OK, designers. Next time you ponder that great visual identity, forget the “visual mark looks good on a fax machine, too” requirement. If Flogos, an Alabama-based special effects company gets their way we’ll all be putting our logo comps through the “looks great chopped out of helium soap bubbles and floating through the sky” test.

They claim to be ready to custom “float” your logo in size increments (diameter?) of 24, 36, and 48 inches. They already have contracts in place with Disney and Universal Studios and pro sports teams are raising eyebrows. In addition to assumed stress relieving benefits of this device to a skeet-shooting logo critic such as myself, the inventors also say they can vary the height of these “cloud advertisements” and the soap/helium mixtures are safe for the environment and airplanes.

There does, however seem to be a number of Flogos skeptics out there with cynical chatter appearing on LiveScience and Brand New over the conquest of pristine “blue sky” space for the purposes of marketing. While I see their point, daytime sky marketing isn’t a new medium (and we don’t even need to discuss “night time signage” using roaming search lights, fireworks, and other darkness shattering media). Airplane banners, sky writing, tethered helium markers and hot air balloons have been around for decades — and arguably do their work in a more visually obtrusive fashion than a few dainty bubbles. Colorado based GoFast, a sports energy drink has even sought to conquest the skys by sponsoring a jet pack team (didn’t know there was such a thing, but it looks like they’re having a “pilot search” if you feel like getting in line as a guinea pig ala flambe’. Boss, consider this my formal request for time off — yee haw!).

So whether you’re a Flogos cynic or a Flogos seeker watching for the first appearance of this thing in your neighborhood (I predict a used car lot), you have to admit there’s something captivating about a free floating logo drifting skyward, with only the wind to guide it. Just try and tell me you’ve never stood there in that crowd — stiff necked and squinting up at that tiny disappearing spec that used to be some kid’s helium balloon while everyone takes turns whispering, “I can still see it!” and “Where’d it go?”. So with that type of captivation, maybe this company has stumbled upon the advertising specialties industry’s lightning in a bottle — or in a bubble? But let’s not even bother asking if there’s a money back guarantee for those unexpected wind gusts.

Under Consideration’s “Brand New Blog” pulled off a nice April Fool’s this year. The blog, a favorite of our creative director Mike VerStrat, provides a daily, rolling (and entertaining) record of prominent corporate identity updates and other significant logo designs. On April 1 they tossed a Ford logo redesign out there and the initial impact was a bit breathtaking. “How could they do that?!?”

Makes you think, though. As troubled as the automaker is, one wonders if an actual makeover would help the company seem more fresh and edgy like their international competitors. However, in my humble opinion, “they are who they are.” What other brands and logos are this “untouchable?” I’ll throw IBM out there to start the discussion…

I really, really like State Farm Insurance’s new “Intersections” television advertising campaign featuring customers describing their situation in life (new father, father whose daughter just got driver’s license, etc.) while standing on a big red “spot.” Kind of like if you zoomed in on one of those maps with a big “You Are Here” spot to find that, well, there you are at the crossroads.

I’ll bet a focus group or survey would reveal that just about everyone picks up on the fact that the elliptical shape of the red spot matches the ovals in the State Farm logo. And to top it off, the “I’m there” slogan is a wonderfully minimalist update of the 65-year old company’s “Like A Good Neighbor State Farm Is There” classic jingle.

Finally something clever as opposed to the clichéd, sappy, over-the-top, or patronizing approaches from the relentlessly pervasive advertising for the FIRE (finance/insurance/real estate) industries.

More background and info: State Farm web site. (Doesn’t look like the campaign has found its way online except for this press announcement, unfortunately. There’s lots of potential…)

There’s a fun new viral web site for a fictional corporation called Buy N Large at www.buynlarge.com. It’s a fairly well-veiled promotion for next summer’s Pixar motion picture release “Wall-E.” The site makes no references to the movie except that the company’s “Robotics” line of products looks suspiciously like a jazzy cast of Pixar-animated characters. You almost “buy” the site as legitimate until you read a little deeper that Buy N Large robots are designed “to perform the tasks we as humans were never really meant to do — lawn mowing. vacuuming, food preparation, surgery, and political decision making.”

I wonder if Disney/Pixar hired actual branding and web design companies to develop the site or if it was created by Pixar writers and artists. Neither would surprise me, but either way this is a dream project: Create — from the ground up — a brand and web site for a “robotics, construction, retail, consumer goods, space, science, and media company.”

For all those of you who have a passion for both graphic design and team sports (I know for a fact my peers are many), you probably already know about the Uni Watch column on ESPN.com and its parent Uni Watch blog. If not, you must, frankly, be standing on the fringe of this demographic. So dive in!!!

Lukas calls his work the “Obsessive Study of Athletics Aesthetics,” with “obsessive” being a titanic understatement. For example, did you know the British Columbia Lions of the Canadian Football League introduced an all-new helmet design just for the post-season, featuring a Clemson Tigers-style “paw” logo? I know … isn’t it great!?!?!

This information really is great fun for design-oriented sports fans. Who among us creatives didn’t cut our identity-system-design teeth as youngsters drawing our favorite sports team logos? Or better yet, inventing teams and making up our own? The logos, the colors, the nicknames … good practice.

More often than not Lukas’ columns involve more than just the latest tweaks to stripes on sleeves and socks. In mid-October two consecutive columns featured downright fascinating (to me, at least) discourses on the real cause of Bill Buckner’s botched Mookie Wilson grounder for the then-cursed Boston Red Sox in the 1986 World Series (October 17) and a little, shall we Detroit Tigers fans say, “theory” about Kenny Rogers’ equipment choices during the 2006 baseball season and postseason (October 23). (This column goes on to provide an intriguing and cool study of the greatest monogram-style logo in the history of professional sports: The “Old English D.”)

Yet another example of the power of the web to inform, engage, and entertain. Uni Watch is one of my short little slices of The Long Tail. What’s yours?

Found an Apple ad archive on macmothership.com. In 1977 they had a brochure cover with liberal use of white space and the headline “Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication.” 1977 … talk about sticking to your guns.

http://blog.elexicon.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/apple.gif

Apparently this promotional video for Appalachian State University is from last year, which makes it all the more painful that it is likely one of the worst ever.   However, is it a good thing or a bad thing considering it has been viewed 130,000 times on YouTube.

Spotted on Byron Center Avenue near the new Metro Health Hospital: COMING SOON: Starbucks.

I’m giddy that this is en route from my home, but I hope the strength of this brand doesn’t result in a rent increase for our nearby Elexicon offices An unintentionally amusing USA Today article (they’re good at those) a few weeks back raised my eyebrow. It says something that a publication would publish a front page article with the headline “Starbucks Nation;” but I’m a bit skeptical. A developer building luxury condos near a Starbucks? Now, that’s a great brand … but a great developer? Hmm.

McDonald’s has so many billboards and such a well-known brand that it is not much of a risk for them to have some fun with the medium.  Gizmodo pointed out a new McDonald’s billboard outside Chicago that functions as a sundial. 

Billboards can be an eyesore, but this is a novel approach that apparently was dreamed up by the Leo Burnett agency.  I guess they had to search high and low to find a billboard location with just the right orientation.