GE: A Brand Analysis

General Electric is the 13th largest company in the world making 11 billion dollars of pure profit. Spanning 63 countries with their hands in 25 different industries there is almost nowhere that GE isn't as well. With a brand as huge as theirs, let's analyze some of the current design behind one of the largest Fortune 500 companies.

The first and most prominent part of the GE design is the most expected. Clean and organized. Dating back over 50 years the international style is very well known and accepted. It offers the best organization for multiple languages using a clean grid system with as little clutter as possible. This is particularly important in a web based environment, because it has allowed GE to maintain a very consistent look across all the websites it maintains for those 63 countries.

The second most prominent part of the GE design is probably the least noticed. GE uses a proprietary typeface named Inspira, designed by Michael Abbink at Wolff Olins. Having a typeface that isn't used by anyone else for anything else is an important step towards a universally recognized brand. When people who have been exposed to a specific typeface in relation to only one company, they can see it anywhere without anything but context and know it's from that company.

The third most prominent part is their logo. It's a common misperception that the logo is the most important part of brand design. In truth, the brand design consists of multiple equally important parts and the logo is just one of them (I can go into this in detail in another post). In GE's case they downplay their logo a lot. On their products and sites it tends to be a fairly small mark, allowing the products and words to speak for themselves. With the size of GE there's a significantly reduced need to push brand recognition with a logo.

The fourth most prominent part of the GE design is probably as under-appreciated as their typeface: photography. GE uses a significant amount of it, and it's clear they understand the importance of high quality work. Almost all of their photography consists of high resolution, well framed, artistic photographs. This kind of quality adds an extra layer of confidence for any of their customers because we are naturally attracted to things and images that look good.

What can we learn from GE? While we can't say that the brand design is what made GE the business powerhouse it is, it has without a doubt made it as recognizable as it is which has definitely helped GE garner more business. They have put in the effort to ensure their brand design is a rock solid foundation for them to do business on, because that's what brand design is: a foundation.

Reebok and Poor Advertising

It's a generally accepted rule that if you want consumers to buy your product, you don't insult your target market. It is clear to me that the following commercial didn't have this in mind, because the advertisement never made it to TV, but the fact that is was even considered is appalling to me.

Go here to see one of the most sexist commercials I have ever seen attempted to air in the US. Might be NSFW depending on your work environment.

I can't understand how this commercial was ever green lighted. The advertising community is not one that is totally dominated by men anymore. Women are even founding major ad agencies, women like Nancy Rice who co-founded Fallon. How, then, did this commercial which was pulled solely because women refused to buy the shoes due to the sexism of the commercial get aired? Is this level of objectification so mind numbingly high that even women in positions of power believe it to be okay?

Not once does this commercial show the woman's face. We're led to believe it's not her voice either. It doesn't even show the shoes on her feet. It is a commercial that is literally nothing but her breasts, butt, and ankles. Not only was it a terrible advertising strategy, a blatant insult to the target market, but again there are social responsibilities.

I promise this is the last blog for awhile about advertisers being socially responsible, I've been on this soap box for far too long, but attention had to be drawn to this.

Logos: They Burn!

BMW has recently released a commercial that never actually shows its logo within the commercial. Instead, it burns the logo into the retinas of viewers. I should say right now this isn't a health hazard. At least, not anything we're not exposed to hundreds of times a day already. Look at your television and look away, you'll see blocks of color from the same concept. Surely we do more damage to our eyes from staring at a computer screen for hours a day.

It's a question of how far is too far. The creators say that they've come up with a way to "literally get inside" the heads of the audience.

I'm reminded of an episode of Futurama where the main character Fry wakes up confused because he's had an advertisement beamed into his dreams for a pair of underwear when he has the classic "go to school in just underwear" dream. The scary thing is, I think all the big advertising agencies would love to be able to do this.

We have a responsibility as people who affect other people's lives on a daily basis to realize where the line needs to be drawn between getting our products and services out there, and being intrusive. I think burning logos into people's eyes with the sole and totally non-accidental purpose of doing so is beginning to cross that line. It's a slippery slope that's very real.

If you watch people's reactions to it, no one they showed had a negative thing to say. We don't know if anyone did, of course, they're not going to show it in a BMW promotional. But the point is people are receptive of this kind of advertising. That's pretty scary. What are they going to allow us to do to them? Should we do it?

Logos for People?

I read an article in central Michigan's Morning Sun today about the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe taking steps to copyright a logo and tag line they've created for themselves. It got me thinking about what kinds of things should be considered "logos."

Technically, people have used "logos" in the most basic sense of the word (a symbol representing a person or group of people) for thousands of years. Both coat of arms and flags could be considered logos. Then again, I think the word means something more (or less?). When I think of the word "logo" one major idea comes to mind; that it's a symbol representing a person or group of people who are working to profit from a business venture. The word "logo" is a representation of a business trying to sell products and services.

