There’s something happily surreal about sipping on your morning coffee and reading the newspaper when you stumbled across a story about a client’s success story. Very nice indeed. A few years ago we designed the logo, brand iden [...]
Posted by: Mark Busse on Tuesday, February 1st, 2011
Categories: Design, Industrial Brand, News, Vancouver | No Comments »
A few months ago, Mac Donald’s launched a new TV campaign in France ‘come as you are’. The campaign itself, created by EuroRSCG, is pretty nice but what really caught my attention was the logo: it has turned green!! Just l [...]
Posted by: Mathilde Salvert on Thursday, July 9th, 2009
Categories: Advertising, Branding, Food, Marketing, Sustainability | No Comments »
Designed by Vancouver-based Karacters DDB—in fact the entire brand and integrated marketing program has been developed and rolled out by DDB Canada, with their local partners Tribal DBB creating the website component—the logo is meant to represent "the inspiring play of light and water one experiences" when in the nearly all glass building surrounded by mountains and water, according to Karacter's Creative Director James Bateman.
While I understand that the design team wanted to avoid any literal references to the city, mountains, or even the building itself—which I think could have been done quite subtly actually—I found my initial reaction kind of mixed, feeling that the graphic language was rather busy and not entirely feeling the connection to the inspiration of nature. Either way, it's certainly a brave use of visual language to use dynamism in an attempt to capture and communicate the inspirational feeling of the location of the conference centre.
I've already heard various opinions being bandied about—some positive, saying they think it is a fresh expression of the Vancouver experience not seen previously. Others have been more critical, claiming it looks sloppy and already dated—my favourite being the comparison to a blood splatter pattern (which seems almost apros pos these days). But what I'd really like to know is what the public think—they are the target audience, not a bunch of design wonks.
Sometimes I think that some of us with designers' eyes get distracted by issues like complexity of a graphic (ie. a logo made with photographic elements) and the difficulty of its application when flat vector shapes are commonplace, rather than enjoying the clever underlying layers of meaning. I will say that struggling for words as I did trying to explain the identity might be OK. Doesn't that happen sometimes when we're awe-struck by nature's beauty, the very thing that inspired the logo in the first place? I'm just saying.
So? What do you think of the new Vancouver Convention Centre identity? We'd love to receive your thoughts as comments below.
PS - Readers of this blog seldom agree on all things design, but I think we can all agree that this was a huge project for the team at Karacters and we offer our congratulations on its launch and offer our best wishes of luck that it becomes an enormous success for them!
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Last night I visited the the brand new Vancouver Convention Centre for the first time. While there I took special notice of the convention centre’s new identity and its applications. At first I must admit the logo baffled me a bit as [...]
Posted by: Mark Busse on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
Categories: Branding, Design, Inspiration, Vancouver | 6 Comments »
Some projects can really be both exhausting and very rewarding. After weeks and weeks of hard work, numerous revisions, and a couple of late nights putting the finishing touches (while eating bad delivery food)….we are very proud to h [...]
Posted by: Mathilde Salvert on Thursday, March 5th, 2009
Categories: Branding, Featured Project, Industrial Brand | No Comments »
Just a little teaser: we took down the old logo on the front door the other day. Hint: if the suspense is killing you and you can’t wait for the new website, or to get handed a new business card, do a drive by.
Posted by: Ben Garfinkel on Thursday, October 9th, 2008
Categories: Design, Industrial Brand, Inspiration | No Comments »
This week our team has been hard at work putting the final touches on a new brand identity for Industrial Brand. After a decade with the same logo and tagline, an update was long overdue. Stay tuned for the reveal in the coming weeks.
Posted by: Mark Busse on Friday, August 22nd, 2008
Categories: Branding, Industrial Brand | 4 Comments »
Mercury has evolved from a production-oriented studio to a full-service animation house capable of producing feature-length family films, so we sought to create a similar transition from a technical and impersonal planet-themed identity to one that softens and personifies the company. Having a significant portion of their work come from family programming of their own creation also provided an opportunity to introduce a more whimsical design evocative of childhood and nostalgia. The use of a child launching a paper airplane silhouetted against another planet is symbolic of potential, dreams, aspiration, creativity and imagination, and creates an even stronger connection to Mercury’s tag line: Imagination Advanced.
As part of the new identity, we created a full brand strategy platform, online styleguide resource with templates and brand elements as well as consulted on a number of internal initiatives as part of the new rollout. Congratulations Mercury Filmworks on a successful 10 years!
[post_title] => New Mercury Filmworks Identity Launched
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We’ve enjoyed collaborating with our friends at Mercury Filmworks as their design team for many years and were proud to develop and launch their new identity as part of their 10 year anniversary celebrations. Using elements of the pre [...]
Posted by: Mark Busse on Monday, July 28th, 2008
Categories: Branding, Design, Industrial Brand, News | No Comments »
With the help of designer Nancy Wu, we developed a logo design that emphasizes an exchange of ideas and communication within a like-minded community using visual language of quotation marks that symbolize talking heads as well as the four books of the Bible chronicling Jesus' life. In a nod to classic Christian iconography, there's even a subtle cross hidden in the negative space between the quote elements implying the underlying focus of this dialogue, while the colour palette progresses from cool blue to warm red suggesting a journey from discovery to acceptance. Can you see the cross? There it is!
