We’ve been applying the finishing touches on a branding overhaul that Whitestone Design Werks created for JEB Commerce which we announced last September. In that post, our intent (both JEB Commerce and WDW) was to highlight the whole process step by step for the benefit of other businesses considering what it would take to re-invent their identity and infuse their brand with a new fresh, life. Well, the best-laid plans of mice and men…

As a consolation, we are now providing highlights of the new identity system and how it has been applied across the board to all of the collateral pieces needed for conducting a successful business. After showing what was originally being used by JEB Commerce after the jump, we’ll show the new identity living and breathing in all of it’s new environments.

Here is the original JEB Commerce logo as it appeared on their old website…

…and the new JEB Commerce logo.

And here is the new identity applied to the new website along with new supporting graphics. WDW also provided design and production for the new JEB Commerce Website and Blog.

JEB Commerce stationary system.

Here’s an example of the identity applied to the Twitter background for JEB Commerce on Twitter.

And Whitestone Design Werks also supplied portrait photography for the JEB website and applied the identity to their profile picture for their main Facebook page.

There were many other items that we haven’t included here and a few things that are still in the pipeline, but this should give you an idea of a basic minimum of elements for logo application for any business’ identity system. As you can see, an identity system is more than just a logo.

The bottom-line is that JEB Commerce and Jamie Birch in particular, went from exploring a low-priced, crowd-sourced solution that seemed very affordable, but would have only resulted in an EPS file that they would have then had to have supplied to vendors, web developers and whatever other service providers would have been necessary to produce all the necessary elements.

Like many small businesses just starting out armed with a cheap or free logo file, with the many different vendors responsible for different applications of the logo, along with the varied interpretations of design, would have guaranteed a mish-mash of inconsistent logo application across the board—not to mention the overall poor quality of logo designs that were to be chosen from in the first place. It may have been cheap, but they would have paid dearly in the lost opportunity to shine and gain the respect and trust of both their current and potential clients with a well-crafted identity system—wasting their hard work in building the JEB brand over the past few years.

As a business just starting out, you may not have realized what all was involved and how important your identity was, but now that you are on the cusp of expanding into new territories or getting ready to take your business into the next level of competitiveness and effectiveness, now is the time to seriously consider taking advantage of this time to invest in and re-invent your identity to reflect the new maturity and savvy of your brand. You’re playing with the big-boys now and its time to start looking like it.

For next week, we’ll post some of the other designs explored for the new JEB Commerce identity and hopefully shed a little light on the creation process itself.

It took me awhile to get this posted. Not sure if it was the fact that I’ve had an incredibly busy month or that I was just tired (it is getting a little old) of posting how many times I’ve had to bake my MacBook Pro now—six for anyone whose counting (hence the clever “hexed” title). I’m getting more than a little self-conscious about mentioning it now, specially when you read further and find out how my n00bness has more than likely contributed to this multi-bake syndrome. I’m really only posting this for the benefit of those who will experience the same issue or similar and that they might avoid my fate—so read on.

This last time was the shortest time between bakes—just three measly weeks. The circumstance surrounding this issue was a little different than the previous times if nothing more than the coincidence of having it happen the day after I made a scheduled visit to my local Apple Store in Spokane (deliberately on Steve Jobs birthday, 2/24 hoping to take advantage of any extra reality distortion fields that might be present) to try one more time to have them test my system to see if it would produce the Nvidia error (see my first article: Cooking The Books). I have to take my hat off to the two techs (er, geniuses) that tried everything they could think of to get it to produce the Nvidia error (I’m pretty sure there were some serious voodoo incantations involved) but alas, to no avail. My system was perfectly fine, or so it would seem. I was entirely honest with them about the history of my system and told them all about my baking experiences and they seemed genuinely appreciative that I had been so forthright and seemed to go the extra mile as a result. But, the final verdict was that the system appeared to have no issues that would qualify it for the Nvidia repair policy or any other policy. In short, I was hosed if my board ever refused to come back from the dead.

