Just thought I’d post a quick little help for any of those out there that want to take advantage of a good keyboard deal but wondering if it will work on your Mac system. One little caveat before I go further, this tip is for OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and earlier and I haven’t seen how this works on OS X 10.7 Lion yet. Personally, I’m waiting a little longer to upgrade my main workstation, but that’s another story.

While OS X does a pretty decent job of supporting the basic typing ability of almost any keyboard or mouse out there, there is the one nagging reality that if you have gotten into the habit of keyboard combo shortcuts, that the Command and Option key functions are basically switched and can drive you batty when you get an unexpected result from key command. To solve that, the utility that I use is a kernel extension that you can set from your System Preferences called DoubleCommand which allows you to easily and quickly remap your basic system keys that make up the main difference between Macs and Windows operating systems–notably the Command and Option keys. Basically, I only use it to swap those two keys, as you can see in the screen grab below, but you can use it set many other possible key remapping combinations as needed.

While OS X won’t support all the extra bells and whistles that may have been designed into your Windows keyboard like opening up Office apps or Mail or pretty much anything else that is extra whizbang–but surprisingly, the only extra-curricular activity that I really care for my keyboard to perform besides basic typing and F key operations, are iTunes controls. Starting a song; volume control; skipping; pausing–all those functions are supported. So, if you don’t mind missing all the additional functionality, than this is the tool for you. For those that want more control and need better Lion support, there is also a link to another utility, which I have NOT tried myself, called KeyRemap4MacBook that you may find more useful.

What I find ironic in all this, is actually how well Microsoft supports OS X with ALL of their keyboards and mice but Logitech seems to be dragging their feet as slowly and half-heartedly as possible in supporting Macs. This is a great tool to be able to use some of the cooler Logitech keyboards that don’t support Macs with your Mac and not drive you crazy with the Command and Option keys in the wrong place.

On last thing to remember is if you are using this for a laptop environment, when you disconnect your keyboard and go to use your built-in keyboard, your keys remain remapped and now they are swapped again. You will need to launch your System Preferences and turn off the the changes you made. The good news is that the DoubleCommand allows you to save it as a preferred setting in User Preferences so that when you reboot, it will default to whichever setting you prefer. Enjoy.

The recent scandals that are racking Penn State right now have brought up an interesting dilemma of which Buna High High School no longer has to worry about being associated with (other than this blog post and all the past hoopla over copyright infringement and cease and desists that will remain searchable on the innerwebs). Right now, I would imagine any school or athletic association involving young boys that may have been “inspired” to use the Penn State Nittany Lion logo are now (or should be) scrambling to divest themselves of any connection to this brand. Because the Penn State Nittany Lion as a brand, now represents a tarnished, dare I say, trashed brand that will invoke emotions of outrage and scandal for many years to come.

If ever there was a case study involving the value of a brand through the loss of its value through an overnight scandal (albeit one that took over 12 years to come to full light) this is one of the best, or worst as the case may be. For Buna High School’s sake, I’m very glad that they were able to divest themselves of at least the visual attachment to a now tainted (to put it mildly) image and have been able to establish their own, unique identity in their region of high school athletics.

Not that anyone could have had the foresight to have even guessed that something like this might happen to any brand, but it definitely heightens the reality and liability that comes from associating one organizational entity with any other brand that is not within your control. It is exactly the inverse of why most schools that are tempted to “borrow” or be “inspired” by the current good brand image of any other sports-related mascot or brand, in order to benefit from the good design and good image that has been established. The flip-side of that coin, which is now in full-display in regards to Penn State, is that if anything ever does happen to tarnish a brand to that degree, it will also have its residual impact on whatever organization had thought to infringe upon the previous good will that had been created with that brand.

All that is to say, that if any organization chooses to infringe upon another organization’s brand image in order to take advantage of whatever perceived positives there may be, that it has to take the good with the bad. And in this case, the bad is really, really bad. Thankfully, Buna High School does not have to share that bad image with Penn State any longer. Go Cougars!

As a designer who finds much satisfaction in seeing a design I created implemented in a broad-reaching way, we (at least I do) tend to think of a successful identity design as a grasp at immortality–if even on a small scale. But the truth is, that even vaunted design systems by the masters of the craft are remapped and redrawn as time marches on and our grip on the immortal (which was an illusion to begin with) begins to slip. As eternal verities go, there is only one logo that will stand forever, and that is the Logos Himself. It is good to have a right perspective of our place in the eternal scheme of things. The best that we might hope for design-wise, is that like Saul, we might sever the silver cord before our work is re-imagined by a bunch of snot-faced little brats that are still in diapers.

