When is a bird not a bird? When it’s a trademark that has been manipulated and falls outside of the branding guidelines established by the trademark holder. In this case, Twitter. Birds of a feather? Not for that poor Twitter bird: perhaps no other icon in modern business is both better known and abused well […]
#HOWTO: Customize & Brand Your Twitter Account
Twitter is perhaps the go-to social-networking site for anyone looking to share interesting information, tawdry gossip, breaking news, or knee-jerk reactions. Nonprofits should not only be using Twitter to broadcast their own pertinent information about their current successes and their upcoming events but also to share similar information about the efforts of their peers. Even […]
#interview: John Burke of VisABILITY and owner of the “Nonprofit Branding” Blog
After distinguished careers in a variety of nonprofit organizations, John Burke and his wife, Janice Gavan, founded VisABILITY in 1985 to supply logo-imprinted branding products to public radio stations for on-air fundraising premiums. Today their company is the primary source of promotional items for public radio programs and stations nationwide. John is the primary author […]
Being Good Ain’t Enough
In a fascinating essay in the Huffington Post, commentator Matt Dunn ponders the differences between the marketing of toothpaste and nonprofits (hint: toothpaste marketing is more successful) and why nonprofits cannot presume to win support just because they do good work. Even in a season of hope, there’s nothing gained by relying on wishful thinking. […]
The Gaps In The New Logo From The Gap (Design By Proxy)
Yesterday we discussed the rise and fall of the new logo for The Gap (rising and falling in about three days). The Gap Company is not the first to take on a logo redesign only to have the effort eviscerated by customers and critics (See, for examples, Tropicana and Pepsi. If the fact of the […]