They did encourage me that if I had them send my system to the main Apple Repair Center that there was a good chance that they “might” be able to replace the logic board for the minimum $310 but, that if it was determined by the tech that accidental damage had occurred like being dropped or spilling a Mountain Dew  on the keyboard (which has never happened) or the premature yellowing of all the stickers from being baked several times and slightly stripped hex screws (that has definitely happened) that I would be liable for the whole cost of replacing the board which was still $1100 at the time of their quote.

I went home disappointed but thankful my system has been able to go through its repeated resurrections and that I would wait until it died again before taking my chances and bringing my system in. Little did I know that would happen to be the very next day. Lo and behold, that very night, I closed my system just to transport it into another room and when I went to open it, it would not wake up. Now in the past when this occurred, I had gone through many troubleshooting steps which would always involve doing a hard power down by holding in the power button for several seconds. Once that had taken place, it has never recovered on its own without baking. All of the times that I had had the system looked at by Apple techs, the system had been powered down. This time though, I thought I would try to take advantage of the fact that it was still “on” but dead—hoping that there might be some forgotten voodoo chant that could be summoned that would shed light on the root cause of my system failures. I decided to leave my system on and I scheduled another Genius Bar appointment as early as possible the next morning.

Now Coeur d’Alene isn’t that far from Spokane. It’s only 35 miles from my door to the downtown Spokane Apple Store location but 70 miles round trip (which I used to make every day for quite a few years). But it takes about 45 minutes each way and almost a quarter of a tank of gas in my Jeep so you don’t make the decision to go into Spokane if you don’t have to. That said, my expectation was that I was taking advantage of this “powered-on” condition hoping it might make a difference in diagnosing the problem. However, when I finally slid my MBP onto the Genius Bar counter to have a new tech, er, genius, take a look at it, I tried to be very careful in explaining the situation of the “on condition” to which he unhesitatingly responded to by immediately powering down the system, to my dismay, to go through all the same troubleshooting techniques that I told him has already previously been done many times over. Which, predictably resulted in the same result—nothing. Now, to give the guy a break, there’s probably nothing that could have been done, but I would have at least liked for him to have acknowledged and appreciated the fact that I was hoping to take any possible advantage of the “on condition” and then tell me why that wouldn’t make any difference. Instead, the impression I had was that he didn’t hear anything I had just said and went into robot-mode and instinctively powered the system down—doh!

Well, I turned around and drove back the 35 miles home in 45 minutes and another eighth of a tank of gas, completely disappointed. I then proceeded to bake the system for the sixth successful time. The difference this time is that on the way home, I stopped at Radio Shack and picked up a small tube of Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste. This is the one thing that I have not done on any previous baking attempt. In my defense it wasn’t mentioned in some of the other articles and videos that I had used for my initial research so I didn’t think that it was really necessary. As it began to dawn on me that this was probably the main culprit behind the fact that I have had to bake the system multiple times, I had resolved that the next time I would make sure to apply the step of thoroughly cleaning off the old thermal paste residue and applying the new paste.

I have now had the system up and running for over a month now (so longer than last time but still aways from the four month record) so I think that the thermal paste has made the difference. There were some other complicating issues between the fifth and sixth bakes besides the voodoo visit to the Apple Store and that was that I had upgraded to OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and swapped out my old 250GB hard drive for a new 500GB. I had noticed after upgrading to 10.6 a dramatic increase in fan usage so I am suspicious that it may have also played a role in the shorter timespan between bakes 5 and 6.

Well, now onto the “hope” part. That same afternoon after I got home and got my system back online, it just so happened that I had received an email invitation to partake in an online survey of my experience with the service of the Genius Bar…so, I told them, in a respectful and kind but lengthy response of my disappointment. That evening I received a phone call from the store manager where I reiterated in more detail my story to which he seemed genuinely motivated to try to take care of my situation and make it right. I was able to get his word that if I decided to bring my system in for repair of the logic board that he would have the store do the repair rather than sending it out to Apple’s Repair Center and guaranteed that it would only cost me the $310 to replace the logic board (assuming that was the only thing wrong). While free would have been obviously better, I consider that a pretty good deal considering the original Apple Care was for $250 (which I should have paid for), I’m only out another $60 more than that. So, now the only thing is finding the time in my schedule along to take advantage of this offer. Meanwhile, my hexed system keeps on keeping on.

