Companies go through rebrands for a number of purposes – to signify a new era or milestone, represent a change in culture, or just simply to modernize a dated-looking image. With Mystique currently undergoing a rebrand – I've decided to compile some evolutions of some notable brands.

Below are the good, bad and the downright ugly – of course I may be a tad harsh in categorization but in some cases, as you'll see below, sometimes it's not necessary to go through a rebrand.


The Good:

Toronto Blue Jays



This wasn't so much a rebrand as much as it was a modernized version of their original logo. Kudos goes out to this design as the retro feel draws out feelings of the good old days when the Jays won those back to back World Series Championships. I've regained some interest in our Jays (despite the team's recent seasons of stagnancy) – all thanks to nostalgia.

Lebron James



I think Lebron's latest iteration of his brand is something to be applauded. While I thought his LBJ23 logo integrated all those elements neatly into one mark – it was still overall, a busy and rather ugly looking brand. His new brand, not only is cleaner and far more simplified – it conveys more meaning. The mark integrates LJ into the crown element (which was somewhat lost in the last mark) and places that much more emphasis on his identity and nickname, King James. Gotta love how the brand works on a headband ...



Lebron may have destroyed some of his personal brand and fan-base with his free-agent antics (*ahem* the Decision) but this certainly makes it up for me, but then again I'm not a Cleveland native.

HP



This was a truly minimalistic take on Hewlett Packard's brand. This one was tough as it was either hit or miss – people I discussed this logo with either loved it or hated it. I think its just a clean and logical evolution for their brand as it conveys technology, speed and the future. Also, they've got enough brand equity to make this jump – just as Nike did with their swoosh mark. It's a shame that they decided not to take on this direction.


The Bad:

Museum of the Moving Image



The new brand really does nothing for me as it lacks the character and playful movement found in the type exercises of the old brand. What kills me though, is that they carry over that type exercise into other components of their branding such as web, digital and signage. Just doesn't make any sense.



Comedy Network



There's nothing funny about this rebrand. It may have some quirkiness built into the wordmark but it just doesn't compensate for the lack of colour and liveliness found in their old brand.

It also seems to get lost in its promotional materials as the word looks more like a descriptor than anything. This can probably be attributed to the fact that the tagline has been dropped and it almost needs a simple graphic like the oval enclosure to help distinguish it more as a brand.




And the Downright Ugly:

Sportsnet



For one of Canada's main sports networks, it seems awfully American – it is just me or did it immediately remind you of this.



One can applaud the attempt to emphasize the SN aspect of their brand to help incorporate its six sister stations but I think it just fell flat.

On another note, their major rival network – has already explored that direction of emphasis. Yes, its ugly but at least they have the excuse that they started using it six years ago.



MuchMusic



Did Martha Stewart buy the network? This is just one of those cases (much like Gap) where if it ain't broke – don't fix it. MuchMusic's logo is just so iconic – it may be old but it still retains modern looking standards in my opinion.

All images sourced from Brand New.



Rene Tan
Graphic Designer
Mystique Creative

1. Content is King. You need to have lots of quality content that is related to your business. You want to engage the visitor to keep them coming back. Add a blog and keep adding articles as Google tends to like large sites.

2. Tag your images. Many forget to assign alt tags to their images. I'm not talking about calling a file 'logo'. Give alt tags to images that include your keywords.

3. Get quality inbound links. The keyword is quality. You need links from sites with a good reputation and lots of traffic. Beware of the spam links from directories with no relation to your industry. non-useful links are easily caught and discounted by search engines.

4. Videos help rankings. A under-utilized tool. A well produced video will not only help your SEO efforts but help build your brand.

5. Continue your SEO efforts. Website search engine optimization is an on-going process. If you want to maintain your page one rankings you need to review and update your site on an ongoing basis.

Need traffic for your site? Contact us for a free, no strings attached, website check up. Learn how we can help attract targeted traffic to your site and then leverage that traffic to grow your business.