This post is actually based on a comment I was going to post on a good article (if incomplete on the eulogies) called Love Thy Logo by Bill Gardner at RockPaperInk. In the article Bill offers his thoughts about the post-mortem redesigns of the iconic works of the immortal Saul Bass. Since I don’t much like using Facebook-powered comment fields very much, I opted to just post in my own blog instead (which doesn’t use FB comments) thank you very much.

Since I don’t expect everyone who visits my blog to know who Saul Bass was, if the collection of logos above doesn’t give you an idea, or if you’d like to learn more, then some good jumping-point pages to learn more about Saul and his design influence are here, here and here.

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.

I’m very excited to see the launch of The Napa Valley Marriott’s redesigned lobby and restaurant that they have name VINeleven next week. Whitestone Design Werks is proud to have been chosen to design the new identity that will be used throughout the hotel and restaurant. Their official “Release Party” is an invite affair to be held on Friday, May 6.

Looking forward to getting down there and will posts pics of the logo in the live environment along with a little bit of the story behind the design.

If you get a chance to visit Napa Valley soon, be sure to drop in and enjoy a taste of the fruits of Napa Valley.

In light of Starbucks choosing to update their logo on their cups for their 40th anniversary by streamlining and isolating the mark and ditching the name to join the ranks of iconic brands Nike and Apple. Rather than get angry, I thought I would give it my (tongue firmly in cheek) take on what I think would be the next logical evolution of the iconic brandmark.

Original image from Starbucks

My take on the change as a designer, I think I would have explored a containing ring around the mark, and maybe even tried experimenting with size and orientation (which I would assume was part of their internal process), but I take my hat off to them for making a gutsy decision to take the next step and elevate the brand above being just about “coffee”. I think that removing the concentric ring, takes it out of the crest-style and negates the need to let it stand in isolation. I think they could have had a little more fun with it. But I also understand their desire to not mess too much more with the equity in the existing imagery. Would love to see the stages of exploration that they went through to arrive at their final design.

My take on adding concentric ring outside logo. Just had to see what it would look like

Fellow designers, don’t be too critical of my execution, this was just meant to be a quick, five-minute diversion that like all jobs that take three times longer than planned, turned out to take 15 minutes. So, there are nuances of curves that I would normally take more pains to smooth, etc. Also, the fact that by focusing on just the face, I realize that several other key elements to establishing the iconography are missing, notably the star-crown, hair and mermaidish apparitions of the siren. In hindsight, and if I had the time to indulge, I would have added at least two other steps in the evolutionary chain showing a more gradual reduction. The goal here was getting it to it’s minimal essence—actually, more like past it.

I think I’ll go put another pot of coffee on. And, get back to werk.

Just came across this article by Steven Heller on AIGA’s site: Rights, Wrongs and the Law: An Interview with Frank Martinez, Esq. for those coming to this site searching for more information of copyright law. While this doesn’t pertain per se to the issue of smaller schools “borrowing” larger school’s better designed and more familiar mascot artwork, it does help to understand the whole concept of what is appropriate to appropriate when the material in question is copyrighted.

The article addresses the increasing challenges that design scholars and historians are having trying to put together books on the history of design when they have to obtain usage rights but are facing increased fees for those rights. If the budget is not there, how will design history be sufficiently documented when they can’t even show what they are writing about.

In a nutshell:

The doctrine of fair use is alive and well. Generally speaking, a use of a copyrighted work will be deemed a fair use when the benefit to the public outweighs the private right of the author or copyright owner. However, it is important to remember that fair use is an exception or defense to the protections embodied in copyright law; fair use is not a right or an absolute shield that creates a general immunization against copyright suitupon invocation by a scholar. The fair use guidelines are arbitrary, they have gained what definition they possess by reason of litigation and they are not embodied in the copyright statute

I encourage you to check out the whole article.

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.