Hopefully the next post will only be about having the logic board successfully replaced. Although, seven is a perfect number. To be continued…

Just thought I’d post a quick link to a New York Times article that ran today that outlines the plight of high schools across the country that are facing the legal issues of trademark infringement with the colleges and universities that they have “borrowed” for their own mascot logos. Buna High School and Penn State are mentioned very briefly in passing, but it’s resulted in an increase of searches reaching the original Buna Trademark Infringement article I posted back in June.

Colleges Tell High Schools Logos Are Off Limits

I think the bottom-line is that it’s easy to think of the big schools as the “bullies” picking on these poor little ol’ high schools who just want to have a decent mascot to showcase their school pride, but it highlights the issue of how valuable an identity can be to an organization that has invested resources, both financial and the physical effort of building a winning sports program that elevates the status of that mascot identity and how important it is to protect that investment from being trivialized by overuse by other organizations that haven’t made that same investment.

Just like any corporation, these colleges and universities have earned the right to reap the benefits that a popular mascot brings to a school through the merchandising of all the possible items that a mascot logo can be applied to. It’s not too different than if someone tried to list Stanford or Harvard on their résumé or C.V. when they only went to a local junior college, or state college but they would like to reap the benefits of what a more “prestigious” school would bring without having to make the same financial and academic commitments that it takes.

Are these “poor little ‘ol high schools” helpless if they want to have a dynamic-looking mascot that captures the spirit and pride that they are trying to instill into their student bodies? No, there is a plethora of design resources available to any high school or school district, but the sad reality is that for the most part, these schools and districts have no idea how to valuate their need for a good mascot identity and rarely (if ever) budget accordingly the necessary funds to enlist the services of a talented designer or agency and are then shocked when they do have to scramble to seek out pricing for a new logo in the face of a cease and desist letter.

The first instinct is to do a hasty Google search of their particular mascot only to realize that all the good versions already belong to another college or university or if it is free clip art, it is so hokey that they would be ashamed to have on any uniform or helmet (that’s your first hint of the value of a good design). Usually the second option is to quickly organize a “logo design contest” for the students in the art or graphic design departments. While there is a chance that a particular school may have a budding talent in their midst that may be able to hit a home run with a winning design that everyone falls in love with (I’m still trying to get my old high school to consider a design I came up with back when I went), but that would be the rare exception rather than the rule. The reality is usually the best submitted designs are not much better than the cheesy free clip art that everyone would be embarrassed to wear.

So, what to do? While I wouldn’t mind taking in a lot of mascot design work (contact me at (208) 640-0022 or go to my Contact page) if you wanted to keep it local, search for a good design firm or designer in your area. I would use the keywords “identity design” rather than just “logo design” as with just “logo design” you will be absolutely overwhelmed with the amount of options to wade through and try to figure out who’s legitimate, who’s affordable and what do you actually get when you purchase a design.

A big thing to consider is most so-called logo design sites will only get you a logo in maybe two file formats. You’re on your own if you want to know how to use the files and apply it to all the items that need to be branded. That is why you want to search for identity design. Identity takes into consideration the whole package, not just the actual logo or mark design. An identity designer will help you apply the design to all your needs as well as probably come up with ideas you may never have thought of. The identity designer will also have a more comprehensive understanding of the whole branding process and how to think through those issues in applying a well-thought out mascot design. For instance, there are many different applications of a typical logo that most people don’t realize. There is at a minimum at least of a positive version and reversed version to go on different backgrounds in addition to 4-color, 2-color and 1-color applications. Many times there are horizontal as well as vertical versions to be placed in different layout situations. Then there are the different sizes of each versions—usually at least three sizes (small, medium and large) and those sizes have to apply to the positive and reversed, horizontal and vertical versions of the design. Then you also have print versions and on screen versions. It is not uncommon to have between 30 and 50 and sometimes into the hundreds of different possible iterations of the logo for all possible applications.

