As a student at Yale University in the 1960s, Fred Smith wrote a paper for an economics class that outlined his ideas for creating an overnight delivery service. Although the story may be apocryphal, it is said that the professor gave the paper a “C” because the idea wasn’t feasible. That paper became the blue print for creating FedEx.

In 1971, Smith took his inheritance and founded Federal Express. He focused not just on package delivery, but on creating an integrated air-ground system that would send all packages to a central clearing house, then distribute them out to their destinations—an idea he borrowed from the banking industry. And one the world was ready for.

Over the past 35 years, he’s had plenty of advice to other small business owners looking to grow their organizations. Here’s a small taste:

“Fear of failure must never be a reason not to try something.”

“Leaders get out in front and stay there by raising the standards by which they judge themselves—and by which they are willing to be judged.”

“I’m not afraid to take a swing and miss.”

“The riskiest strategy is to try to avoid risk altogether.”

“A manager is not a person who can do the work better than his men; he is a person who can get his men to do the work better than he can.”

“My innovation involved taking an idea from the telecommunications and banking industries, and applying that idea to transportation business.”

“You can’t make people do what’s right. You can lead them, and you can empower them to make the right decision, but if you don’t produce a culture that allows them to do that, then all the rest is just bumping your gums as one of my old business partners used to say.”

“If you’re going to run a high service organization, you have to get the commitment of the people working for that organization right at the start. If you don’t, you’ll never be able to deliver at the levels of expectations of the customer.”

—Fred W. Smith, Entrepreneur and Founder of FedEx

 

 

The post 8 Quotes for Small Business from Fred W. Smith appeared first on Logomaker Blog.

The biggest new logo news this week is the unveiling of a brand new logo for the Mall of America—the massive shopping mall in Bloomington Minnesota, once the largest mall in America. The new logo keeps the star from the previous (very patriotic) logo and is intended to convey the “wealth of unforgettable, dynamic, vibrant experiences” to be had at the mall. According to reports, the colors of the logo will change depending on the time of year and for special events. Lots of pictures of the new logo in use at this link.

Last month Louisville Slugger got a new logo. This week the Louisville Slugger Museum got a new logo too.

Univision Communications announced a new logo to go along with its new music service called Uforia that will offer Latin music through a mobile app. We like the logo and the energy that it portrays. From the press release: “The mark plays on Univision’s signature “U,” while incorporating the company’s red, purple, green, and blue color palette into graphic equalizer displays synonymous with the energy and excitement of music.”

Lots of logos contain hidden elements. Think the FedEx arrow. Here’s a fun collection of logos with hidden elements, some of which we’ve written about here before.

More new logos for televisions stations around the world. Let’s start with British television channel Really, which unveiled its new logo this week. The satellite channel which previously targeted young women is trying to reach a broader audience of young adults with its new rebrand. Really is a UKTV channel, and the third new logo we’ve seen from that company in less than two months. We also saw this new logo (more of an update to its previous logo) for Denmark’s TV3. And while this isn’t a channel logo, the new logo for Agents of Shield, scheduled to debut later this year is getting fans excited.

If you’re a Dallas Mavericks fan, this is your chance to design their new logo and uniforms. But don’t expect any payment beyond bragging rights.

Three other corporate logos to take a look at. TaskRabbit unveiled a new look this past week, dropping the brief case and making the rabbit look a bit faster. Budget Car Rental updated their logo this past week with a new font and darker orange color. And it looks like JC Penney has another new logo, this one is the fourth in as many years.

Wrapping things up, we saw a new Google logo celebrating Mother’s Day this past week. This one is pretty complex, an interactive logo with 27 different options. Then you have the option to print your Mother’s Day logo to share with mom. Click the link to watch a video of one of the 27 options.

Did we miss anything? Let us know.

The post Logo Design News This Week 3.20 appeared first on Logomaker Blog.