Paul Bies


President,
Mystique Creative
416.441.2666 x 14
Contact us now.

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Often we see supplied text that has been incorrectly set for print and the web. Most graphic designers are aware of ‘proper’ practices with the use of such items as ‘smart quotes’ and apostrophes, as well as em and en dashes. See the sample (below) for the correct settings. One of the major problems is the receipt of manuscripts with double spaces. Most desktop applications have tools that work out these kinks, but not so for websites.

Unless it is an alphabetical character or number, typographical symbols are represented by a mix of gibberish html code. Remember these simple notes the next time you send or receive a manuscript, it’ll save a lot of editing time.





Frank Beecham
Mystique Creative

So recently I've been working on an internal motion graphics project for Mystique and so far it has been quite the bumpy road. Personally, this would be my first time working on any kind of project of this nature so it has been quite the learning curve.

It came as a shock to me because I didn't quite anticipate how much coordination and constant tweaking this process would require. As print design happens to be my field of expertise, I've come to realize that I deal mainly with the management of space (namely layout and organization of content: image and type).

Now, I'm not saying that print material doesn't have its place as a time-based piece because it definitely does – but in a much different manner to that of a video/motion graphics piece. For example, a brochure's content flows from first page to last, and the designer can control the pace of reader interaction simply by how they organize and display information. The reader also has control as they can jump from section to section, while skimming or reading in detail, all at their pace. So to me, print design is primarily an exercise of space, and time comes secondary.

Conversely, working on a video/motion graphics piece deals with the management of time primarily and space secondarily. I've discovered that it's not as easy to project and anticipate the final output as I once believed. Drawing up storyboards is one thing but one has to take into consideration the pacing in combination with a number of elements (voiceover, background music and kinetic typography in my case). So to sum it up, it's the type of job that you can set out a plan and framework for but until one starts seeing these pieces fall together, one can't really anticipate what they'll be getting in the end. It's a constant process of tweaking and refinement – and keeping in the theme of time, a process that requires tons of patience.

It has been a good learning experience for me, and I'll take these insights into our future projects. I'm definitely excited about this project, and can't wait to see the finished piece.

With that, I leave you with some excellent examples of some motion graphic sequences – ranging from opening credit sequences to kinetic typographic interpretations and animation.

Zombieland


Conan O'brien: Goodbye monologue


Catch me if you can




Rene Tan
Graphic Designer
Mystique Creative

In a recent discussion about designing for environmentally friendliness and sustainability, I realized that the use of sustainable products isn’t necessarily friendly if you compromise in some other way. We often think of products that we can use or not use to help the environment. Use of green products such as fruit based and stone stocks and vegetable and soy inks is a good start, but further thought and consideration is needed.

The idea that doing more design projects digitally was brought up. Many people think that by not printing you are being the most environmentally conscious. This is not true however. Think about it. Anything run over the Internet requires a digital storage device of some sort that is constantly powered and connected to the internet. For example; If you were to take a newspaper and stop printing it and made it only web based you would actually be doing more harm to the environment. The web server that is required to keep a newspaper online as well as all the devices that are required to view that site use enormous amounts of electricity.

What if all books ceased to exist in printed terms? Would this be better for the environment if they were produced digitally? Not necessarily. Printing a large number of books or newspapers is not as harmful to the environment, because it may waste fewer resources in comparison to taking the digital route. Consider how much electricity is expended simply by running web servers, powering personal computers and even portable devices just to read something as ephemeral as a newspaper article. What about the paper? It can be recycled. What about ink? If it is environmentally friendly ink it might be biodegradable.

If we take into consideration all the effects that a project could have on the environment, for both digital and printed materials, we can better select the most sustainable way to design. Thus, digital and print have their places.

http://www.getfiberstone.com
http://www.ecopaper.com


Daniel Pritchett
Graphic Design Intern
Mystique Creative