Usually, just like a corporate identity, a college or university will also have a graphic or style usage guide produced that shows how the logos are to be applied and which logos to use in different situations. All of this takes time and resources and can quickly add up. While a typical high school dealing with constantly shrinking budgets may just find that scale of investment impossible, it should at least factor in a realistic budget for an identity solution on the lowest end of between $1,500 to $2,500. More comprehensive solutions will be $5,000 and up. But a good designer or design firm should be able to discuss what your absolute minimal needs are and be able to work within your budget. While there are many places that offer $500 logos (and even less), beware of what they actually promise to deliver, because you will most likely be left with just a JPEG and an EPS version of one logo design and you will be at the mercy of whatever interpretation of how to use the files that your vendors will invariably come up with if not directed correctly.

Once any school goes through this process, they will begin to realize why the big schools place such a premium on the value of their trademarked identities and after any school has put that much effort into their new school mascot and then they see another school “borrow” their mascot design without going through the same financial commitment to the process, they’ll appreciate why the big schools aggressively protect the use of their trademarked designs. At the NCAA university level, an identity design budget will typically fall in the range of between $10,000 and $20,000 and can easily exceed $50,000 for larger schools with many different program, print and signage applications. They’ll also appreciate why “borrowing” is actually “stealing” when they realize that someone else is using something that cost them nothing (further eroding the perception of the value of good design) and benefitting from the substantial investment of someone else. That goes even beyond lying about where you went to school on your résumé to claiming to be someone else entirely and being hired for their accomplishments and not yours.

And finally, the pride of ownership of your school’s own, unique identity is priceless. Buna High School can now be so much more proud of their own cougar than the “lifted” Nittany Lion they were using for years knowing that they are the only school in the country with that logo. Not even Penn State can say that.

I’ll leave the issue of whether a high school should go through the effort of trademarking their own mascot like the big schools for a future post.

Wondering what pairs best with a refried MacBookPro logic board? Well, just in case you were, my suggestion would be a 2008 Viognier from Coeur d’Alene Cellars (full-disclosure: they are a client of mine and they keep me supplied). I would also recommend as an après-bake maybe a Merlot. I happened to have the remains of a 2007 Hogue Genesis Merlot that filled in quite nicely. I needed it as I was In the process of baking my MBP logic board for the second time.

This is a follow-up article to my 4/27/10 Cooking The Books post for those who might be wondering how long a baked mother board lasts…

As it turns out, almost exactly three months. Three months and one day to be exact for my case. The system first went down on March 27, 2010. I originally baked it and got the system back up on April 2, 2010 and it lasted until July 3, 2010.

After putting my system to sleep for the night by closing the lid and going to bed last Friday night (like I normally do), I discovered the next morning when I went to open the case, that my glowing/pulsing power light was off—just like the last time. I then proceeded to open the lid and nothing. After a quick press to see if I could wake the system up, I held the power key down to power-down the system. No sound, Nothing. I then pressed the power button again and, just like before, I heard a whirring of the optical drive and the glowing/pulsing power light came on, but nothing else. No start-up chime, no screen. Nothing. When I left the system on for a little while, it would heat up as if it were running, but there was never any hard drive spinning, whirring, clicking sounds indicating the hard drive was being accessed.

Rather than waste any more time trouble-shooting and after a quick-glance at Craigslist didn’t produce any incredible “I have to give away my perfectly good MBP because I’m stupid and switching back to Windows XP” offers, and the fact that I hadn’t yet secured the necessary funding to replace my system outright like I had hoped to do before this situation occurred again, I quickly committed myself to doing another bake-off in the evening after the family had gone to bed.