In the first, Mr. Trout discusses positioning for the small competitor (note: we disagree with his assertion that it takes money to take on the competition):

In this clip, Mr. Trout discusses the waste of time changing logos and tag lines and talks about how Coke should have stuck with what worked.

Agree or disagree, it’s something to think about as you move your small business forward.

The post Jack Trout on Positioning for Small Business appeared first on Logomaker Blog.

That’s sounds like enough accomplishment for anyone, but Elon Musk wasn’t (isn’t) done yet. In 2002, he started SpaceX, a company working on inexpensive space flight and rocket technology to make private space flight possible. Two years later, Musk started Tesla Motors to build electric vehicles. And in 2006, he started SolarCity, a company working to develop better photovoltaics.

We doubt there is a more prolific entrepreneur active today. Through it all, Elon Muck has had a lot to say about starting businesses, failure, and hard work. Here are a few things he has said that may inspire other entrepreneurs:

“Starting and growing a business is as much about the innovation, drive and determination of the people who do it as it is about the product they sell.”

“I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.”

“You want to have a future where you’re expecting things to be better, not one where you’re expecting things to be worse.”

“Really pay attention to negative feedback and solicit it, particularly from friends. …Hardly anyone does that, and it’s incredibly helpful.”

“It is a mistake to hire huge numbers of people to get a complicated job done. Numbers will never compensate for talent in getting the right answer (two people who don’t know something are no better than one), will tend to slow down progress, and will make the task incredibly expensive.”

“I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better.”

“I’m nauseatingly pro-American. I would have come here from any country. The U.S. is where great things are possible.”

“I think the best way to attract venture capital is to try and come up with a demonstration of whatever product or service it is and ideally take that as far as you can. Just see if you can sell that to real customers and start generating some momentum. The further along you can get with that, the more likely you are to get funding.”

“It’s okay to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket. The problem with the Silicon Valley financing model is that you lose control after the first investment round.”

“Let’s think beyond the normal stuff and have an environment where that sort of thinking in encouraged and rewarded and where it’s okay to fail as well. Because when you try new things, you try this idea, that idea… well a large number of them are not gonna work, and that has to be okay. If every time somebody comes up with an idea it has to be successful, you’re not gonna get people coming up with ideas.”

“Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”

“Persistence is very important. You should not give up unless you are forced to give up.”

“Starting a company is a very tough thing. There’s a friend of mine, Bill Lee, whose phrase is ‘starting a company is like staring into the abyss and eating glass.’ So you should certainly expect that it’s going to be very hard. It’s going to be harder than getting a job somewhere by a pretty good margin and the odds of you losing the money that you invested or your friends invested is pretty high. I mean, those are just the basic facts. So if you don’t mind things being really hard and high risk, then starting a company is a good idea. Otherwise, it’s probably unwise. It will certainly stress you out. So I think you have to be pretty driven to make it happen. Otherwise, you will just make yourself miserable.”

“Work like hell. I mean you just have to put in 80 to 100 hour weeks every week. [This] improves the odds of success. If other people are putting in 40 hour work weeks and you’re putting in 100 hour work weeks, then even if you’re doing the same thing you know that… you will achieve in 4 months what it takes them a year to achieve.”

—Elon Musk, Entrepreneur and Founder of PayPal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX, and more.

The post 14 Inspirational Quotes for Small Business from Elon Musk appeared first on Logomaker Blog.

Here’s a logo change so subtle you would probably never notice if you weren’t told it had changed. Little Debbie made several slight tweaks to it’s Debbie logo, removing the string from her hat, taking the lace off her collar, rounding her left eye brow, lightening the shirt and darkening her hair slightly. It’s a bit like the children’s game where you need to spot the differences between the two pictures. We’ve posted the before and after here so you can play along. Even with the update, the logo looks remarkably like Debbie McKee who is the namesake for the brand. (Pictures at the link).

Last week we told you about the new P&G logo. This week the guys at Emblemetric take a look at the numbers behind the new P&G logo. Plus you can check out the evolution of the logo there. Also from last week, we told you about a real estate company that offered employees a 15% raise to get a company tattoo. Turns out one in ten Americans would take that offer.

