Typical design problems:No.1. Branding

WARNING: Following is a LONG post based on my short work ex. in trying to create a simple thing....ahem....called a LOGO! Brace yourself.....

...ever encountered this? “I want a nice creative logo design in 2-4 days for XYZ Company”...is like asking “I want a nice comfortable house design ready to use for XYZ family in 4 days.” Excuse me, but who is XYZ? Is the house going to be built on air, where is it situated? How big is it? Comfortable alright....but how do you define what is nice? A house in 4 days, surely you are looking for a movie set to be dismantled in a day! So many questions for designing a neat little house?  Oh probably a house is a little more complicated, but what about a logo?

Its unfortunate to know, that the popular perception of logo design is something of a tattoo or a sticker instantly designed to be pasted wherever you feel like in whatever shape, size and color so long as it looks fancy or stylish to represent literally any XYZ brand. This popular perception can very well be equated to another presumptuously false idea that abstract art is bogus and child’s play and that any random set of brush swooshes or paint blobs can be tagged ‘abstract art’. Can’t blame anyone for this mindset, frankly my own thinking of a logo was no different few years ago, when I was bitten by the juvenile self-branding spree. One is always tempted to rush into the future to see how the logo a.k.a. some arbitrary symbol or emblem of one’s inflated self would look after its printed on visiting cards and letters and these days social media, blogs etc.

Much to the shock, horror and mostly contempt of those sensitive to the arts and design profession (mind you, I am not calling it an industry or business here) these other worldly and disdainful ideas are but a resultant of an entire population that is simply not enchanted by the wonderful world of arts, history, nature and the likes. Often immersed in their systematic, mechanical routine daily lives which involves fulfilling the basic needs of survival, very little room is left for knowing the wondrous world of creativity that a few of us have been fortunate enough to experience, thanks to our families or just plain destiny and our sheer drive to pursue knowledge.

It is not that there isn’t much exposure, we are incessantly surrounded by visuals from the time we open our eyes in to this world. And even the busiest of the busy knows how to relish tasteful art and entertainment. Art is something that is so ingrained in our human race from the first time we discovered the power of our hands and minds, from the first hand that drew marks on the ground and on cave walls. Even today, a whole population of people who, in spite of oodles of hidden genius within them, think they haven’t any formal connection to art, but often possess a highly individualistic aesthetic taste and a unique opinion about arts. So then, where did the link go missing?

May be in the rigmarole of competitive educational system, or the unending work-life struggle to achieve the small-big dreams of owning an endless list of urban amenities and the habit of scanning and browsing rather than waiting, watching and absorbing. I am at a loss, but since when did art get estranged from nature and society to be viewed as something imperceptible, lofty, inaccessible, elitist and overly intellectual beyond the common public’s reach, interest and understanding or sensitivity? Our profession today arises not from our roots of democratic folk arts and crafts, but from a foreign regime of elitist art and design education and practice. Arising from the days post renaissance in Europe, arts and design took off from the public realm to be closed within the glass walls of the rich influential circles that commanded and proclaimed what was good and tasteful and what was plebeian. In spite of efforts to go back to the old world charm of inculcating folk arts and indigenous art sensibilities, often a huge chasm awaits to be bridged. Born out of economic divide and political favouritisms but drastically affected by a fast changing world of the modern times.

At the risk of sermonizing and generalising, I can only attribute human greed of aspirations from the onset of commoditisation and the age of assembly lines of becoming the richest, fastest, biggest, largest, newest and earliest. The assembly line not just marked a phenomenal age of engineering prowess for the collective humans, but on a subliminal level played into the minds of the people that quantity speaks more than quality in the pursuit of large holdings. The power of the transient took hold over permanence. Thankfully, not all were swept in by this notion, but for a majority of dreamers and enterprises (fighting to support their lavish systems) this seemed as the beacon of hope to greatness and the adventure of embarking on entrepreneurial voyages, only to be beaten at their own game by niftier more promising technology that went way ahead in quality and quantity.

Commoditization and consumerism has constantly taken a toll on enterprises that passionately jump into their proposition of a unique product or service production line, without knowing the role, purpose, mission and meaning of their actions in the larger society. In the slightest chance of any thinking that goes in, a major part of it is in acquiring the most profits and that’s there. These enterprises faintly resurrect the old picture of charging conquerors from the west, who with or without their flags bearing their emblems, rampantly looted, plundered causing only destruction. They never seemed to know the meaning or purpose of true wealth and never seemed to think much on the idea of running a well administered empire of their own. Their only thought was how to make the money to lead a wasteful life of luxury. Well the allegory here might seem rather extreme, but that is exactly what happens to enterprises that do not incubate their ideas during which time the necessity of bringing an identity to their unique work arises. And that is where the logo design component fits in.

Logo design is not just the clock on your pretty walls; it is part of a carefully designed framework of your house’s design. Yes, interior design is expensive, thank god for a public consensus on that, but so is logo design. Why view logo design in isolation like a wall decoration, when it fits into the context of a well fleshed out strategic identity schema of icons, typography, colours, images, words, experiences and much more that represent the brand. Why hold a myopic view of investing in a cheap ad-hoc logo as if a bargain buy only to be later refined into an even more expensive re-branding exercise (which is beyond one’s control anyway). Why refuse to believe that a logo design is far more difficult, detailed and scientific than a house design, since it is a short hand code of what your brand wishes to express not just visually but psychologically too and the connection time is the shortest, a fraction of a second.

So let me come again with... “I want a nice creative logo design in 2-4 days for XYZ Company”. Unless, XYZ company is a school or college project, looking at a short term existence, or over confident about their work to over-ride a cheap logo and communication design, going to have ignorant customers wanting cheap bargain services, who don’t care about good quality themselves, then yes why not, here’s a quicker more affordable bargain you can’t refuse, how about 2-4 hours of free work instead? As smug and conceited as these sound, the idea is not to shun good quality designing for those with small capital or berate their understanding or the lack of it about branding, but to re-inforce the importance of a systematic and serious look at their own business and also reinforcing that disciplined design never comes cheap. Then again, if you are in the profession (mind you not industry or business) of communication design you better convince your client by communicating the nitty gritties of the work. Else you’ll fail, but keep trying, after all clients are your employer and not your enemy and who knows brighter times are here to stay.

An initiative in this direction was to create a little hypothetical case study that would help me illustrate to a prospective client, why the simple little logo....is an outcome of a crazy detailed workplan....so here is the A-version....that needs oodles of finishing and details but just for starters...http://issuu.com/chitrachandrashekhar/docs/mographies_casestudy_brand_id_redesign 

Until my next typical design problem...

Tschüß (or Tschüss) (Pronounced Choos meaning - Bye in Deutsch/ German)

Chitra