Since basically what I did was the same exact thing that I outlined in my earlier Cooking the Books article, I won’t bore you with the details again. Suffice it to say, that I did the entire process in easily half the time that it took me originally. I’ve gotten quite comfortable tearing apart my system and putting it back together. I also didn’t have to keep running back to my other desktop system to reread an article or re-watch a video—I knew what I was doing this time. I just went to my original article, double-checked the temperature and timing (375°F for 7 min and 30 sec). I did do something different this time in that I increased the heat slightly to 385°F just to see if it would soften the soldering joints more thoroughly this time. It would probably be helpful to have an accurate oven thermometer if you were going to do this on a regular basis—that and it comes in handy for baking real food too.

After cooling (er, resting), I re-assembled my MBP and then trepidously pressed the power button and viola: my system came to life without even rebooting—it restored the session from the sleep state that I put it in the night before (note to Apple engineers: there’s a clue there somewhere). This is after repeated powering down and up and then the removal of the battery and then the whole logic board! I didn’t try booting without the battery like I did last time—so that’s possibly a clue too.

I went ahead and shut all the apps down and rebooted the system just to clear all the cobwebs and was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t have to reset my passwords again like last time. Again, probably a result of not trying to power up without the battery or zapping PRAM and all the other keyboard/bootup sequences I tried the first time this happened.

The other good thing about this time around is that I recovered a broken USB port that I had lost with the last baking session. It had retained the ability to pass power to an item (so I used it for my cooling base) but no drives were recognized when plugged in. So, that is cool, because I have several drives and peripherals that I run off the USB ports and it had cramped my style on more than one occasion.

So, all that is to say that if you ever find yourself in the situation of having to bake your mother board and wonder how long is this going to last? In my case it was right around 3 months. The good news is that the system seems to be able to handle at least one repeat baking, but how many more is a big question and I’m not sure I really want to make more of a habit out of this—no matter how fast I get at doing it. So, I’m on an accelerated plan to replace my system as soon as I can. I’ll let you know so you can be sure to check Craigslist for a “not-so-perfectly good MBP because I’m stupid and didn’t get Apple’s 3-year extended warranty and now I have to sell it for a fraction of its normal resale value” deal. Now, where’s that Merlot?

I do have to say that the saving grace in this storm is that it was cold and the snow was light and fluffy. So, while shoveling light, fluffy snow can be a challenge in itself (think eating peas with a butter knife), it is not as hard as shoveling wet snow. And I have to give a big shout out to my neighbors who pitched in shovels, backs, snow-blowers and plow-equipped ATV’s to help everyone shovel out each other’s driveways. Even with all the help, I pretty much missed a whole day of work shoveling. And I work from home!

So, I’m enjoying the effects of Advil now and resting up for another storm supposed to hit on Sunday that they say will bring possibly another 4-6″ of snow. Bring it on. What’s 6″? Heck, I’ll take 12″! I just hope I don’t have to shovel 30″ of snow in my lifetime again!

So, what is still missing? One of the things that Matthew mentioned was actually having a video Skype line open all day with one of his partners–basically transforming his home office into a virtual cubicle (sans cubicle walls). That was intriguing to me, because one of the advantages of real water cooler talk is the face-to-face interaction with associates, but without an actual remote business partner, that would prove to be a little difficult for my situation (random strangers might offer some interest–but too weird) and the people that I chat with on a regular basis probably wouldn’t be thrilled with the idea of surveillance. I think there is a privacy threshold that one has to take into consideration for most people. I know that while I wouldn’t mind the instant access, it is more than a little disconcerting to know that everything going on (at least within view of the cam) is observable and listenable by someone else. When there is a physical presence of others, we’re more likely to be on our better social behavior (you know, like not breaking wind or humming obnoxious songs), but without a constant reminder of someone else’s presence, we may behave in a manner that might meet with shock or irritation (or repulsion).

I know that you would conceivably have the video chat window open as a reminder, but unless you have decent screen real estate on at least two screens, the Skype window (or iChat) would be relegated to the back of open application windows while you’re working. Do I want to listen to someone tapping, typing, sniffling, coughing, yelling at others in the house (not that I do any of those things but I’m sure there are some out there who do) just to be able to have always-on access?

