If you’ve visited this site before, or deal with me and The Full Effect Company, you may notice that Pink Duck has had a makeover. Nothing radical, just smoothing out a few wrinkles, but it provides an opportunity to recount the Pink Duck story.
My business is based on a fundamental belief – Marketing is about doing things and going places that nobody has been before. Breaking rules is a prerequisite to success for any kind of organisation and I think Pink Duck communicates that pretty well – don’t you?
Pink Duck also represents an aura of light-heartedness in a business world where many things are taken far too seriously. If you are going to innovate you need a creative environment where the pressure is off and people are having fun. Now, that’s another thing that Pink Duck represents. Apart from differentiation and a degree of levity Pink Duck also scores by being distinctive – well, how many pink ducks have you seen?
My work, especially my Brand Discovery Programme, is always very closely related to the development of communications including logos. I hold strong views on the principles of logo design and I have a set of criteria that I believe any logo should meet.
Your logo is probably the first aspect of your organisation that anybody will encounter and its true that first impressions matter. That first meeting is very valuable and very, very short indeed – It could be nanoseconds if you don’t handle it right, but if you do it could all lead to a long and profitable relationship. In those few moments your logo has the opportunity to communicate …
a) what business you are in,
b) what your brand character is all about, …
c) maybe your values and …
d) definitely burn your name on the retina of the person it is in front of by representing it in a visually striking and memorable way.
You may not manage to tick all these boxes, but when you look around it’s quite obvious that most logos fail on too many counts – and that’s inefficient! A good logo is worth a thousand words and you are paying for them, so use them all!
So, that’s the Pink Duck rationale. What excuse do you have for your logo?
Michael Weaver
December 14, 2007