So when I hear that the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe is working to copyright not a coat of arms, a mantra, a crest, a motto, or any of those other words, but a logo and a tag line it makes me die a little on the inside. Have we pushed the idea that consumerism is priority one so much that groups of people feel like they need to brand themselves and sell their identities? I would just brush this off as people using design jargon they don't really understand, but one of the members of the tribe tried to use this logo for a Facebook page dedicated to the tribe and was told to remove it. To me (and many members of the tribe) this is the equivalent of us making a group about loving America and the government telling us we can't use the Bald Eagle or the American Flag for the page's image. It shows very clear intent to use the image for the purpose of selling products and services, and fear that a group about the tribe may tarnish that logo's image.

I think what depresses me so much about the "Sag Chips" (as they call themselves) getting themselves a logo and tagline is that groups of people should be more than a business. As a Brand Director, as a graphic designer, as someone whose job it is to cultivate a company's image I am not trying to belittle what a business is, or what it can be. What I will say, however, is that the daily interactions people have, the experiences they share, and the human spirit in general amount to (and should amount to!) so much more than a business. To take a culture as unique and wonderful as that of the Native Americans and package it into a mere business is depressing to me. I understand that this one location is not an isolated incident for them, that Native Americans profiting on their image is nothing unique, but this is the first I've heard of a tribe making a business of their actual name.

If you're going to make a symbol for you, for a group of people, let it remain just that: a symbol. It is going to mean so much more as a symbol than it can as a logo.

Dedication to Soap

In 1926 Procter & Gamble released a soap claiming to be unlike any other. Not only was it perfumed, but would not irritate the skin. It was smooth and light pink, unlike many other soaps which were other colors that better hid imperfections. It was supposed to make women feel soft and beautiful with a flawless complexion while other soaps were marketed mainly to get people clean. The campaign for Camay soap was a brilliant stroke of advertising, and the evidence stands even now.

While I am both far too young to have gotten to appreciate that change and am a man who was clearly not their target demographic, I can appreciate good identity work when I see it even if it is old. Camay is slowly making its way off the retail shelves in the US, where its popularity is growing slim, yet there are still thousands of older people clamoring for their Camay soap. Thankfully for them, Camay is not being discontinued and is still fairly popular in Europe which means they can purchase it online...if they're tech savvy enough.

This is a brand that has maintained customer loyalty for the duration of thousands of people's lives. Its identity, and in turn how customers identify with it, is so strong that in an age where people will switch smart phone brands because they can't find an app that will brush their teeth for them Camay has managed to retain customers. Let us analyze the decisions they've made that helped lead to this dedication.

The biggest and most important decision Procter & Gamble made was branding Camay as a beauty product. Compared to the cost of actual perfumes and makeup, soap has always been relatively cheap. To scent it and then brand it to make women feel beautiful and lovely gave women the ability to purchase something that was cheap and dual purposed; it kept them clean which justified spending money on it in the first place, and as a bonus worked as a beauty product which saved their skin from the irritation of regular soap. This is an example of marketing working hand in hand with product development, which I feel doesn't happen as often now as it should. More often that not we see companies trying to push a product that's not actually an improvement on anything, relying on marketing to get the job done instead of creating something worthwhile.

The second most important decision is brand consistency. The logo has been through small changes from advertisement to advertisement and package to package (as design was wont to do in the mid 1900's) but on the whole has remained the same in the US for the duration of its existence. Procter & Gamble created an identity that was elegant, simple, and timeless right off the bat, making them immune to the various identity crises companies have been through over the course of Camay's life. Companies should always strive for this kind of logo, because over time it will establish immense amounts of credibility and familiarity with customers. Once you change it there will ALWAYS, 100% of the time, be a group of your customers uncomfortable with the change no matter how great it is. To a loyal customer, changing your logo is like knowing a friend for years who then gets plastic surgery on their face. You'll never be able to look at them the same way again.

The third, and most important, decision wasn't really even a choice. It was something that developed because Camay provided a product that mattered to consumers. An attitude, a lifestyle, began to focus around Camay. According to NYT writer Ricki Morrell: "Tish Stoker Signet, 58, a psychotherapist in Davidson, N.C., remembers that, as a child, she and her mother would paint the soaps’ cameo imprints gold, then give them as sachets to older women at Christmas." Stories like that aren't things you can really plan when creating a brand, though marketers covet this testimonial without the corporate backdrop more than anything else. It's what happens when you create a product and brand that compliment each other so well customers look at the product as an inseparable part of their lives...

...and that's what has happened now as thousands of elderly women try to introduce themselves to the internet so they can get a part of their lives back.

Horrible Design is Horrible

Redundant titles are redundant.