I recently had a book recommended to me by a friend that has evidently been must-reading for entrepreneurs for years called, The E-Myth Revisited, by Michael E. Gerber. I was aware of the book, but it had never been on my reading list. After my friend flat-out told me that, “You have to read this book” while simultaneously thrusting his well-worn copy into my hands I decided to take him up on his exhortation. While it has more of a Zen influence then I would like, I still found myself quite captivated with all of the business possibilities it stirred up in my mind (and heart). While there were many insightful sections that have stirred me to re-evaluate my own business model, I found myself in a bit of a frustrating quandary. For those who haven’t read the book, I won’t spoil too much (other than they all die in the end) by revealing that much of the business model is based upon developing a franchise-able vision for your company. My quandary was that I could not reconcile my appreciation for the franchise model which relies on developing systems that deliver quantifiable and repeatable, consistent results, with the reality of my business which at its very essence relies on uniqueness, abstract thought, subjective opinion and thinking “outside the box” as it were. How could a design business be modeled as a business that could be franchised?

Having worked at Wendy’s during my late high school and early college years (advancing to assistant manager shortly after graduating H.S.!), I learned many of the advantages of a well-run franchise system. My daughters cringe whenever I tell one of my now oft-repeated Wendy’s stories when cooking or cleaning the kitchen or reorganizing storage shelves in the garage.  Later in my career, I worked in the in-house marketing department of Red Lion Hotels (hey, did you know I designed that logo?) and was able to see a large-scale franchise system in a whole new light. So, I have a deep appreciation for the franchise model and most everything that I was reading rang true with my own experience with the exception of the most important experience of all—my own company. The book had me enthusiastically exploring many exciting possibilities in my mind of potential businesses that would fall into this model perfectly, but when it came to applying this mindset to Whitestone Design Werks, I found myself deflated as I realized the difficulty in quantifying something as subjective as the design creation process. While its true that many of the areas that are common to all businesses such as basic bookkeeping, marketing and business development also apply to any design business, but the core, essential element of any successful design firm has got to be its ability to create unique solutions based upon a wide-range of varying parameters for each client. My mind just short-circuited when it tried to make this square peg fit in the round hole.

I was coming to the conclusion on my own as I continued reading but Michael pretty much put the nail on the head when on p. 100 he made the point that, “The Model Will Be Operated by People with the Lowest Possible Level of Skill” referring to the process of creating a prototype system that can be replicated through standardized processes on a consistent basis (think McDonald’s). He reiterated his point by stating that “…if your model depends on highly skilled people, it’s going to be impossible to replicate.” The conclusion I came to was that while the book was definitely a great resource of inspiration for a truly entrepreneurial approach to building a vision for a business that can be developed to run as efficiently as a franchise model, not every type of business has to take this approach in order to be successful. One thing to note about the book is that it isn’t talking about creating a franchise system for every business, but that the process of creating a system that can be franchised, is the same process that should be applied to make a business successful—whether it is ever franchised or not .

The positives that I could still take away were the facts that I am a “technician” by nature that was overcome by an “entrepreneurial fit” when I started this business and that I needed to remove myself from the technician role and rethink through the business from a more truly entrepreneurial mindset that looks at the whole of the business and not just the commodity or service that it sells. There were many other take-aways from the book that I will be working through as well (and for that, I would heartily recommend reading the book for any business owner or anyone who is thinking about starting a business), but back to the main point of this article was the fact that I was working through the question about whether a design business or even the creative process of design could be incorporated into a franchise-able model.

That question led me back to thinking through the process of design and the value of design. Until the advent of “desktop publishing” and the idea that, with a Macintosh computer, Aldus Pagemaker, Adobe Illustrator and an Apple LaserWriter printer with Adobe PostScript (or even worse, a Windows 3.1 PC with MS Word, MS Publisher and CorelDraw!), “anybody” could now design a brochure or newsletter. It took between 10 and 15 years for most businesses to finally realize that you still needed to have someone with some level of true design talent and more than the “lowest possible level of skill” to operate one of these magical machines.

So, to get back to the question of whether or not the business of design could be molded into a franchise-able model; until recently, I would have confidently said no. Even with the advent of the computer, design had still not been reduced to a commoditized service—until now. Now, I would have to say a reluctant yes. But just because it is possible, doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.

With the advent of internet-based crowd-sourcing design sites (I’m intentionally not naming or linking) and the proliferation of “Affordable Logo Design” sites, these have worked together to erode the perceived value of design (logo design in particular) down to the same price range as a disposable inkjet printer. At first blush, the reasoning seems sound; every business needs a printer as well as every business needs a logo. Why should I have to pay more for a logo than I do for a printer? Seems like a reasonable request for a budget-conscious business just boot-strapping itself up and looking to save costs wherever and however it can. You’d be a fool to not consider only paying $250 for a logo as opposed to $2,500 (or more) when you’re basically getting the same thing. Or are you?

