Great New Logo for Portland Art Museum, Just Don’t You Be Parking Here.

I’ve been reading about the Portland Art Museum’s new brand on OregonLive.com and think it a pretty fine job of logo development. I am hardly likely to get out to the Northwest Coast to see for myself, so I’m glad to learn what’s happening out there design-wise.

The new logo was created with Portland design firm Ziba, the same people who designed the Bamboo digital slate for Wacom – that’s another story.

In the article, a couple of sentences concerning the Museum’s research caught my eye:

The public saw the museum as stable and authoritative but not bold or accessible to those who want a museum to challenge conventions. Many also believed the museum did not do enough to connect them to a world increasingly defined by international relationships.

The new logo meets the “bold” and the “international” requirements. So, sayeth D K Row, writing in The Oregonian, the museum’s been deploying its new logo through press and advertising materials, signs and banners since mid-September. And it is far, far more contemporary than the Museum’s older logo. Which you can hurry and see on the Museum website because its website was not the first thing that got changed.

Along with the praise, I note that the contemporary and even trendy new brand might perhaps have been reflected immediately upon introduction on the website…first among many other important tasks. Also, that there is a strong sense of “parking” to this brand look – just Google parking logos and see how many fat P letter forms you find.

Really, I have to say it’s the PAM color choice that got me – don’t find that one on a parking lot sign much. Take a closer look by reading the OregonLive.com article and hurry to eyeball the old brand on the Museum’s website. I bet you anything they’ll be switching that out fast.

When Your City Rebrands (like Ames, IA), Don't Take Umbrage. Take Advantage.

I wouldn't have paid attention to the Ames Patch post by Jessica Miller if I hadn't stopped in this Iowa college city on Monday for supper . (Sure enough, we pulled into a parking spot opposite Olde Main Brewing Company to see Michelle Bachmann for President 2012 campaign posters in the storefront windows.)

It turns out that the City of Ames hired Des Moines's PUSH Branding & Design to revamp the existing multi-green-colored logo. The experienced agency appears to have executed its usual job of creating a completely new look and approach for the city of 60,000....that's the red version on the left.

The City Council has asked the citizens for their opinions in a posting to the Ames municipal website, where you can see other versions of the new brand, as well as a proposed theme line: Heartland's Leading Edge.

These variations present Ames's biggest challenge – change. Asking citizens to comment, well, I realize it's right out of the “Big Book of City Council Things To Do.” But perhaps they shouldn't have.

Example: one commenter to Miller's blog post notes:

It's the old “If it ain't broke don't fix it!” The current logo has more impact, straight forward, bold, and fully understandable. Why spend thousands of whose money?? [sic] on something abstract that only a few understand. I used to design logos for local small businesses and never charged a dime. The same designers may be found here in Ames that would just take pride and not laugh all the way to the bank. Also, not appreciative of the costs involved in changing letter heads and other signage. What a waste for Ames.

I do not quote “Jo” in full to be patronizing. Having reviewed a couple of dozen city-rebrand stories over the past several years, though, I suggest that these posted comments encompass most of the complaints I've seen in other civic branding challenges – nothing wrong with the existing logo; new logo costs “thousands” of taxpayers' money; design too abstract/obscure/doesn't fit the civic persona; why go out of town for a design firm...and so on.

Yet whether the new brand proposed by PUSH is awful or awesome, look back a couple of paragraphs for that magic word, “change.” Properly, the City Council of Ames has decided that the 15-year-old green logo (on the right) is...dated. It is broken. It's the Council's job to fix that problem – without even reading the city charter, I am as certain as the Straw Poll it's charged with promoting economic and cultural growth. A new brand of any flavor ought to push in that direction.

It's also the City Council's job to spend money. Not foolishly, not wastefully...but productively. Generally, we pay taxes so that our governments can get on with the job of providing for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...by spending that tax revenue on a wide variety of projects and services.

It's a recurring fallacy that governments should not spend our money...or refuse to make decisions that cause change. Transforming the Ames logo mark to RED from GREEN is, I suspect, a really big one.

I leave aside the observation that someone might design logos for businesses and never charge a dime. Any good worker is worthy of his hire. Without knowing the parameters of the RFP, maybe PUSH Design could fulfill the terms and Ames agencies could not. Or PUSH brought a level of branding experience to this project that local outfits couldn't match.

So take another look at the Des Moines design firm and decide for yourself if it has the chops for the Ames rebrand project.

Feel free to weigh in on the Ames City Council request for feedback by emailing sgwiasda@city.ames.ia.us – today's the last day the Council will accept your thoughts; or comment at the bottom of the Miller blog post.

I'll say this: the proposed Heartland's Leading Edge line (leave out the article, please) makes good sense when I read how much research and development, agricultural and otherwise, goes on around this 60,000-people city. And as with every brand change, the more you promote it, advertise it and take advantage of it, the better off you'll be.

