for 187,000 free images? Consider donating to NYPL or your own local library. Libraries offer us so much!

Branding Rock County’s Breadbasket

RCHSPantone

Woot! Woot! Congratulations to Mike Reuter and his Rock County Historical Society (RCHS) team for their great work with Adunate in creating a logo for their upcoming marketing campaign. And so the branding begins!

Mike, who serves as executive director, contacted me a couple months ago regarding the society’s campaign called Breadbasket (I wrote about the society here). Breadbasket will be a yearlong traveling exhibit that chronicles Rock County’s culinary history. The exhibit will run from June 1, 2013 to June 1, 2014, and will target youth of all ages, families and underprivileged families. According to Mike, these audiences will benefit from Breadbasket’s following embedded themes:

  1. Seed to Spoon: Where Does Our Food Come From?
  2. Tasty Traditions: How Does Food Shape Who We Are?
  3. Our Food Future: Bleak or Bright?

Discussing the project with Mike was exciting. He comes to the RCHS with a great portfolio, having previously worked as the operations manager and curator for the Milwaukee County Historical Society. His plans for Breadbasket are to have large, sweeping, door-type displays, along with educational kiosks. The exhibit will be headquartered at the RCHS campus but will also travel to outlying historical societies.

Mike then put together an interesting team of a people, all individual from one another yet all related to Rock County. For more than an hour we discussed what the county means to them (I’ve developed a super effective process of opening up participant’s creative brains and guiding them through the necessary brainstorming). What a fun time! I learned so many appreciative qualities of this area of south central Wisconsin. I daresay the participants did too—open-minded thinking always gives people perspectives they didn’t have before.

One of the objectives for the Breadbasket logo is that it work both independently and together with the RCHS logo. Therefore, it needs to have its own identity, yet coordinate.

Here’s the RCHS logo.

Rock County Historical Society logo, Janesville, WisconsinThe logo is very befitting to the society; the icon replicates its Lincoln-Tallman House and the typeface represents the Craftsman-style of its other buildings.

We decided the red color that RCHS uses in all its visual communications would be the coordinating factor. Rather than choosing one or the other of the two eras represented in the RCHS logo, we went with a generalized advertising style that would have been common in the late 1800s to early 1900s, a time frame common inclusive of both eras.

Rock County Historical Society

Rock County’s food history is fascinating. Like much of Wisconsin, it evolved as a wheat-growing county in the mid-1800s to a dairy-producing county in the 1900s. Today it celebrates everything from large acreages of field corn, to specialized farmers markets, orchards and vineyards, all of which work together to make up Rock County’s enticing breadbasket of food.

So here you have it: RCHS’s own breadbasket of food! I’m anxious to see the Breadbasket displays and the great programs the RCHS puts together in the next year!

Wednesday Webs 3-28-12

coffee shop posters

I love being self-employed. And I love working from my home office. But I sometimes worry I’ll miss out on the full brainstorming experience, or develop creative complacency, or maybe even lose tolerance of people around me. I combat this by regularly working in coffee shops, where the ambience of people everywhere keeps me inspired. And look at this community announcement board—it’s sure cure for any creative block.

Other people must think about this too. Here are a few articles that discuss working alone.

Civil War event poster, Madison, WI

 

 

 

A Golden Logo for Golden Alumni

PhoenixGold, Luther Preparatory School, Watertown, WI
May we please have a drumroll!

Introducing PhoenixGold—the name and logo for the new alumni association of Luther Preparatory School (LPS), in Watertown, WI.

Being on the ground floor of branding a new organization is honorary, exciting and fun. It’s also intimidating. So when Ken Taylor, mission advancement director for LPS, asked me to be part of his branding team, I felt all of the above. Not only was his committee creating a logo, they were literally building the structure of a brand new baby—name, identity, and all.

Here’s a bit of history:

Luther Preparatory School is like a merged family. As a WELS Lutheran high school, it was formed in 1995 by the amalgamation of Northwestern Preparatory School of Watertown and Martin Luther Preparatory School of Prairie du Chien. Back then, students came with histories from their original schools. Now, 16 years and more than a thousand graduates later, LPS is a united family cherishing strong Christian bonds.