After some intense analysis of the goals and content of their website, we developed a a strategic plan and developed a killer interface design using the new brand elements. The development team is hard at work bringing this complex website to life.
We're proud of the final result and feel it nicely tells the story of this unique brand quite well. Though a brand new identity, it has already started to get some attention from the design community, such as this feature on Icorgada's Galeria.
Congratulations and very good luck to our friends at Yaaway.com as they launch the beta version of the website, begin promotion efforts and start building the community that will drive this unique social network. It's still in a development form and being updated weekly as they integrate new features and design improvements, but we encourage you to check it out at www.yaaway.com.
[post_title] => Yaaway.com: Jesus without the dogma
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UPDATE: We just learned that this brand identity project has been accepted into the upcoming Communication Arts Design Annual. Woot woot! We recently worked on a fascinating branding and interactive design project for an online video sharin [...]
Posted by: Mark Busse on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008
Categories: Design, Industrial Brand, Websites | 1 Comment »
GDC/BC Presents: Design Speaker Series #1 – Logo Savvy Book Launch Thursday October 18th, 2007 @ 7–10pm at Emily Carr Institute Theatre, Granville Island, Vancouver. Ever wonder how some of the world’s top brand identity firms go [...]
Posted by: Mark Busse on Friday, October 5th, 2007
Categories: Associations, Design, Events, Vancouver | No Comments »
Great effort was made to follow our history, and the helmet on the latest version of the Spartan logo is more in keeping with the actual battle helmet that the ancient warriors of Sparta wore into campaigns. This is also the look that was achieved with the original TWC logo from the early 70’s providing a strong tie to our logo roots.
It was important that the new logo be more versatile and simple, yet classic in design. In short he new logo had to clearly state who we are in name as well as in design, and to represent the values we hold to as Spartans. With these things in mind, the process began to unfold and eventually the new logo was born.
[post_title] => New TWU Spartans Identity Launched
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Trinity Western University (TWU) launched their contemporary new Spartans Athletics logo today, designed by the team at Industrial Brand. The new logo, meant to symbolize modern day warriors, has been well received by faculty, students, alu [...]
Posted by: Mark Busse on Tuesday, September 11th, 2007
Categories: Design, Industrial Brand, News | 4 Comments »
We’re very proud of our partnership with the Fraser Valley Regional Library (FVRL) and their brand new identity system we launched for them recently. One of the oldest and largest library networks in Canada, FVRL came to Industrial Br [...]
Posted by: Mark Busse on Friday, July 20th, 2007
Categories: Branding, Design, Industrial Brand, News | No Comments »
Hating this logo seems a very popular bandwagon to jump onto—some even claiming it could cause epileptic seizures, but I tried to reserve judgment until after doing some reading and watching the videos on their website and after some consideration of how this brand could be applied I started to see some potential in it. Sure, the graphic looks like an eighties videogame icon, but as some have observed, it's certainly not boring, is very flexible as a solution and contains some interesting dynamism, portraying a brave visual expression of the unique attitude of a vibrant new London. It’s a bold departure from what one would expect of an Olympic logo: a reflection of that city’s cultural heritage or most well-known landmarks combined with the primary colour pallet of the official Olympic logo. But is it an appropriate logo for a city such as London and an event as serious as the Olympics?
I'm uncertain what the contents of the Creative Brief included in terms of strategy, audience and messaging, but I have heard that the design firm of Wolff Olins were hired after a careful selection process—not an open speculative contest—and paid handsomely for their expertise, so one has to assume they were given clear direction from the planning committee. I'm sure many would considered this logo a success if the primary goal was to create an abstract expression of the diversity and individuality of Londoners, unlike some Olympic logos that focus too narrowly on visual language representing a fraction of a city’s population. Is it actually better than the controversial Vancouver 2010 logo? I think so actually. It's certainly not worse. And it may just grow on all the nay-sayers over time.
In our business you'll never produce a graphic design solution that everyone will universally approve of, but is the London 2012 logo "good design"? Well, that has yet to be seen perhaps. As with anything executed to be immediately fashionable, it’s questionable whether it will stand the test of time or become a classic. It most certainly won't be universally hailed as brilliant, but I doubt it will be judged as bollocks in due time. Congratulations Wollf Olins for being so brave.
For more information on the new Lodon 2010 brand, check out their main website, though for a more unbiased look at the reaction to the launch, check out BBC coverage and the reaction on the BBC Sport blog.
[post_title] => New London 2012 Logo: brilliant or bollocks?
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June 4th marked the launch of the new London 2012 Olympic logo and it didn’t take long for the controversy to begin. I’d already fielded a number calls and emails before lunch from friends, designers and even the media. My inbox [...]
Posted by: Mark Busse on Monday, June 4th, 2007
Categories: Articles | 19 Comments »
