I’m bummed about no camping, too, although I’ve never camped, but I’d be willing to open up my pad for folks coming in from out of town looking for a place to crash. Seriously.

Branding for a music festival is great, because you’ve got so much creative freedom, and I get to draw stuff – like the logo! It’s all done by hand, with the exception of the annual logotype. We do a lot of our work here in an organic way, going back to the roots of drawing by hand, which is something that a lot of designers have lost, sadly. One other thing that makes branding for a festival a bit different is that the logo itself kind of becomes the art for the poster and lots of different applications for branding, from advertising, the program, t-shirts, etc. Hopefully it’s well received!

The website will be ready to  rock next week and I can’t wait to launch. It’s definitely been one of the most fun projects for Birthmark to-date and we’re definitely proud to be a part of the festival again this year. Let’s make lemonade people!

Small business owners, if this even slightly resembles what your business cards look like – you’re probably scaring people. Just like a good business card design can make a great impression right off the bat, the opposite is also true. This guy came to my door today claiming he sells Direct TV. He gave me a business card and a photocopied flier as well. I actually seriously considered calling the cops on the guy. I don’t know for sure whether this guy is legit or not, but just by looking at his card, I’m thinking probably not.

There’s not even the slightest chance I would consider calling this guy. Personally, he made a decent impression. He was polite and dressed business casual. Regardless of what he looks like, or what kind of personality he may have had, I don’t believe this guy is legit – and even if he was, from the looks of this card, his service or product is probably REALLY bad. Please, please, small business owners, don’t go out like this guy and scare people out of doing business with you. I beg you!

Check out this video (will open in a new window) of a few kids who were interviewed about just how familiar they are with brands and what the various brands mean to them.

1. We Get To See Success First-Hand
With small businesses, there’s just not a lot of red tape. I understand that you could work for a company of just about any size and develop good relationships, but with a small business, specifically, you really get to see their success first-hand. There’s such a feeling of satisfaction when we know that our work has made a difference in their bottom line.

2. We Have the Opportunity to Educate and Lead
About half of the small businesses we work with have little-to-no experience with branding. This provides a great opportunity for us to educate our clients and lead them through the process of defining, and building their brand. Then, we get to watch them experience the difference that good branding makes, not just for sales and marketing, but also for developing culture within their business, and often, sparking a new passion for their business. There’s just nothing like watching someone learn something new, and then apply it. We thing it’s pretty darn special.

3. The Feeling of Being a Valued Resource
When we help small businesses, nine times out of ten, we end up as their ultimate resource for marketing, branding and design. We help our clients with everything from strategy, to naming, logo design, website design and development, social media, SEO, and more. It’s a lot of fun to work on the big-picture level, and also work on the small details of a brand for a small business. We’re an important resource for our clients and that is extremely rewarding.

Sometimes we think it’s good to remind yourself why you got into business in the first place. Can you think of three reasons you love to do what you do? Feel free to comment on what you do, and why you love doing it! Maybe writing it out will help remind you of why you got started in business in the first place!

Just watching these trailers simply blew me away and got me so excited for what was to come – they took me to a hole-nutha-level! Now, my expectation for what’s cool in movies just went up about 10 notches (on a scale of 1-10). No longer are animated movies simply enough in 2D – now I EXPECT the full experience of things popping out in front of us, satisfying my sense of sight, sound and (almost) touch.

Now you’re probably not going to rush out and make a 3D movie, but you can raise the expectations of your fans, friends and brand-loyalists by taking your brand to an HNL. How can you reach HNL status?

You’ll need three things:

1. Creativity, 2. Technology, 3.Passion

1. Creativity – Creativity is what gets people excited – it’s a new (or re-interpreted) idea. It’s Tim Burton’s remake of Alice and Wonderland. It’s Radiohead’s In Rainbows. It’s Obama’s use of technology in his political campaign. It’s Cake Batter at Coldstone Creamery. New. Creative. Fresh. You get the picture. You NEED creativity to EXCEED expectations because the expectations have already been set – your brand must raise the bar! You can only do this by doing something new or different (can you say Apple?).