I can't help but be frustrated with companies these days who decide they need a rebrand, even more so with the agencies/design firms/freelancers turning out this work. This post is brought to you by Urban Outfitters.

Now it's important to understand I've done my research, and I'm aware it was done by Horrible Logos (no joke, real company, real person). This is a person who, for $5, will create a horrible logo for you to do with whatever you please. I support this intrepid designer 100%, and am very glad (s)he has found a niche in the world that allows him/her to gain beer money (self proclaimed purpose for the site). This post is in no way meant to bash on Horrible Logos.

What this post is meant so bash is Urban Outfitters' use of it. I understand leaving it up for a awhile to gain some PR, this kind of stunt is not unheard of, but we're going on two weeks now and the game is essentially up. It's time to switch back.

While bad design is good for a laugh, it should not be exalted to the point where a major company uses it as a permanent fixture. The problem is most people don't KNOW Urban Outfitters also thinks it's a horrible logo. When a major company endorses this kind of design work, it changes the general public's opinion of what good graphic design can be.

There's some corporate responsibility here that Urban Outfitters needs to accept, especially when they were previously considered a well designed brand. The general public, consciously or not, in addition to many aspiring designers look to them as an example. If they believe Urban Outfitters has released this new brand because they actually consider it good design, Urban Outfitters has given the public an excuse to create anything they want in Microsoft Word and use it as their logo.

People have a right to create and use horrible design for their companies if they really want to. With that in mind, let's gloss over a few of the many reasons why good graphic design is important.
1. It organizes information so messages are easily received.
2. It makes user product experiences easier.
3. In a world where we are inevitably bombarded by graphic design in the form of advertising, good graphic design makes the experience as pleasant as possible.

The slippery slope theory is a hard one to rely on because it's usually wrong, but with the slew of unintentional bad brand design out there I really don't think we need another one that's being done on purpose.

Hard to Read Typefaces: They're Hard to Read

The redundancy in the title of this post should make sense as we go along, and I promise you it will be related to brands eventually. It requires a fair amount of setup.

The topic of the blog today comes from this article on Futurity.org. To summarize, Professors at Princeton University ran an experiment to see if students would learn better if what they were learning was typeset in typefaces that were difficult to read. This idea is reinforced by the following:

The authors theorized that by making the font harder to read the information would seem more difficult to learn. Based on the concept of disfluency, the students would concentrate more carefully on learning the material. Disfluency, which occurs when something feels hard to do, has been shown to lead people to process information more deeply.

I want to stress that I feel this experiment was done as well as an experiment possibly can be. After reading the article I don't feel like it was executed poorly in any way, and they do say at the end "...we do need to further test the theory..."

There is, however, a problem in how the results were interpreted and I think they would have had different findings if graphic designers were actively involved in the experiment (and I highly doubt they were).

Graphic design has existed for thousands of years dating to before the printing press, into the middle ages, and even to ancient Rome. It is a very well established profession with rules and guidelines that have existed for a very long time. If there's anything we have come to learn in those thousands of years regarding typography, it's that people are more willing to read type that is easy to read for the simple fact that hard to read typefaces are hard to read.

"But wait!" you say, "Mitchell, this study has nothing to do with what people are willing to read!" This is true, but there's another fact graphic designers have also known for at least hundreds of years. Things that look and feel different attract attention. When you're paying closer attention, you're more likely to retain information. It is my theory, then, that the students were able to retain the information not because it was hard to read but because it was something new and different. When they've spent the majority of their lives reading text set in Times New Roman and Arial, of course something typeset in Monotype Corsiva and Comic Sans is going to grab their attention. This is a strategy used on a daily basis by graphic designers worldwide.

Yet another thing we've learned, and you don't need to be a graphic designer for this, is that over time people become jaded to these new things. If textbooks were set in nothing but Comic Sans, you can bet they'd learn material no better than with Times New Roman now. Typefaces like Times New Roman, Garamond, and Baskerville were developed for the purpose of making words easier to read. Again, this was done because people are more willing to read what's easy to read. And really, who looks at a full page of Comic Sans in 10pt font and doesn't groan about having to read it?

SO, after a long setup, what does this have to do with branding? Honestly, my first reaction to the study was a vision of a world where websites, handouts, advertisements, and publications were filled with hard-to-read typefaces. Call it an attempt at a preventative measure by getting out the word that crazy, ridiculous typography on your websites and publications won't necessarily make the information stick. It could just as easily aggravate your potential customer into not reading it because it's too difficult to read. Creative typography doesn't need to be crazy or hard to read to avoid being boring or to make your message stay with the customer. It takes a little more care, but when done properly there can be really elegant, easy to read type that still looks eye catching and amazing.

So please, next time you sit down in your comfy computer chair and open Microsoft Word or your website content editor, think of me curled in the fetal position in the corner of the office and take your mouse off the Comic Sans selection; because hard to read typefaces are hard to read.