Logo

My wife noticed it right away.  There it sat.  Right near the front door of a church we visited.  A bright yellow brochure with the big heading “Just Try It” positioned above…the trademarked Nike logo.  Like a scene from a church-communications action film where a bomb was armed to blow, we looked at each other wide-eyed, mouths open as we shook our heads in slow motion—all the while silently yelling, “Noooooo!”

Okay, it wasn’t that dramatic.  Our reaction was probably more of just subdued...

Certain events can become a catalyst for change for churches.  At Life Baptist Church in Las Vegas, it was a move to a new building.  It was a chance for the church of nearly 300 people to start with a clean branding slate to better present their message.  It was time to clean up the inconsistent messaging and branding they had in the past.

“I can't overhype the importance of branding. Don't be afraid of it,” says Creative Arts Guy Matt Phillips “The truth is that you are already sending a...

It was March 1, 2010, when Caribou Coffee, the second largest coffee chain in the U.S., introduced their new logo.  Yet more than a year later, all of the Caribou’s around me still have the old logo on their main signs.  The cups, printed materials and door signage have all changed, but the biggest display of each store is still stuck with the old logo.  Sure, the logo didn’t undergo a huge change; basically they just smoothed out the old logo to make a new one.  But, still, it seems like by...

I’ve been watching America’s Next Great Restaurant, a show where contests compete by pitching their ideas for a new restaurant chain.  The winner gets funded by Bobby Flay, Steve Ells (the founder of Chipotle) and others who will help the lucky person open a three-restaurant chain with the promise of more. 

This past week, part of the competition was creating a logo for their proposed restaurants.  While they were overall hit or miss, it was interesting to hear the judges critique a couple of...

The Church Juice Branding Process case study is now available.  It’s a follow up to the blog series we did in the Fall where we took a look at how Church Juice came to be.  All of those posts have been collected into this case study as well as a few tips we found helpful along the way.  It’s a free download that follows our visioning process, name selection and logo creation.  Hopefully it’s helpful for you if you’re looking at branding a new program or re-visioning your church.    ...

As we continue our look into how the Church Juice brand was developed, our next step was to fine tune the logo by selecting colors and finalizing font choices.  We decided to do these two steps in tandem since we were fairly close to having a final logo we liked in its black and white form.

We decided initially that the color palate for this project should include greens, oranges and grays.  Green and orange give some homage to the idea of orange juice and fruit itself with a green stem. ...

Designing a logo and ultimately picking which one to use can be quite a subjective process.  Everyone has a different design aesthetic.  That’s why it’s important not to think about your own personal preferences, but instead think about your brand.  If your brand was a person, what would its design style be?  What would fit it?

Before we started our logo design process there were a few things we knew about how the Church Juice logo should look, based on the process we went through in defining...

Many of you probably saw the same article I did about the legal kerfuffle brewing between Best Buy and a priest over his God Squad car.  The black VW bug wears a logo rip-off giving it the same feel as the now familiar Geek Squad beetles. 

Best Buy sent a cease and desist letter to Father Luke Strand who says he used the car as a ministry tool.

“We were really using the car as a way to bring the Gospel message to the streets…to develop relationships with people and spark conversations with...

Let’s do a little logo association game.  Here are some brands that have been paired together (picture after the jump).  As you see them, do you think they make sense?

These are all real examples of partnerships I’ve noticed in the retail space recently and for me they don’t really fit together.

J. Crew already sells high end jeans and now they’re offering 501’s from their competitor?  What does that say about their view of their own brand?  “Well, I guess our jeans aren’t good enough, so come...

Stock photography giant iStock is getting into the logo business. (Yes it’s okay to boo and throw things at your computer. I use iStock images, but logos shouldn’t be a stock item. It’s a visual representation of your brand. If you think of your brand as your organization’s personality, do you want it to be generic or unique?)

Anyway...the goal of this post isn’t to have a major rant about generic logos. iStock has put together a nice article called "Six Things to Keep in Mind When Designing a...