2. Technology: Social media. Free social media like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook are reaching the user on a personal level and have gained access to the lifeblood of just about every human being on the planet (as far as technology goes): their cell phones! Now (as a social media expert friend of mine recently said) businesses control the conversation and decide when they would like to communicate up-to-the-minute information that a user simply can’t (or won’t) get by just visiting your brand’s website when they get around to it.

If you can get people excited enough about you to follow you (and stay your follower!) then you can begin to reach people on a HNL.

3. Passion – You can’t do much without passion. Your creative branding efforts will be exceedingly painful, dull and eventually, you’ll just shrivel up and die (we don’t want that). You must find whatever it is that sparked the passion for what you do, who you do it for, etc. again, or find a new reason to be passionate about it. Once you’ve got passion, baby, there’s no stopping you!

So, are you ready to take your brand to a Hole-Nutha-Level? BTW – you’re probably asking, why HOLE instead of Whole? Because somewhere out there, there’s a Hole with an idea in it waiting for you to grab it, my friend! Go get it – and bring along technology and passion, too. They’ll help it grow.

Once we got in, we were handed a program printed on newspaper, and yet again, was a completely different logo on the cover – this one was completely different than the other two I had seen on the street sign and the website. It was a lot more fun and festive looking, but it also looked kind of like clipart. Take a look at the two main differences of the festival logos:

Why use two logos for one event? It was pretty clear upon visiting the website, and then seeing the mis-matched signage and program that the festival not quite sure how to brand itself yet. There was no real message or tagline that informed me as to who they are or what they’re about that gave me any kind of emotional connection with the festival.

The logo that was used on the website had more of a modern and reserved look, but the one on the actual program, as you can see was completely different. The festive one was colorful, playful and fun, while the other logo was contemporary, and more business looking. Surely they could have stuck a balance between the two and just found one solution. I searched all across their site and found no use of the more festive logo, however, I did see that on the page about their 5K race, they were still using last year’s logo.

Developing a compelling message and consistently utilizing it across all mediums is critical to creating a memorable brand identity and building brand awareness. In this economy you have to utiize every dollar effectively. Not only does a consistent identity help to create awareness, but it also gives the impression that you are organized and have a clear vision. Are you using your brand identity consistently across all mediums and experiences? If not, you’re wasting time, money and brand equity.

So how do you use your identity consistently?
One way that has been used in many corporations for years is to develop a brand standards guide. This is typically a book, or .pdf file that contains your brand history, brand attributes, and logo in all acceptable uses, pantone colors, all acceptable fonts, a consistent grid in which your pages are structured with, among other things. These can be an investment up front to develop, as they do take some time, but the payoff is that you’ll have a guide in which to use across all vendors, mediums and experiences that will keep your brand consistent and build brand equity. When you develop a brand standards guide, you’ll not only create a unified look and feel, but you’ll create a consistent compelling message that people will recognize and remember.

Once we got in, we were handed a program that was really informative and laid out all the events, times and locations in an easy-to-find format. The first thing we did was check out the helicopter that Arizona Search and Rescue had displayed. They’re not funded by the state and they volunteer their time and money to do their jobs so they were there to raise a few bucks. They had some sherrif Joe boxers for sale and if you bought some merchandise, you could get your photo taken in the helli. I got a pair of pink Sherrif Joe boxers (for the wife!) and we got a few snapshots – they’re supposed to email them to me soon and I’ll post them here.

The kids and I bought some tickets and went on a few rides. Their favorite was the bean bag slide. I loved seeing their smiling faces as they slid down the rainbow colored slides at lightning speed on potato sacks – that was awesome. Next, we got a few snacks and bought a cup for $4 that was refillable for $2 for soda, which I thought was a pretty cool thing, considering most drinks are like $4 a pop. We then saw a really funny street act, where the guy was juggling flames, cups, all kinds of stuff, while telling jokes. He even had a cool poem that he recited about living life to the fullest every day, while juggling a machetti, a ham and a flaming torch.

