Fresh

Face it: being “behind the times” is the last thing anyone wants. And yet so many brands can fall victim to neglect. This is especially true online, where trends come and go faster than you can say “2.0″and new technology is emerging every day.

Every aspect of a brand needs a little TLC here and there to keep it feeling fresh. Even huge brands with tons of equity in their logo will update it now and then. Expect to devote resources for maintaining your brand! Don’t send it out alone and without the support and love it deserves.

Logos are the Primary Touch Point of Every Brand

A successful logo should have lasting power. It should communicate the goals and values of a company or organization. This isn’t always the case, though. Sometimes goals and values change, sometimes mergers happen, and sometimes color schemes become iconic of an era you’d rather forget. Don’t get me wrong either, you can convey the ideas of history and trust and not feel dated.

A logo change does not need to be ground-breaking to be successful. Don’t feel like you have to re-design it completely. Many times, brands will make subtle changes to their logos as the years pass. Take the Firefox icon for example:

Old Firefox icon at left and redesigned version at right (image via Brand New). You can read the creative brief for the redesign here. Basically, they were looking to modernize some of the textures and the shape of the tail and play down the level of detail.

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he latest from Jessica Hische, Daily Drop Cap is a service to bloggers everywhere. Every day she is creating a new decorative drop cap for the public to use. She has created some beauties thus far, and I’m sure many more to come. She includes html to copy into your blog with each letter she posts. Thank you Jessica!

(images: Daily Drop Cap by Jessica Hische. Found Via Apartment Therapy)

I think you should go to this!  (Maybe I have a painting in this show.)

Outlook features 25 artists that graduated from Portland State University’s art department between 2005 and 2009. The show is being guest curated by Chicago art critic and professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago James Yood.

Yood is also giving a free lecture (open to the public) “The Persistence of Place” Monday,  November 16, at 7:30 p.m. Learn more here.

Opening Reception:
Saturday, November 7th, 2009 6-9pm

Exhibition:
Thursday November 5, 2009-Friday, November 27th, 2009
Monday-Saturday 10-5

Where:
Autzen Gallery, Portland State University
2nd Floor, Neuberger Hall Room 205
724 SW Harrison ST, Portland, OR 97201

If you didn’t get a chance to check out Zach Johnsen’s Acid In The Ice Cream show, which was held at Backspace last December, he’s at it again but this time in his own studio!

Date:
October 24th, 09′

Time:
6pm-11pm

Where:
North Coast Seed Building
2127 N. Albina Ave.
Portland, OR 97227

I’ll let the visual aids do the rest…

He will also be celebrating the launch of his two new websites www.zenvironments.com & zachjohnsen.com so make sure to check it out!

To start, I must say that the people I am about to write about are very close friends and loved ones, and this may give me a biased journalistic angle. I am confident, however, that you will agree with me that they are noteworthy creative people, doing progressive and cool things.  I hope that this insight into their world inspires readers to subscribe to their blog, buy some of their wares, attend their event, go make something themselves, or better yet, all of the above.  I give you How We Develop and Content 09.

How We Develop is a collective of creatives based in Portland centered around their passion for fashion, Art, Design and creative exploration as a whole.  Clothing designer and seamstress Gretchen Jones, Jewelry designer Anna Korte, and graphic designer and illustrator Ada Mayer met through mutual friends, and began working together immediately in 2008.  Gretchen and Anna both enlisted Ada’s help with their respective identities, marketing efforts and web presence, and the alignment of their tastes and creative aspirations led to the birth of their blog, How We Develop in the summer of 2009.

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What’s better than awesome comic book cover art? How about putting it along-side interpretations of the same covers from modern artists?  That’s exactly what the blog Covered is all about. It features a lot of original cover art from the 60’s and 70’s (but also some that are more recent) and pair it with an artist’s new version. They take on all sorts of subjects and styles.

I love seeing how some of the covers are really similar to the original while some are totally different. The typography is often a gem in itself.

Original The Thing cover by Steve Ditko from 1954 at left.
Anders Végh Blidlöv’s version at right

via The World’s Best Ever