For better or worse, I’ve always “compartmentalized” mass-market home retailers. For example, Pottery Barn is my go-to for upscale Americana beach/cottage. Restoration Hardware for high-end estate looks. Design Within Reach for modern/designer. Room&Board for Midcentury Modern. Z.Gallerie for trendy-glam. CB2 for young modern. And West Elm for upscale eclectic.

Crate&Barrel, my absolute favorite of all favorites, became so because it embodied so many different styles (both modern and traditional, sleek and cozy) but was always two things which I love: 1) clean-lined, and 2) inspired by fashion (not trend, but fashion).

Yet lately, that seems to be changing. The last few catalogs have leaned more toward Room&Board’s aesthetic—Midcentury Modern designs, whitewashed walls, and a lot of neutral colors.

Which—don’t get me wrong—is gorgeous, but that’s not why I fell in love with Crate&Barrel in the first place. Their catalogs are still inspiring, but not in the same way. Where is the richness in color, texture? Where is the drama? As I flip through the change is so obvious, and I’m torn between being irritated and being completely depressed. Because as far as I know, there is no other mass-market home retailer doing what Crate&Barrel used to do.

Sigh.

Anyway, this is the only image in their recent catalog that reminded me of Crate&Barrel’s old days. I cry inside just looking at it, because I’m so afraid it’s the last time I’m going to see something like this!

The styling contests I’m entering at Polyvore are to promote JCPenney’s new line of shoes and handbags, Call It Spring.

Formerly Spring (a copyright issue forced the name change), Call It Spring is actually an ALDO Group brand, but its product is “younger” and less expensive than the original.

And I admit that the name, Call It Spring, really irks me.

Now, as a disclaimer, I don’t have a problem with either ALDO or JCPenney. I love ALDO. I have three pairs of their shoes and always get a little giddy perusing their website. And while I haven’t shopped at JCPenney in years (but I’ve been living overseas for almost five), I applaud their recent designer collaborations and am hoping they do really well.

So! Down to the critique. The main thing that really bothers me about Call It Spring is the unintentional focus on the seasonal spring. It conjures up images of sandals and florals and long hair bouncing around in grassy meadows. I’m sure ALDO realized this, which is why they—brilliantly, I might add—began using the slogan, “Shoes for all seasons.”

And poor JCPenney, they’re launching Call It Spring at the start of fall, which is super-confusing and rather annoying, too.

All this got me thinking, as usual, about what I’d do differently.

I’ve noticed that JCPenney has no problem mentioning that Call It Spring is an ALDO Group brand, which means that it’s part of the selling point. So what if the name of the brand pays homage to the original? What if it basically says we’re the original yet we’re a little different?

What if they changed their name to—wait for it—wait for it—

ALSO.

Remember the logo I designed for this Stockholm cupcakery? I just finished a tri-fold brochure specifying their flavors and ordering information. We kept the front page simple, with just their logo and phone numbers:

I wanted the inside flap to be pure eye candy (eye cupcake?). Since readers breeze past that page, I didn’t want it to contain important information—instead, a photo from Camelia’s cupcake shoot is eye-catching, relevant, and drool-worthy:

There’s a lot of text on the inside, so I only included what was necessary. Then with the extra space I blew-up the logo and cut it off horizontally to make it a graphic element; it’s a way to emphasize the brand but with whimsy. I also excerpted a quote from the back of the brochure that was too important to be tucked away—the quote reads almost like a vision statement, so it absolutely needed emphasis too:

The back page contains the most unsexy, but most important, information—pricing and ordering. This page didn’t need a lot of graphic treatment. The fonts and colors of the brand, plus the cupcake swirl adding a tiny flourish, are just enough here:

We’re working on some other exciting components, so more to come!

Extremely talented photographer and a very good friend of mine, Negeen Sobhani, recently launched her new website. Her wedding and portrait work is ridiculously good, so you’ll be interested to check it out—and book a photo session?—before she becomes internationally renowned.

Anyway, as I’m pouring over her site I’m reminded of the days when she and I would fantasize about our respective careers over coffee (well, hot chocolate for me) and sketch ideas for her future logo. So I just went through some old drafts to pull one out for a post of its own. This poor thing never got to see the light of day! Well, until now.