First, though – go with it!

A Decent Graphic? From the Government? (Unbelievable but True.)

Here’s my two cents. The new plate icon for the US Department of Agriculture’s 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans is pretty good. I suspect that there’s going to be flack from some quarters over the new dietary representation. The USDA press release said:

MyPlate is a new generation icon with the intent to prompt consumers to think about building a healthy plate at meal times and to seek more information to help them do that by going to www.ChooseMyPlate.gov.

In fact, I have included the url in the ‘graph above so you can explore what’s going on for yourself. The plate is (IMO) better than the old 1992 nutrition pyramid; bushels and pecks better than MyPyramid, the most recent 2005 iteration of that shape.

There are already disgruntlers; the “literalists,” for example, are represented by Andrew Weil on The Huffington Post. I suggest that the new MyPlate icon is intuitive and straightforward. It’s fresh and it’s got a budget!

According to William Neuman in his New York Times article, the USDA funded the new effort to the tune of $2 million. That covers developing the graphics, plus research and focus groups; and marketing efforts, including the web site and going-forward promotions.

The introduction is fresh so it will be a long time before anybody knows if the icon really works. Literalists aside, I call it a well-focused effort, info-graphical enough to deliver messages but not on the bleeding edge of design. Way to go, Ag.

Beer Summit

Like news features from a celebrity funeral that report what attendees were wearing, it’s been a fascinating week on the beer front – but not so much for advertisers (as far as I know).

The New York Times printed, “Barack Obama, the first black US president, said it was a ‘friendly, thoughtful’ conversation over beer at the White House with prominent Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, who is black, and police Sergeant James Crowley, who is white.” Is there anybody that doesn’t know about this?

The New York Post, among others, reported, “Obama sipped Bud Light served in a frosty mug, sitting in a white shirt with his jacket off. Crowley, in a dark suit and tie, drank a Blue Moon, a Colorado-brewed, Belgian-style wheat beer served with lemon. Gates, who was also in a dark suit, drank a Sam Adams Light. Biden, in a white shirt, sipped a non-alcoholic beer.”

Don’t read much into those brands – sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar. Still, there’s been much chat about which beers should actually have been served – mainly opinionaters demanding American-made brewskis (and I suspect was a timing issue).

Me? I only suggest, on this summer Saturday morning, that one brewery alone should have been tapped to supply the beer for this important DC meet-up: Summit Brewing, St. Paul, MN.

Let the brand fit the occasion, I say! And maybe Minneapolis-based Rotor Design would create a nice poster (like this one) for the President’s next brew-chew. Golly – look at the clock. It’s time for a cold one. See ya!

“Texas T-Bone”

The “T-Bone” needs our help. No other state can claim this name – and if the new high-speed rail proposal gains traction, we’d really have something to brag about. In fact, prospective consumers of alternative travel in Texas learned more about the train plan yesterday from a Houston Chronicle article by Peggy Fikac:

The idea of high-speed rail is being pushed again in a big way in Texas, and backers hope to have $12 billion to $18 billion high-speed trains running by 2020. This time, they say they have taken care to ensure the idea won’t fall flat the way a bullet-train push did some 15 years ago.

Here’s a mouthful: The Texas High Speed Rail and Transportation Corporation. It’s the non-profit behind the new plan to achieve high-speed Texas rail in 10 years. “T-Bone” is the shape of the travel corridor between Dallas and San Antonio, with a Houston leg meeting the line in Temple. (That’s “256 miles shorter than running the bases on the straight line.”)

Although Houston’s Judge Robert Eckels is Chairman, some people are afraid this routing arrangement represents a highjack by “people” in Dallas. I’d like to hear more about that.

Texas could have started a new rail system in the mid-90s if Southwest Airlines hadn’t been so frightened by the competition. Now, with the new administration in Washington and an economic demand for better travel options makes rail at least conceivable again. Finally.

But the Texas-T-Bone could benefit from our savvy…the help of sharp graphic designers, art directors and copywriters to start with. Ladies and gentlemen, the THSRTX website needs substantial improvements in styling and navigation. The logo could be better, stronger and more evocative of the “romance of the rail.” Then a talented PR group ought to get involved.

Let’s take it all a step or two further. The T-Bone’s a consumer product (despite the politicians and governmental bodies, NGOs and corporations who are the start-up stakeholders in the venture). That means consumer rules apply: A sense of style is critical to promoting acceptance. I’m going to come back to this point again and again in future posts. High-speed rail is too good an opportunity to screw up this time around.

Got a T-Bone stake? If you do, let me know…get yourself on board before the thing leaves the station. Meanwhile, I’m going to drop a line to the executive director to determine the Corporation’s interest in taking on a professional creative team.

Many, many thanks to Stacy Allen, Prism Design, for revising the antique British Rail poster specially for this blog post. Just what did the people who ran the railroads a hundred years ago know about marketing that has since been forgotten?