Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

This panel will be of interest to anyone working for a start-up or preparing to launch a new brand. The title is sensational, but the message is simple - it's about prioritization. You have to prioritize your focus and not put too much emphasis on your brand. Focus on what makes you stand out and make sure you get a good URL!! 

There's one word you should utter to the next client who asks you to design a logo: 'No.' Once the backbone of a brand's identity, logos have moved to the 'relatively unimportant' end of the 'important stuff' spectrum. This panel will explain how and why logos became irrelevant and will discuss how to break this news to your clients...and what the heck you do first on a design project if it isn't the logo.

The three takeaways:

-- The ways that logos limit a brand
-- The fact that sometimes, no logo is better than a logo
-- How to explain this to clients who can't imagine it.

Bryan Zmijewski Chief Instigator, LuckyOliver.com
Jeremy Britton Partner, Zurb Inc
Christina Wodtke LinkedIn
Luke Wroblewski Sr Principal, Yahoo! Inc

Make sure you understand the difference between a Logo and Logotype. Logo creation can distract you when you are trying to get a business started.

The costs of creating a logo:

1. printing/money
2. time
3. momentum

Industrial Revolution (manufactured goods were most important) to Information Age (URL is most important): In the industrial revolution, people started putting logos on things like soap to differentiate the product from another once the wrapper is off.

Now there are companies like LogoWorks.com that will make a logo for $25. Lots of times those logos turn out okay. Right now, people are paying a lot of money for URLs. If you can not get the URL you want, you will consider changing your name. Originally, logos were signature, but now they have been undermined by copycats. URL has been supplanting the quality of truth.

Early on, having a findable site is more important. Consistency is important, but it is a lot easier to be consistent when you start small.

Many times terms are used as identifiers, with variants on spellings (flickr.com) or strange combinations (Lucky Oliver).

You have 1.6 seconds a month with each person to make an impression on your customer online. Many times, it may be easier to remember the query string to get to the site, than remember the logo.

In start-up mode, every hour you spend working on something is an hour you spend not working on something else. The message is more important. Do you have time to work on the logo? When you are trying to build a company in 6 months how important is it to build the mark?

The icon does not come to play as much as it used to. You don't think about the Twitter logo, you think about the number you send messages to (40404). Is having a Yahoo logo on content important? Well-organized visual and structure seem to be more important. Does it seem professional? Is the logomark going to take it to the professional level. If so, you may need it. With phishing the link is more important than the mark.

Brand has overshadowed LOGO. You can't just have a Web site that is brochure-ware. It's about engaging customers and getting them to interact with you, not just about putting up a form.

Meeting a lot of people so far. Ran into Bryan Zmijewski (from high school) and his coworker Jeremy.  Asked Steven Johnson to sign my book with a silver AIGA marker - I think the marker sort of threw him off. Met a couple of guys (Ian and Christian) from Deep Focus and got an update on a great friend that recently left the agency.

I had a delicious dinner and mojitos at Dona Emilias.  I have to be careful or I will eat every meal at Dona Emilias.

I just landed in Austin for SXSW. Looking forward to registering tomorrow morning and getting into the swing of things. I am going to blog while here and twitter and pownce regularly.

Look for Gin_Gin on Pownce. Gingin on Twitter or stay-tuned to this blog.

If you are at the conference, I have darts, luggage tags and pens I am going to be handing out. I'll be sure to twitter when I shoot them in the panels!

Karen Ingram (my sister) has really awesome postcards. If you see us, stop us we have stuff to give away. 

I am heading to SXSW Interactive Week March 7-11. Anyone else heading out there? The panels look really interesting. The only one I am 100% sure I will go to is "Logos: Why They're Irrelevant and Can Actually Hurt Your Business" by Bryan Zmijewski. I went to high school with Bryan and have not caught up with him since then. He's going to have both Ingram's to deal with since both Karen and I are going.

This will be my third year (alum 2004 and 2005).