Effective Branding (Or: Lessons from a cow's bum)

Sitting around an IKEA table and sipping lattes with a group of marketing executives and chatting about ‘incentivising this’ or ‘surfacing that’, it becomes quite a mental task to reconcile the fact that this whole concept of ‘branding’ takes its name from using hot metal to scar a cow’s bum.

But many of the mistakes that companies make in attempting to establish and extend their visual identity could so easily be avoided if these organisations dropped all the meaningless buzzwords and got back to the historic roots of true branding. And so, to the cow’s bum, we must return.

A short history of branding

Man having an innate desire to make his mark has been around for as long as there were snowy walks back from the pub, but the practice of utilising hot metal to burn a distinct scar into the hide of livestock has been traced back as far as the ancient Egyptians.

The concept is quite simple. Cows are not the most loyal bunch at the best of times and are easily swayed by a slightly greener looking patch of grass in the next field. When two farmers both have a large herd of identical looking brown cows it’s easy to lose track of a few fringe stragglers who have spotted a daisy or two that might add a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ to the aroma of the cud.

Even if you put up fences, cows only respect physical barriers and so see no ethical dilemma in wandering through a broken section of fence into a neighbour’s field. And there is, of course, the prospect that neighbouring farmers may not be entirely honest and so may decide it makes more economical sense to ignorantly eat your strays that just happened to ‘accidentally blunder in’ among their herd (with the help of a stick) and save their own stock.

And so the brand was invented. Paint can be washed off and a coloured collar can be removed. But a permanent scar burnt into the animal’s rump was an irreversible mark of ownership that could not be disputed.

But the mark had to be robust and distinctive. If you were a farmer by the name of Fred and your neighbouring herdsman was called Paul then there was little point in you branding your entire herd with ‘F’ if all his cattle sported ‘P’ on their rears.

If a brand didn’t press into the skin properly then part of the mark could easily be lost. There were also the natural markings on the animals hide to consider and the fact that this mark would grow with the animal’s skin as it grew and therefore be stretched and distorted with time. So Ps and Fs, Cs and Gs, Os and Qs could all lead to confusion and disputes.

But if farmer Paul has marked his herd with ‘X’ then farmer Fred can brand all his livestock with ‘O’, safe in the knowledge that the markings will be distinct even with the odd misprint and distortion over time.

Even when viewed from a moving horseback in the early dawn light, with the dust kicking up around their hooves, cows with Xs can quickly be separated from those with Os.

Worst case scenario

Many company logos may look like beautiful works of art when viewed full screen on that 21-inch Mac monitor in the perfectly lit design agency’s studio, but how would your company logo look scarred into a cow’s bum?

Okay, so maybe at this moment you are falling back on the assurance that you have never had any desire to see your logo on a cow’s bum and, even if you did, you’re pretty sure that marketing wouldn’t secure the budget for it anyway.

But what about when the web team want to create an icon for the website, those little favourites icons that appear in the top bar of the browser? 16 x 16 pixels is a tiny canvas to work on. Is there any part of your logo that you can isolate and use at that scale and still retain brand recognition?

Working at 16 x 16 can awaken some very old memories.

And how about when your business really takes off and you decide to project your logo onto the side of an office block? How’s it looking now?

All the swirly fiddly bits and the sparkly 3D shiny parts and that lovely drop shadow might look just exquisite on your PowerPoint slides, but how’s it looking once someone prints it off in… horror of horrors… black and white!? And then they fax it over to their head office where the girl on reception photocopies it to 3 generations, as she keeps losing her originals.

Your company brand, the beloved child of so many focus groups, is now a black splodge that looks like the document has been dropped in something nasty on the pavement.

Although it is advisable to have a separate monochromatic version of the logo specifically intended for black and white usage, this logo should still be almost identical to its full colour counterpart.

The moment you create a secondary logo that is significantly different to the main logo is the moment your brand recognition goes out the window.

Life on the bleeding edge

One of the greatest tests of a robust and diverse company brand is the ‘white on black’ test.

There are many occasions whereby a corporate logo may end up being printed black on white. It may be overlaid on top of a photo in a brochure or a dark background on a partner website. It may also appear in a newspaper on a reversed-out advert in order to stand out.

In large print runs the ink can often bleed slightly. Where a logo is printed on a white background, this means that the logo may expand and lose a small amount of definition. On a reversed-out logo however, the effect can be far worse. As a white on black logo is achieved by printing the background, and leaving white space for the logo, any minor shift or ink bleed will result in the background expanding into the logo. Any small intricate details on the edge or thin white lines can easily be lost altogether.

A good test for any prospective logo therefore is to view it reversed out in white on a black backdrop and reduced in size.

The most recognised brands on the globe all have logos that are bold and robust to ensure the integrity of the brand identity is retained in even the most challenging environments. Placing a logo alongside the world’s strongest brands is also a good test of how a concept stands up when viewed alongside other logos in a design.

Any logos produced at Thinctanc are tested in this way to ensure that the concept will work successfully to promote the clients brand, regardless of the medium. It’s also a lot safer than standing at the wrong end of a cow with a hot branding iron.

Rule of Thirds? Eat my shorts!

This is based on a posting made on Flickr.

I uploaded the following image under the title 'Rule of Thirds? Eat my shorts!':
Paul Jerry then posed the question as to whether I was claiming this image does not conform to the rule of thirds.