Such a family needs its own alumni organization. It needs an organization unique from either of its feeder schools and it needs a visual identity to brand itself.

Ken has been awesome to work with. He knows his school well and gave the project lots of goal-oriented thought. In our initial conversation, he spoke of students emerging from LPS with spiritual and educated strength. He called them Golden. He also felt, as alumni, they share a love and responsibility for their school. As we brainstormed names and ideas for the organization, he directed our thinking toward those concepts.

PhoenixGold, Luther Preparatory School, Watertown, WI

The committee wanted to firmly associate the alumni organization with Luther Preparatory School. Using the same bird, typeface and colors, we visually tied the alumni’s name and logo to that of the school mascot’s.

Wrapping “Gold” around the Phoenix’s head emphasizes the idea of emergence, or rising. Adding a curved underline unites logo elements and conveys the school’s emphasis on the Word of God (the Bible).

PhoenixGold, Luther Preparatory School, Watertown, WI

As a new organization, PhoenixGold needs to be branded, or made known. This will take time and effort. In its introductory stages, LPS will use a tagline with the logo. Later, when the logo is easily associated with the organization, variations without the tagline will also be used.

Congratulations Luther Preparatory School on your new alumni organization! God’s blessings to PhoenixGold!

 

Pie is More Than a Chart

One of the unique selling points (USP) of my word and design business is the personal, down-to-earth attention I give my clients. Working from a home office deep in the heart of Wisconsin’s dairyland sure sticks this idea. When clients meet here, they always comment on the pretty setting and how fun it is to get out in the country.

They especially like when I serve pie.

Now, pie is a good thing. I don’t profess to be an epicurean baker, but my pie is pretty tasty. And it makes an excellent visual as my clients and I formulate a plan for their communication and marketing needs.

When I ask them the six questions of journalism—Who? Where? What? Why? When? How?—I refer to them as the six pieces of the pie of good information gathering.

Who is your target audience?

What is your marketing goal?

How can we use communication to accomplish this goal?

And so on…

Examining each of these questions helps us better understand not only the project itself, but also how it relates to their business, their goals and their overall success. Each piece of the pie works together to create a whole.

Right now it’s strawberry season in Wisconsin and the berries sure are bountiful. I’m picking bowls like this every day from my little patch. I gotta say, the pies have been mighty good!

Want to stop on by and discuss communications for your business? Email or give me a call!

How do You Creatively Convey Your Message?

So, they claimed to not be creative, but I recently had a lot of fun working with three very innovative and visionary thinkers.

Two months ago I met with Rachel DiGiorgio, Jeff Inniger and David Schroeder, a committee of three (an ideal number) for the WELS Commission on Lutheran Schools. They’re planning a leadership conference for 2012 and want an identifying logo for the event. We had a great brainstorming session.

Okay, I’ll admit part of our success can be attributed to the sub sandwiches Dave brought.

But another reason we did so well is that Rachel, Jeff and Dave have a complete grasp on their mission and the message they wish to convey. They opened up and communicated very well. That’s important—to unlock the mind, think and talk freely, let the ideas flow.

Here’s what they said:

The conference theme is Christ In All to All, based upon 1 Corinthians 9:23, which says “I do this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.”

Thoughts under this theme are:

  • It’s Christ who motivates me.
  • It’s Christ who teaches me.
  • It’s Christ who strengthens me.

Obviously, Christ is their center. And its Christ’s ministry that conference attendees will share.

“We’re all in this together,” says the committee about their audience, who will be WELS school principals, teachers, pastors and school board members.

“We want them (attendees) to receive this message of Christ and go out and give it to others. We want them to take it back to their congregations so each of their members can also go out and give it to others.”

Thus explains our logo.

Birds taking off in flight is an image we see all the time. They go forth in every direction and soar the world. For us, this image captures the idea of a shared ministry. It conveys the multiplying affect of each person taking the message of Christ out into the world.

The center dove represents Christ and by intersecting the other doves and setting them at a transparency, the center dove is “in all to all.”

Great project. Creative committee.

To God be the glory!

 

If you would like help creating an identifying logo for your organization or event, contact me for a telephone or personal consultation.