We then went to see a pretty entertaining stunt show (I later found out that earlier that day, a guy was critically injured while practicing for the show). The main event was the ostrich race. We got there right at 2:00pm and it was packed. We could barely find a spot where we could see the races. I was really excited to see the race becaue I’ve never seen an ostrich race before. Here’s where things got interesting…

…The MC was announcing all of the jockeys participating. He said that the jockeys could weigh no more than 150 lbs. and then he gave each jockey a quick interview that we could all hear. One of the jockeys was a woman who said that “she definitely weighed under 150 lbs.” but would give no more detail than that, and rightly so! So a few minutes later they were off. Even though we were standing towards the back of the really large crowd, I could still see the main drag all the way up to the turn, and the ostriches took off way faster than I had anticipated. They were really tall and you could see the top half of their bodies, and their long necks and heads – they bolted down the drag.

Then, the rider I was watching looked like she was loosing her grip going down the main drag. She seemed to lean more and more to the left until she finally fell off! She tripped the ostrich and the giant bird fell right on top of the poor girl. Everything just stopped. At first, I think most people probably thought to just shrug it off, but when the girl lay there motionless, you knew something was seriously wrong. At that point, you knew that this was more than just a little accident.

5 or 6 people ran out to her, and then you could hear the shouting. The girl looked like she was convulsing, as her legs were shaking what looked like uncontrollabley. Then you heard the MC start yelling for an EMT. At that point, I grabbed my kids and we decided we’d had enough for one day. While we left, we said a quick prayer for the girl together and hoped she’d be okay. Man, what a day! I’ve been doing google searches trying to find out any news on the poor girl, but haven’t come up with anything. If you’re reading this and you know what’s happened to her, please drop a comment!

I think I’ll go back next year to see the ostrich races. They do have a lot of things going on and it’s a good event for families that won’t break the bank.

The ones that stand out to me are Allison Iraheta and Adam Lambert. The rest of the contestants are still pretty good, but they don’t seem to have an identity or musical style that really grabs me. Allison and Adam have both been consistent in delivering great performances, while staying true to their rockstar identities. They don’t just deliver consistent performances, but there’s some real talent there. From the way they dress, to the way they perform to their vocals, they’ve just got it (IMO). The rest have stories and identities, but I believe that Allison and Adam are a few giant steps ahead of the rest.

Having an interesting identity has also helped Megan Corkrey stay on the show. IMHO, she’s a horrible singer, and rather annoying (but beautiful!), but she has an identity that appeals to the judges, and apparently a few others, as she’s still on the show – so her identity has actually saved her! Michael Sarever – the oilrigger, has a great story and has remained true to his identity, and I think people like that about him. Danny Gokey and Scott Macintyre (from Scottsdale!) both have great stories, but Danny is trying to make the transition from Gospel to Pop Culture and he seems to be sort of stuck in the middle. The rest, to me are rather forgettable (Simon Cowell voice).

Weeding out the remaining 11 contestants will be interesting. I think while the rest of the contestants are trying to figure out who they are, the ones who already know who they are will be on the top and have the advantage.

Think about how this applies to your business. Do you have a memorable identity that appeals to your market? Do you know who you are and is that clear in your communications? If not, I encourage you to start thinking about it. This requires asking yourself some honest questions, brainstorming, and spending some quality time reflecting on who you are.

Be memorable, tell your story. Even if you have a product or service that is common, if you have an appealing identity, you’ll still differentiate yourself. If you’ve got a great product or service AND a solid identity, you’ll be right up there with the winning American Idol (Go Allison!).

I recently went into Starbucks – now I don’t go there all that often anymore (Dunkin’ Doughnuts stole my heart), but I recently ran out of coffee here at home and needed to run somewhere close by to get my mornin’ fix. The people in the Starbucks were friendly, funny and just plain cool. I had sort of written off Starbucks because of my budget, but I found myself saying I’d definitely come back because I had a good experience with the people that worked in the shop.

I can’t say this enough – your brand is not just how you project yourself to the world, it’s how the world see’s you as well. Give your customers a great brand experience and hire good people that know how to work well with your clients or customers – they will be worth their weight in gold.

To any designers out there reading this, if you’re helping your clients to build their brand, encourage them to not only focus on the outward appearance, but the inward motivations of building genuine and sincere connections with the people they work with. Good service is good branding.

When making a video for social media, you need not have a huge budget – it’s the idea and how you brand it that counts – if you look at any of their other videos, they do a really great job of consistently branding themselves. They just don’t make ‘em like this anymore, folks.