No, it's not dirty.  We're just closed for the holidays.

We absolutely love our jobs here at Stokefire.  On a day to day basis there's nothing we'd rather be doing (except perhaps spending time with our families, which, though fun, does not do a very good job of keeping bills paid.) 

We need to recharge a bit.  2008 was the busiest and best year we've had (since our opening four years ago) but even people who love their jobs have to spend time doing other things to keep life interesting.  So, that's what we're doing.  We're variously hopping on planes, skiing, volunteering, and otherwise not intentionally thinking about the creative stuff that we get paid to think about.  Chances are good we'll accidentally think about it a lot, but we promise not to bill anyone for it. 

So, to all of you readers, clients, employees and families that made this year so incredible I personally want to thank you.  It is only with your enthusiastic support of this dream that we've been able to get this far. 2009 is shaping up to be even better.  I hope you're all here to share the ride with us.  It will no doubt be exciting, bumpy, and rewarding.

We'll be back in the office on January 5th. 

Have a great New Year's celebration.  We'll catch you on the other side.

Stay toasty!

Designers often ask us how we find the designers we work with regularly.  Often it involves designers coming to us for help with brand strategy or naming on a project they've already begun. 

Sometimes, though, we open the doors to try to find up-and-coming designers who understand our philosophies and principles and can both take direction and teach us at the same time.  Many designers think that Crowd Sourcing is the root of all evil.  They see it as akin to doing spec work.  Well, we're not sure whether or not it's spec work, nor whether it is evil, but we do it - and find that we gain exposure to some of the most creative people in the world. 

Yep.  The world.  The last time we used crowdSPRING the selected designer was from Singapore. 

Well, we're doing it again.  We've posted a new project to crowdSPRING and are actively working with designers to develop logo concepts for a charitable insurance brokerage that we've recently branded.  There are some promising ideas that have already been submitted, but that doesn't mean you won't have one that's even better.  We've already begun interacting with every designer that's submitted designs.

There are some sites that really don't do the crowdsourcing thing well.  crowdSPRING isn't one of them.  They enable us (as the client, or the client's agent) to interact publicly and privately with designers, provide coaching, make suggestions, rate work, and all sorts of cool stuff. 

Are there people that abuse it?  Sure.  Lots of buyers put up bad or incomplete creative briefs and don't provide feedback and then get upset when they don't get the results they want.  Designers on these projects are peeved because they did real work, got no feedback, and no one gets paid.  Bad situation all around.  Sounds a lot like that evil spec work stuff.

Spec work.  Yuck.  I've done work on spec in the past and it's never gone well.  The client gets my ideas and I get nothing.  That's why we actively engage with everyone.  We help designers to be better at what they do - both in developing concepts and in selling their ideas.

"But," you say. "I am already good at that stuff and I won't stoop to giving away my work for free."

That's fine.  Great, in fact.  If you're good at the stuff we help with then chances are excellent that you're so busy designing for your clients that you won't have time to participate in any crowdsourcing.  We're saddened that we won't be able to see your work, but it's probably okay since we aren't yet paying the sorts of rates designers with a long queue of projects demand.

But if you have time to surf blogs, submit designs on Threadless, and hang out with your buds Doing the Dew then I've got to ask "why not give it a try?" 

Here's what you get:

• Visibility: Your designs will be seen (and possibly critiqued or rated) by other designers.  (Currently this service is VASTLY underutilized, but it's never too late to try to make it work.)
• Business Development: Stokefire uses crowdsourcing as a sort of interview process.  If you do great work you'll be added to the short list of designers we call on for more sensitive or demanding projects. 
  
• Advice: Guidance from a creative leader at a (somewhat respectable) branding firm.  
• Experience: A small taste of what it's like to partner with us.  The level of interaction is about two percent of what we have with our dedicated designers, but even that is far more than most designers ever have with their clients. 
  
• Portfolio Quality Work: Your work will essentially be art directed, potentially making it more suitable for inclusion in your portfolio.  (If we give your design four or five stars you're welcome to drop our name as a partner.)
• A  chance to get paid quite well. Our projects are typically the highest paid at the time we post them.  We can't help it if someone else jumps above us, of course.  We expect the rates to continue to climb as the portfolio of work we've directed grows.  
• And if you are selected we'll provide your contact information directly to the client so you can work with them directly on future projects.  No need to involve us at all (unless the client asks for us, of course.)
  

That's it. 

If you're a designer and reader of the blog why not drop an idea or two on us and say hello?  (Tell us you're a blog reader and we promise to be on our best behavior.)