What I loved about this logo was that it was seriously customized. Any photographer could have a logo that’s a circle around their initials; or a stamped camera above their name; or their name is a blocky sans-serif and “photography” below it in cursive. This logo seemed special, with its swishy text frame wrapping around the photographer’s name in an abstraction of her initials, NS.

I also liked that the text was classic and the swish delicate but slightly festive—together these elements gave the logo a sense of elegance and was appropriate for a wedding mood.

When we got to thinking about her website, we considered the possibility of having two portals, one to her wedding photography site and the other to portraits, mostly of children and families. Then we got to thinking about how we could tweak the logo for the portrait site and came up with the idea to add leaves and flowers to the swish! Yeah, we were pretty brilliant, if I do say so myself.

Hm, I wonder what else I can dig up in my old design files? Now that I have a place to publish them, unused work finally does something other than take up space on my hard drive!

Kate Spade’s spring 2011 campaign has more mass appeal than anything else I can remember from them. There’s no fine china, no fussy accessories, no little pooches (am I imagining that one?); it’s not too retro, not too edgy, and not too saccharine.

It is colorful, joyful, fun, and Bryce Dallas Howard looks like she could be a happy teenager, singleton, or mom.

Also… bike paths should always be that cheerful.

Faith, a jewelry designer, got a fabulous birthday gift from her daughter. Sensing that her mom’s current logo (purchased from a customizable template) wasn’t capturing the essence of her jewelry designs, she wanted to give her a new logo. Great idea, right? So she put Faith and I in contact a couple of months ago, and we got down to business.

Her vision for her logo was amazingly comprehensive and poetic. Three words that she wanted to see evolve from her logo were nature, joy, and abundance. She wanted it to express the desire to put love into her creativity. She wanted it to incorporate nature, or perhaps the ocean. Oh, and use purple.

So here’s what I did.

There were several logo options in the first round, but the imagery of this one was both strong and relevant. The swirl around the heart could symbolize a number of things—creative energy emanating from love; ocean ripples; the natural rhythm of giving and receiving, a concept important to my client; or an abstraction of her wire-wrapping techniques.

When we progressed to the business card, I wanted to build on those concepts even further. So I used as few straight edges as possible by enlarging a swirl for the background pattern and echoing its curves in some of the text. Then, by bringing in a third color, apple green, the design became energized, more fun, and less formal—traits echoed in Faith’s unique, nature-inspired jewelry designs.

Talented cupcake maker, Camelia, was finally persuaded by family and friends to turn her hobby into a business and bring American-style cupcakes to Stockholm, Sweden. She contacted me a few months ago to ask if I’d design her logo. (Um, she had me at cupcake.)

Through e-mails and Skype calls, we discussed her vision for her brand. Camelia already had an impressive list of descriptors—her brand should be feminine, upscale, and elegant. The logo should incorporate pink, swirls, and back-to-back C’s. You’d think that, with so much information, I wouldn’t have anything left to do, but even with those kinds of parameters the possibilities are endless.

This is what just a couple hours of conceptualizing looks like:

Camelia chose her favorite pretty quickly, and we’ve been developing it since.

It’s fun to be involved from the beginning when someone is launching their business. Though we have much left to do, I can already sense that great things are going to happen for this girl, and I can’t wait to see it.

And eat it.

I haven’t rushed to comment on the new Starbucks logo because—unlike other recent logo disasters—I’m not fervidly opposed to it. Even though there are reasons I prefer the old logo, Starbucks did everything right when revising it:

They kept it recognizable.
They didn’t throw away their brand equity, which took years to build.
And, though this is subjective, they’ve given their customers a smart—and almost inspiring—explanation for the changeover.

I don’t even mind that they eliminated the “Starbucks Coffee” text, because it makes sense considering that they’re increasingly moving toward new countries and new product. It demonstrates that their mermaid symbol is strong enough to stand on its own. It may even demonstrate that their company is fearlessly progressing with the times.