In general, Olympic logos are pretty darn good. Rio is an example. Though, there have been exceptions. We were lucky to work for one of the design agencies that helped create the 2002 Winter Olympic logo and saw the intense thought and work that go into creating a great mark. This week the South Korean Olympic Committee unveiled its logo for the PyeongChang Winter Olympics. It’s a simple representation of Korean letters and, well, it’s not very good. Not London Olympics bad, but not good.

JC Penney’s has fallen on tough times. Part of the problem may be that they’ve changed the logo so much that nearly half of America no longer recognizes it.

We’re really liking this update to the San Diego State Aztec logo. This mark does exactly what a logo update should do—preserves the historical feel while freshening it up with a modern look. They dropped the gold accents and the word “state” from the mark, and pulled everything together a little more tightly. They even created a custom font to go with the logo (which Sport Illustrated writer Holly Anderson has a little fun with).

Do good logos actually need to look good?

We saw a few logos related to media this week. The first is a first look at the logo for next year’s Planet of the Apes movie which pits a group of human survivors against an army of apes led by Caesar. Fans of the movie are thinking, “Cool.” while others are asking, “Is that the movie where Charlton Heston yells at the statue of liberty?” Other new media logos we saw this week include the new 21st Century Fox logo, the Universal channel, and the French version of Turner Classic Movies or TCM Cinema. And there was this new logo for upcoming ABC-Univision channel called Fusion. Very cool.

If you are thinking of designing a logo with an X as an element, check these logo designs out first. That idea may be getting old.

This week, Google celebrated the 93rd birthday of well-known logo designer Saul Bass with a new Google logo of his own. This one plays off some of of his film titles. Click the link to watch the titles. For those who want to see some of Mr. Bass’ logo design work, click here. And to read a few quotes of creativity and design from Saul Bass, go here. More here.

Did we miss anything? Let us know.

The post Logo Design News This Week 3.19 appeared first on Logomaker Blog.

Do the people who visit your Facebook page or read your tweets trust you? Are you losing customers because people don’t see you as credible? What can you do to increase your credibility?

Logomaker has teamed with GroSocial to present a free webinar for our customers who want to improve the way they use social media in their business. In the webinar, you’ll learn:

• Why 50 percent of customers trust a business’s Facebook page more than its website
• Best practices for reacting to positive and negative customer comments
• How to build social credibility through smart design, branding, content, and promotions

The webinar is completely free, but space is limited. So register now.

How to Build a Social Brand that Customers Trust
Presented by Zach Mangum, GroSocial Co-founder
Wednesday, May 15 at 1pm EDT (10am PDT)

The post Up Your Small Business Game on Facebook and Twitter appeared first on Logomaker Blog.

In 2004, Mr. Williams left Google to co-found Odeo, which eventually became the micro-blogging powerhouse Twitter. He spent two years as Twitter’s CEO, stepping down in 2010. Last year, Evan Williams and his Twitter co-founder, Biz Stone, founded Medium, a new publishing platform set to launch later this year.

As you can imagine, someone with this much entrepreneurial energy (and success) has had a lot to say about turning a small business into a successful company. Here are thirteen things he has said that we find especially inspiring:

“Our problem wasn’t that it blew up and was impossible to scale, but there were some bad choices made. One of the biggest lessons time after time was to focus. Do fewer things.”

“Creativity comes from constraint.”

“…realize that no sufficiently interesting space will be limited to one player. In a sense, competition actually is good—especially to legitimize new markets.”

“I was surprised by the success of something so simple. That’s a mantra for many people in the technology world—simplicity. But what we built wasn’t that amazing. It was the idea of putting a couple of things together and being able to establish a lead by doing something really, really simple. How far you can get on a simple idea is amazing… Simplicity is powerful.”

“There are different ways to approach startups. One thing I admired about Google is we said, ‘This thing is huge, and we’re going to kick ass at it.’ …The other approach is ‘This might be a thing if we pull it off.’”