When I was preparing this image in Photoshop, it started out as a definite 'rule of thirds' looking shot. Hayley was a third of the way across the image, the horizon was a third of the way down the canvas etc.

It looked so structured that I decided to re-crop the image and break out of the rigid grid a bit. So my first answer would have been no.

However, the question got me curious and so I went back into photoshop and threw a grid over it. And of course, ta-da!, the 'rule of thirds' grid magically aligned itself onto the scene perfectly, but this is the main problem I have with a lot of 'rule of thirds' discussion that you see happening. There is more fudge involved than in a Devon craft show.

Some people speak of the rule as some line or transition on the image lining up with the grid lines. Others talk about something significant appearing on the intersections of the gird. Many people seem to mix and match and refer to a bit of both. Because no-one expects the lines on the image to fit perfectly, the acceptable margin of error of how far away the line can be from the grid can become rather wide.

On this particular image I did a rough count and found 12 significant vertical lines and 14 significant horizontal lines, so however you slice and dice this image, a rule of thirds grid will always find some line or other to fall upon. The rule of thirds can be a little too accommodating and welcoming.

If you check out any of the 'Rule of thirds' groups on Flickr they may as well be Flickr Central - anything goes.

I also set up a number of other grids in Photoshop. As you will see below, not only does this image obey the rule of thirds, it also obeys the rule of halves... and the rule of quarters... and the rule of fifths... and the rule of sixths... and the rule of sevenths.

[The significant lines are highlighted with blue and the significant intersections are indicated by the orange glow.]

The Rule of Halves

The Rule of Thirds

The Rule of Quarters

The Rule of Fifths

The Rule of Sixths

The Rule of Sevenths

Some people are prone to mentioning the Rule of Thirds even when it actually has no bearing upon the shot. When you look at D'Vinci's paintings the canvas was 'golden ratio' proportions and the grid was obvious. When you introduce too much ambiguity then the Rule of Thirds loses any significance.

Has 'untitled' lost its lack of meaning?

We have all stood before them and faced their challenge. Mainly in black and white. Whether we were browsing a real 'bricks and mortar' art gallery or wandering round the pages of an online photography site, we have probably found ourselves debating the meaning with a companion or within ourselves. And when we look for a title to seek the creator's take on the intriguing view before us we find no such easy explanation. The piece is untitled or, at least, it claims to be.

Now this is not necessarily a bad thing. Finding no cognitive threads to pull on in the accompanying text we are forced to look afresh at the image before us and seek out some new deeper signs as to its meaning and signifiance. Pictures are supposed to speak a thousand words so just trawling one or two from the depths before us should be an easy task. Being forced to take a second longer glance at any art is a positive action and will often reap rewards.

And it's also true that sometimes a bad title can sour the experience of a great photo. The misplaced joke, the cultural reference that no-one else gets, the long semi-defensive sentence seeking to ensure people read the image 'correctly.'

There is also the time aspect. Particularity in an online environment where photographers can batch upload hundreds of photos in one click - having to go through and title each piece with something clever or witty, plus having to tag every shot with all the words for 'cat' you found in the thesaurus... it can all get a bit tedious. Such frame-by-frame repetitive monotony... best leave that to the animators.

But this isn't solely an issue of efficiency. Sometimes a photo will turn up after a shoot that simply defies an easy analysis. There are some quirky images that are so unique and indefinable that to force them under a particular title is to limit their mysterious nature. If a picture really does speak a thousand words then why limit its message to one or two?

So there is a perfectly legitimate use of untitled photos, but because the legitimate usage applies to images that have a deep and difficult-to-penetrate artistic quality there is a temptation to abuse this association in an attempt to add depth where none exists. When faced with a weaker photo that a photographer is simply unsure of, it is far too easy to slide it in under the 'Untitled' moniker and magically transform the uncertainty into something artistic and mystical.

Due to the seeming impenetrability of 'untitled' works, this being the very nature that required the ambiguous identity in the first place, there is also a temptation to assume that these works are beyond criticism and that anyone who should dare to offer constructive correction is just an ignorant fool who simply 'does not get it.'

And there is also a clear line that needs to be drawn in this discussion between images with no title at all and those entitled 'untitled.' An image with a blank title space is truly untitled, but an image that is oxymoronically entitled 'untitled' shows a deliberate thought process at work and that the rendition of the phrase 'untitled' was a conscious act and not any form of neglect. Even if we accept that 'untitled' is not a title, it is certainly an emphatic statement and a declaration by the artist.

And this is where the issue arises, through its overuse and perceived 'higher art' notions, the 'untitled' statement has now gained meaning. Where as 'untitled' once meant simply that - a lack of title, there is now the added connotation that any photograph named 'untitled' is something astounding and beyond words. There is a feel that these transcendental images defy understanding and should be revered as something that the photographer did not create, but humbly discovered during some unexplained rapturous connection with something divine.

Does this mean that every 'untitled' photo is an example of pretentious self-indulgence? Not at all, but just as the word 'genius' has lost its original power through every intelligent and wise person being labelled as such, so the waters of 'untitled' have been so muddied that its magnanimous, simple intrigue has, in many cases, become a self-awarded badge of honour rather than a humble artistic statement.