Why is this not a good thing? At face-value, it seems like a no-brainer for any small-business owner. I have to admit, the designs being produced by these sites are occasionally not that bad and sometimes surprisingly well-done—to the consternation of many designers trying to convince potential clients that their higher costs are justifiable to an increasingly web-savvy clientele. To add insult to injury, any business that does even a half-hearted Google search for “logo design” is going to come across the alluring temptation of one of these sites long before they ever find a good local designer or design firm’s site. Unless that designer/design firm has established a word-of-mouth referral reputation and/or coupled it with an effective self-promotion strategy, there is a shrinking pool of small to medium-sized businesses that are looking for their services or even care. Designers that don’t have a client roster of companies that understand the need for good design and are familiar with the process and costs normally associated with producing that level of design have had to rely on trying to attract smaller business start-ups that are seemingly clueless about the value of their identity in establishing their brand in their target market. To them, when faced with a simple cost-to-savings question, will choose the lower cost almost every time. It is increasingly rare to find a new business start-up that truly understands the importance of their identity and has made the decision to allocate a priority place in their budget to invest in the creation of their brand-building image—which is much more than just a logo.

In a future post, I’ll explore some of the issues involving the speculative and exploitive nature of crowd-sourcing design and how it is neither the best solution for the business nor the designers who take part in the process. I will also take a look at how a business should realistically look at the value a good designer or design agency can bring to their business identity and the value it adds to implementing an effective branding strategy.

In the meantime, if you’re looking at investing in the identity of your business either as a start-up or as a business that has recently realized the importance of re-establishing the position of your identity to reflect its maturing vision and capabilities, I challenge you to consider the value of that identity and hopefully you’ll come to the conclusion that it is worth far more than a plastic HP inkjet printer that will end up being a money pit of ink cartridges and paper and a jammed paper path that to repair would be more expensive than just buying another cheap, plastic HP printer. Hey, maybe I should start an inkjet cartridge-filling franchise! At least I know a cheap place to get a logo.

After experiencing tremendous growth and unparalleled success as a dynamic start-up in the affiliate marketing management industry, JEB Commerce – Affiliate Program Manangement realized their logo, while professional looking, was more fitting for a business in its infancy than the maturing powerhouse it was becoming and the respected leader in their industry they were aiming to attain. Even as a relatively new player, they had already amassed an impressive client list that included brands like: Elance, Ligonier Ministries, philosphy, OfficeFrog to name just a few as well as successful experience working with brands such as Dean & Deluca and Zappos.com.

After trying an online crowd-sourcing logo design solution and being less-than-impressed with the submissions, JEB Commerce decided to approach Whitestone Design Werks to come up with a design for a new logo in order to refresh and reposition their brand. What Jamie Birch, owner of JEB Commerce thought was a simple request to design a logo, turned into an education about the difference between “just a logo” and what a well-thought out and designed identity system was and how it was crucial for developing JEB Commerce’s position as not just a well-respected brand but an authoritative, leading brand in their space.

After lamenting to Jamie (more like whining—until Jamie told me to man up) about how common a misunderstanding it is among small to medium-sized business owners about the fact that while a simple logo does become an identity by default, it is much different to have a logo deliberately designed to be applied into an identity system than to just have a logo that has been designed in a white box that you then take to a printer, web developer or sign fabricator and allow them to interpret how it is applied based upon their whims (and questionable design abilities).

After arriving at an epiphany we hit upon the idea that documenting this process would be a helpful exercise to help other small business owners understand some of the issues involved with facing the maturing of their business and its growth, but recognizing that its now time to put some “big boy (or girl) pants (pant suit)” on, as it were, and take the opportunity to invest in their identity to help elevate their brand position in order to attain their business’ ultimate goals.

In the coming weeks, Jamie and I will be highlighting the process of going through a complete identity design overhaul for JEB Commerce. I will be posting the progress and will for the first time, grant access to what is normally only a client accessible area to the general public in order to view the comps online and even provide feedback in the process. However, we will reserve the right to ignore said feedback if we disagree.

Jamie, for his part in the process, will also be posting to the JEB Commerce blog with his thoughts and updates of the process along the way in order to help educate the multitudes of Affiliates that work with and follow JEB Commerce.

So, stay tuned for what I hope will be an educational process that just might open your eyes to the value of investing in a true identity system that has been thought-through and designed to communicate the essence of your brand and then can be applied to all your points of contact with your customers thereby elevating your brand to the level of respect and authority you have earned over the years, but are being held back by an immature identity.