“Be a user of your own product. Make it better based on your own desires. But don’t trick yourself into thinking you are your user.”

“User experience is everything. It always has been, but it’s still undervalued and under-invested in. If you don’t know user-centered design, study it. Hire people who know it. Obsess over it. Live and breathe it. Get your whole company on board.”

“When I meet with the founders of a new company, my advice is almost always, ‘Do fewer things.’ It’s true of partnerships, marketing opportunities, anything that’s taking up your time. The vast majority of things are distractions, and very few really matter to your success.”

“I think one of the things that kills great things so often is compromise—letting people talk you out of what your gut is telling you. Not that I don’t value people’s input, but you have to have the strength to ignore it sometimes, too. If you feel really strongly, there might be something to that, and if you see something that other people don’t see, it could be because it’s that powerful and different. If everyone agrees, it’s probably because you’re not doing anything original.”

“When you’re obsessing about one thing, you can reach insights about how to solve hard problems. If you have too many things to think about, you’ll get to the superficial solution, not the brilliant one.”

“Luck comes in many forms—and often looks bad at first. I always look back on the deals that we didn’t do and the things that didn’t work out, and realize what seemed like a bummer at the time was really lucky. …if you have some plan and it doesn’t go that way, roll with it. There’s no way to know if it’s good or bad until later, if ever.”

Finally, Mr. William’s formula for Entrepreneurial Success:
“1. Work with Amazing People. Don’t compromise on who you choose to found your company with and hire. Do not put up with ego-centric personalities or downer attitudes. 2. Take on Big Challenges. It’s pretty simple: Hard things are valuable; easy things are not so valuable. Reaching the mountaintop is rewarding because it is hard. If it was easy, everybody would do it. 3. Focus. Say no to most things: Features. People. Partnerships. Coffees. Projects. Only a few of them really matter. (Yes, it’s hard to know which.) Don’t get distracted. 4. Take Care of Yourself. When you don’t sleep, eat crap, don’t exercise, and are living off adrenaline for too long, your performance suffers. Your decisions suffer. Your company suffers. 5. Love those Close to You. Failure of your company is not failure in life. Failure in your relationships is.”

—Evan Williams, Entrepreneur, Founder of Blogger and Twitter

 

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Two weeks ago we linked to the new Facebook logo, which looks exactly like the old Facebook logo without a shiny reflection. This week Instagram unveiled a new logo and much like its corporate owner, you probably wouldn’t notice it if you weren’t paying attention. It’s a very slight update to help with readability—simplifying the I and the S, joining the G and R into a ligature. Want an inside look at the design process? Go here. Can you tell the difference?

Speaking of social media, here’s a short interview with the creator of the Twitter logo.

We love new television logos and we see 2-3 every week. This week we saw a simple, black box logo for CNBC Prime, a new programming block running after hours on CNBC with shows that take “a more personal look at business and money.” This is actually old news, we’re a little behind. Watch this promo and tell us how this is different from any other cable network. The only thing we can tell is this doesn’t feel like CNBC daytime programming. We also saw a new logo for Denmark’s TV2 and a new logo design for a new British channel called Drama. And CNN’s new morning show unveiled its logo this week too.

Would you tattoo your employer’s logo on your arm? What if they offered a 15% pay raise?

Just as Facebook is taking the shine off their logo, P&G is adding it to their logo design. Procter and Gamble’s latest logo has been in use in some form or another since 1991. Now the classic lettermark (that’s a logo without an icon) is part of a blue circle with a crescent on the left and a bit of light reflecting off the top. While we like the new look, we wonder of adding the crescent into the logo will remind conspiracy theorists of the man in the moon logo which some thought was related to the occult.

Business Insider sure has a way with words. Here’s their shocking, drastic changes to 13 corporate logos. So maybe they’re not all that shocking. And here’s Entrepreneur magazine’s list of 20 logos they love. Most of these are, meh. But the Library Lover’s auction? That’s a sweet logo.