In the past few months I've noticed an interesting trend. Many of the larger organizations against which Stokefire competes for major contracts are going through significant reorganizations, layoffs, and general instability.  How is it that an organization like BBDO lays off 200 in a period where quality branding is needed more than ever?  Why is Omnicom handing out 3500 pink-slips?  Even the vaunted Interbrand is looking unstable. 

What's intriguing to me is that the smaller (3 to 20 employee) firms that have their acts together are doing amazingly well.  We're in a horrible market with a bleak outlook and yet suddenly firms that should be suffering are flying higher than ever before. 

Prospective clients that previously passed over smaller firms for the stability of an Interbrand-like behemoth are now calling talented smaller firms for no-bid work.  It's been wonderful (for the small firms) to watch as multi-billion dollar organizations that typically rely on similarly sized branding shops are begining to learn the benefits of working with the best of the small shops.

Anyone else out there seeing this?  Are you (as a small shop employee) getting the chance to go after bigger fish with the down economy?

Too good to resist.

This was sent by a frequent reader who found it over at the FAILBLOG site.  Of particular interest are the suggested methods for becoming either a Graphic Designer or a Public Relations Specialist.  Both involve some combination of bending over and/or grabbing one's ankles. 

If you are in one of these challenging career paths and aren't as successful as you think you should be - consider stretching your "horizons". 





Hooray for Truth in Advertising!

(Yeah, this will be the last fail for awhile, unless you keep sending me such good stuff.)

Discount FAIL.

Here it is: Unless the signal-to-noise ratio improves dramatically (and soon) this period in marketing will be mocked for its complete lack of focus and ability to get any lasting results.

Of course, my only real experience thus far has been with blogging and Twitter. I do believe that Twitter is incredibly powerful, but to my thinking it seems to follow the same logic that does The Joker in the latest Batman film. 

The Joker: [to Dent/Two-Face] Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it. You know, I just... do things. The mob has plans, the cops have plans, Gordon's got plans. You know, they're schemers. Schemers trying to control their little worlds. I'm not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how, pathetic, their attempts to control things really are.

Twitter has no plan when it comes to our brands.  There's no guarantee how anything you present there will turn out.  It's just a bunch of people doing things - like dogs chasing cars.  To be fair, it's hugely powerful, but whose to say that any brand that attempts to capitalize on the dogs here won't be bitten to death? 

I'm all for letting the brand message develop in the hands of the populace, but the Twitterverse isn't the populace.  It's people distilled into indistinguishable bits.  (Just check the last few brand-based Tweets you've received.  Take away the link, name, and photo - can you tell who sent them?)

And to close the loop on the quote above... Is the Joker powerful?  Absolutely!  But I wouldn't trust him to develop my brand. (Unless my brand *was* social media - in which case it might make perfect sense to pay him big bucks.)

Just to show there's no hard feelings, though...  You can follow me @Thingnamer.

Addendum (after a good night's sleep and a few confused responses via email):
I'm not suggesting that Twitter isn't useful - I'm suggesting that Twitter can't be responsible for building your brand for you.  If you take the time to develop your brand independently and then use Twitter as a channel with which to communicate that message it might work - and as Chuck Westbrook pointed out - we've seen Ford, Comcast, and Zappos do pretty well with this.  But note that all of them invested heavily in their brands before they ever attempted anything via social media. 

So I'm not comparing Twitter to other channels, I'm comparing it to other ways you can develop your brand.  I'm, of course, partial to hiring a pro to develop it and then choosing the channels for distribution.  I'm seeing a lot of people who are bypassing the brand development altogether and just taking their raw message to the universe in 120 character blocks.  It results in stuff like "Please check out my website" and "I just posted an awesome blog - go read it!" and "Vote for me in the #shortyawards! Now!"

No brand.  No strategy.  Just dogs chasing cars.

Just because a media channel is free doesn't mean that you don't need to invest before you use it. 

It's just dogs chasing cars...

Enough!

After being hounded by a few very respected clients (they know who they are) we're finally admitting that we do graphic design work.  We're still not artists, mind you - just storytellers that happen to use design as a crutch. 

We've done a couple designs recently in-house and are getting very good at leveraging crowd-sourcing as well.  Here's a design we recently developed for the Veterans in Business conference... 



(All images are trademarked by their owner.)

Note that we did not use any typography at all for the basic icon.  We developed a few different presentations.  The first one (above) was meant to tell the story of Veterans in Business in a single image.  The ribbon, hand and briefcase combine for what we see as a very clear representation of the brand of the conference.  It seemed to capture the "From Battlefield to Boardroom" attitude that everyone talked of.