The more I think about it, the more I’m thinking that IM and twitter are sufficient for the task for me. In fact, the water cooler has become a whole lot bigger and filled with more interesting people than just those who I used to work in an office with (no offense former office co-peeps). Not that I haven’t worked with very interesting people, but I’m referring to the more mundane small talk that more often than not characterizes real-world water cooler talk. You know, the type that you’re just looking at the clock thinking about the deadline that you’re on, but you don’t want to be rude to your co-worker as their glossing over their gardening cleanup day or about Stargate SG-1.

Twitter allows you that certain degree of rudeness because there’s not as much expectation of an immediate reply. Therefore, you can control the involvement based on your workload. One thing that is not missing is the distraction factor of water cooler talk from the tasks at hand and in this area I can confidently say that twitter far outshines reality for this ability. There are many times when I have to turn Twitter off and set my iChat to “Away” to focus on deadlines. Something that was always hard in open-office environments. But I continue to be amazed by my ability to be distracted (oh, look! shiny!), but I am getting better as Twitter and IM have woven themselves into the fabric of my workday. While there is some overlap for me between IM and Twitter I think Twitter has become more of the background chatter and banter while IM is closer to what I would call a true water cooler experience in addition to being a critical and effective collaboration tool–something that the water cooler was never able to provide. And as for email? Email is the new Snail Mail.

Now one thing to keep in mind, shushing other people’s dogs is not really a recommended activity if you want to keep civil relations with your neighbors, that is unless they’re all watching Cesar Millan too. Which, happens to be the case in our neighborhood–so its all good. But keep in mind, when you deal with other people’s dogs, its not entirely unlike disciplining other people’s children in front of them–it just doesn’t sit too well with most people.

It’s an interesting phenomenon how we are blind to our own children’s (and dog’s) disobedient tendencies. We tend to rationalize it away and apply the excuse that it’s “their temperament” or it’s because “they’re that way because they’re Rottweilers” or “because they’re Irish” (I’m mixing kids with dogs–sorry), but the point is, we rarely look at the situation honestly and conclude that, “it’s me. I’m not a good dog owner” (or parent–but I’m afraid that’s gonna have to wait for another post).

After watching oh, say, some 20-30 episodes of the Dog Whisperer, we finally realized that we were the ones responsible for our dog’s behavior and that we were just enabling his desire for structure by allowing him to be the one who called the shots since we weren’t and not realizing that we were supposed to be the dominant pack leaders (yes, all of us). The video series has been a fascinating psychological study of not just dogs (which is what you’d expect) but even more so about people and how we in America have uniquely anthropomorphized our animals and projected human emotions and reasoning onto these wonderful creatures and have forgotten that what they really are is; dogs. Yes, I said dogs! They’re D.O.G.S.! And that means, that you’re the boss–not their parent (did I just mix species again?).

So, bottomline, is that rather than learn some neat tricks on how to “train” obedience into our cute, little alpha dog, we learned how to “project calm, assertive energy” and recognize that we are humans, and that our little Cody, while still being the cutest dog in the world (see left), is a dog and not a human. And after a few weeks of putting it into practice, we now have an amazingly obedient dog. So, on top of his cuteness, he’s now obedient too. Which pretty much makes him the perfect dog. Thanks Cesar!

Well, I wanted to whet the appetites of anybody who may have visited the site recently and been disappointed with the lacking portfolio that there are better things to come. So, I thought I would throw a little bone and post a screen shot of the new site as it currently stands. Now I know that someone might think that its easy to post a Photoshop comp of a non-functional site, but you’ll just have to trust me that this is the real deal. My target goal is to get this finished by this weekend and have it up and running by Monday, 11/17. It will also involve moving the site from its current hosting service to Media Temple as well as all the email server configuration, and WordPress setup, etc., so that’s a tall order, but doable.

So, without further ado…