Who doesn’t love a logo controversy? NorthLink Ferries unveiled a new logo featuring a viking pointing into the sky. Now they are being accused of using Nazi imagery that represents Aryan heritage and pride. Really? Haven’t the Nazis ruined enough other things already? Can’t we just leave vikings out of it? Critics say it may upset Germans. Since when is the rest of Europe worried about that? And while the company may be making a PR mistake, we like that they are sticking to their guns. That’s not a Nazi logo.

And speaking of logo controversies. Really? Wow. Come on. It’s a logo.

We’ve never heard of a redblack. And there’s some doubt as to whether that will actually be the official name of the new Ottawa Canadian Football League team. But if it is, then this just might be their new logo. On the other hand, from the sound of things, the designer who posted the images may have gotten a little ahead of the news. And he may have lost his job because of it. So maybe this is just a nice logo and name that will spend the rest of its life in a designer’s portfolio.

And the winner of the College Football Playoff (logo that is): #2.

No new Google logos in the United States this week. But this logo appeared just about everywhere else in the world for May Day, which used to be a communist holiday famous for parades of missiles, tanks, and soldiers, but now looks more like our celebration of Labor Day.

Did we miss anything? Let us know.

The post Logo Design News This Week 3.18 appeared first on Logomaker Blog.

In the 1990s, Mr. Blank created the customer development methodology which takes a scientific approach to improving products through better understanding customer needs. Today this methodology has been popularized in books like The Lean Startup by Eric Ries and Nail It Then Scale It by Nathan Furr.

Steve Blank has taught entrepreneurship at Stanford’s Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley and Columbia, and last year was recognized by The Harvard Business Review as one of 12 Masters of Innovation. With three books, a blog, and a long teaching career, Mr. Blank has said a lot of things that will inspire small business owners. Here’s a taste:

“The company that consistently makes and implements decisions rapidly gains a tremendous, often decisive, competitive advantage.”

“I said ‘There are 500 people in this room. The good news is, in ten years, there’s two of you who are going to make $100 million dollars. The rest of you, you might as well have been working at Wal-Mart for how much you’re going to make.’ And everybody laughs. And I said, ‘No, no, that’s not the joke. The joke is all of you are looking at the other guys feeling sorry for those poor son-of-a-bitches.’”

“What matters is having forward momentum and a tight fact-based data/metrics feedback loop to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions. That’s why startups are agile. By the time a big company gets the committee to organize the subcommittee to pick a meeting date, your startup could have made 20 decisions, reversed five of them and implemented the fifteen that worked.”

“…some small segment of founders are truly artists—they see something no one else does. These entrepreneurs are the ones who want to change ‘what is’ and turn it into ‘what can be.’ These founders create new ideas and new markets by pushing the boundaries. This concept of creating something that few others see—and the reality distortion field necessary to recruit the team to build it—is at the heart of what these founders do.”

“In a startup, no business plan survives first contact with customers.”

“A startup is not about executing a series of knowns. Most startups are facing a series of unknowns—unknown customer segments, unknown customer needs, unknown product feature set, etc.”

“For truly visionary founders ‘seeing things that could be’ means more than just a standalone product—it means a world transformed.”

“A startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.”

“Business plans are the tool existing companies use for execution. They are the wrong tool to search for a business model.”

“Startups are painful, stressful and at times demoralizing. You need to be a true believer in the vision of what you are doing. You need to passionate about it and love what you’re doing. If you don’t, there is no way you can sustain the hours, stress and disappointment. There’s no way you’re going to be able to convince investors, customers and most importantly recruit a world-class team if you not building something you think is going to change the world.”

“If the opportunity is so large, and the barriers to starting up so low, why haven’t the number of scalable startups exploded exponentially? What’s holding us back? While it’s easier than ever to draw an idea on the back of the napkin, build a prototype or create a small business on the side, it’s still hard to quit your day job and commit ‘all in.’”