Additionally we wanted the conference to be able to market the design in the real-world.  Selling actual ribbons of this sort.  They agreed...

We also developed a companion piece to this for use on banners...



This one provides a series of well-known medals (in appropriate honor-based order) with our new design filling the final (least honor) spot.  It was a sensitive issue, since we were putting a fake medal on the same field as those for which people have died.  We were someone reassured when the Veterans Administration (significant contributor to our client's event) asked if they could use the logo as well. 

The last piece was the title - for use on printed materials, since they had to tell people what the logo was for at some point.  We developed a simple concept that could be used year-to-year with the addition of a date and location as necessary.

I've hesitantly stuck my toe in the waters of social media.  Yup.  I can now be followed "@Thingnamer".  Sadly I'm not really sure what this means. 

So far I'm finding the experience to be interesting, though I'm noting a trend that isn't particularly useful.  You see, most of the people tweeting for businesses are busily telling everyone how you really shouldn't overtly market your business using twitter.  A whole industry has been created within Social Media - selling advice and strategy for better using the very tool that everyone is busy using.  It's a bit like having people shout at you while you're listening to the car radio.  Some people want you to have it louder, others say you need a different channel... and then there are those who try to sell you a new radio while you're still admiring your new one.  The sheer number of twitter tools that are hawked (free or otherwise) every hour is astounding. 

The real purpose of this post is to notify those of you who are regular readers of my blog posts about the new way to access my innermost external thoughts, and to make me look more popular by having you join my twitter feed (@thingnamer.)  I'm ready to begin dominating the social marketing space with my strategery. 

Please note that I'm not fond of the "followers" name used to denote that people are reading a feed.  Instead I will refer to you as minions.  Better for my ego.

Any branders out there finding Twitter to be a useful tool for something other than selling social media advice?

We do a lot of work in the non-profit space, much of it focused on adjusting or developing brand names so that they'll stand out in the acronym jungle.  Acronym Finder, when used in combination with other tools such as dictionaries and information consolidators, can be a big help when trying to get a client to move away from a name that will grant them instant anonymity.

Usually clients come to us because they want to get away from acronyms, but sometimes they still want us to see if we can find a way to work with one.

Here's an example of how to use it:
Let's say you or your client thinks that "AABC" is the perfect acronymic name.  Just take a quick look in the Acronym Finder to see how much competition there is.  Sometimes an acronym is relatively clear, sometimes it's amazingly crowded.  Is your client going to be more effective than the 80+ current meanings of the acronym?  (It categorizes verified acronyms by type, and lists unverified acronyms on its sister site - the Acronym Attic.)

A couple months ago we were contacted by Open Text (a $1.4 billion technology firm) to help them launch their Web 3.0 program.  The products and platforms were just about ready to go, but there was no agreement on what to call it.  With Content World (their annual convention) rapidly approaching they picked up the phone and got us working on the problem.

The solution they were branding is a plug-and-play social platform that allows for organic formation of working teams, knowledge-bases, and other social benefits that are typically absent from Enterprise Content Management.  Rather than just storing away corporate data, this makes it available to everyone (after they're authenticated, of course) and ensures that the best ideas and findings are identified and encouraged to grow.  Pretty cool, right? 

We worked with senior-level executives in charge of marketing, product management, and product development to come up with the new identity.  It is important to note that this wasn't just about coming up with a name - it needed to be deeper than just a label.  It had to be something that people could embrace, something that developers and designers can integrate into the way the product looks, feels, and works...

We developed about two hundred concepts and presented approximately twenty-five to the Open Text identity team.  Of those we quickly reduced it to a list of four and sketched out what these identities could do and how they could be executed. 

The Open Text team worked hard to identify the identity with the most promise - one that could grow with them as the movement became real and turned into a corporate mission. 

The name?  "Bloom."

(It's our first product name that got Twittered.  Or is it "Tweeted.")


We love the selection and can see that it connects on many, many levels.  For instance:

• The solution encourages users to grow
• The solution enables the cross-pollination of ideas and teams
• The solution enables organic growth of orgnaizations and ideas
  
• The solution maximizes the value of other products - making them work beyond their current potential (allowing them to bloom.)
  
• The solution allows for the harvest of the best concepts

It's also got a great sound and mouth feel.  It has that double letter that allows it to feel modern (given today's trends involving long vowels) but won't age as quickly as the uber-trendy nonsensical stuff that clutters this space.  And after checking in over 40 languages we found no horrid translation or transliteration issues.

The name was announced at Context World and has been received well by the user community.  We're looking forward to more from this very capable executive team.