So why do I prefer the old logo? It’s simple, really (and perhaps unsophisticated of me):

I like my coffee to have a heritage. I want to know that it has been around a while. I want it to be warm and authentic. I want someone to have made it with care. I don’t want it to be cool and modern. My electronics, my appliances, my car—they can be cool and modern. Not my coffee.

So while the new Starbucks logo is well-designed and well thought out, on a cup it looks like it holds coffee from a fancy thermos and came from a fancy gas station. I like the old “stamp,” which looks like it holds coffee from my local, loved coffeeshop that has been around for ages. It doesn’t matter that it didn’t actually come from my local coffeeshop. It made me feel like it did.

I really like Gwyneth Paltrow. She’s talented and smart. And she’s classy, not just as far as celebrities go, but as far as people go. I’ve seen her movies, liked her in the last episode of Glee, and subscribe to her GOOP newsletter.

That’s why I feel bad saying that I’m not a fan of her branding.

I’m always talking about relevance. Not everything always has to make sense—ever seen a Salvador Dali film?—but when you’re building a brand, relevance becomes extremely important. For example, let’s say Phil’s Burgers has the slogan: “They’re smoking hot!” The slogan is so unrelated to the name that it might as well belong to any generic burger bar.

PHIL’S BURGERS
They’re smoking hot!

But let’s say we change the name to:

HOT PHIL’S
Our burgers are smokin’!

Or even:

PHIL’S GRILL
Smokin’ hot!

Suddenly the slogan no longer sounds like a bizarre afterthought. Both it and the restaurant name are relevant; they mean something; they’re practically made for each other. And whether or not we realize it at the moment, Phil’s burger bar suddenly sounds a whole lot smarter.

Okay, back to Gwyneth Paltrow and her admirable (though highly criticized) creative undertaking, GOOP. I’m aware that “goop” is flanked by her initials, GP. But the Os seem to have little relevance here. Why not GLOOP? Or GLOP? Or GIMP? (Don’t answer that.) At one point there was some kind of statement on her website, but I can’t find it now. It was something like, “Life and all the goop in between.” Whatever it was, I had no idea what it meant, and it just sounded hokey and arbitrary. And GOOP’s slogan—“nourish the inner aspect”—didn’t clarify anything, either. Anything.

GOOP
by Gwyneth Paltrow

If I was Gwyneth, I’d think about what those Os could mean. Here’s an example:

GOOP
out in the open
with Gwyneth Paltrow

Which is perhaps not the most brilliant solution, but it elevates the name to something more than a hokey word. Not only does “goop” become more relevant, but it gives us new information—that this is Gwyneth Paltrow, personal, honest, and out and about. It practically becomes a mission statement.

Okay, the second thing bothering me about her branding is the design itself. It’s clean—that I like. Otherwise, it’s uninteresting, somewhat expected, and worst of all, feels like it came straight out of the 90s. (I swear that my first paid design project looked exactly like this.) Maybe she started mapping out this idea in 1997 and never revisited it? Anyway, with the resources she has, I’m sure she could hire a graphic designer to bring her website into 2010 and beyond. If I try to get more specific, it could take me all day, so I’ll leave it at that.

But I’m not a hater. I admire Gwyneth for wanting to share her perspective (even if I can’t always relate to it).

Wanting to share her perspective. Huh, I guess that’s what I’m doing with this blog. Or pretending to do. Anyway, my point is, I can’t judge, because I absolutely understand her intent. It’s the execution that needs some work.

My friend, Leila (pronounced “Lee-la”), is one of those super-moms who, just by breathing, makes me feel insecure about my parenting skills. She’s also one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met, so I can’t make a case that she’s trying to be amazing just so the rest of us frazzled moms feel like crap. Darn!

Did that make you laugh? Because I honestly just laughed out loud at myself.

Anyway, Leila is also an avid sewer, and makes clothing and other items for women and children from upcycled materials. She asked me to make a banner for her Etsy store and Facebook page, and with this first draft I was going for two mice (since she has two children) and an earthy, recycled look to reflect her philosophy.

Looking back at this now, there’s so much more I’d like to do with it. I’d love to incorporate fabric, or stitching, and come up with a more graphic (rather than photographic) symbol that she can use on product tags. Now that she has moved her business to Indianapolis, we may just have to go back to the drawing board. Literally!