“Revolutions are not obvious when they happen. When James Watt started the industrial revolution with the steam engine in 1775 no one said, ‘Today, everything changes.’ When Karl Benz drove around Mannheim in 1885, no one said, ‘There will be 500 million of these driving around in a century.’ And certainly in 1958 when Noyce and Kilby invented the integrated circuit, the idea of a quintillion (10 to the 18th power) transistors being produced each year seemed ludicrous.”

“You need to ask yourself, ‘Where do you want to work: startups, mid-size or large companies?’ …If you find yourself debating the ‘startup versus large company’ choice you’ve already chosen the big company. Entrepreneurship isn’t a career choice it’s a passion and obsession.”

—Steve Blank, Entrepreneur, Mentor, and Author

 

The post 13 Inspiring Quotes for Small Business from Steve Blank appeared first on Logomaker Blog.

The New York Times says they do it every decade, so maybe this isn’t a big deal, but Lionsgate Studio updated their logo this week. The animation pulls away from earth through the constellation Leo (get it?) then back down into a cloudy sky. We’re left to wonder is this another planet or some weird space warp? It’s cool, but honestly we like the gears and lock of the old animation better. The logo itself is a slight update, making the letters 3D, adding a little color and size. Click here to see the before and after animations.

We told you about the new Spotify logo a couple of weeks ago. Here’s the story behind the rebranding effort.

We’re big Pac-12 fans around the Logomaker office, so we liked seeing the just-released logo for the 100th anniversary of the Rose Bowl. Wikipedia (somewhat suspiciously) notes that it is “the most prestigious of all the bowl games.” The Rose Bowl is the first Bowl Game to reach 100 games (the first game was between Michigan and Stanford) and the new logo reflects that with some added copy. Other than that, it’s pretty much the same logo we’ve seen before.

In other collegiate logo news, you can help pick the first logo of the college football playoffs.

Who knew that Fort Knox had its own logo? We didn’t. Now apparently they have a new logo design celebrating “heritage, human capital, leadership, training, and effects.” Hmmm. It seems that Fort Knox is known for one thing. And it’s not the slogan in the logo. We’re wondering if Auric Goldfinger would have been so interested in this place if he knew what Fort Knox really stood for. Seems like a missed opportunity.

The Log Cabin Republicans have a nice new logo.

This week the European Football Association (UEFA) unveiled a new logo as part of the launch of the branding for the Euro 2016 Football Tournament. This logo practically says,  ”I heart soccer.” Which is probably true for just about everyone in Europe.

And on the subject of European logo love, David Airey links to an interesting article about the iconic graphics used to represent British Rail stops. These icons are great representations of the local areas where they’re found. Our particular favorite is the mark used by Edinburgh. Cannon Street and Fenchurch Street are also favorites.

Since we’re writing about European logos, why not one more? Wines of Hungary released a new logo this week in an effort to establish a national identity for Hungarian wines. The logo is part of a trend we’ve seen for the past couple of years that uses lots of small images to create a larger image, in this case flowers in the shape of a wine bottle. We’re not fans of the type treatment, the use of two fonts, or the overall spacing of the logo. But the icon isn’t bad. The spacing of the Hungarian version (shown here) is much better.

We generally like hidden elements in logos (like the FedEx arrow) but this one is a bit to subtle for our taste.

We were going to wrap this week’s update with the new animated Google logo celebrating Earth Day, then we spotted this Google Logo celebrating Jazz Great Ella Fitzgerald’s 96th birthday and thought better of it. We also like this Google logo celebrating St. George’s Day that was spotted in the United Kingdom this past week.

Did we miss anything? Let us know.

The post Logo Design News This Week 3.17 appeared first on Logomaker Blog.

Major economies abroad are languishing. The Euro Zone recession is stretching out longer. China faces fears of a slowdown. An increase in payroll taxes here at home is restraining consumer spending.

Sounds like time to hunker down.

Don’t even think about starting something new.

The risks are simply too high.

Except…

Things aren’t going to get easier.

Oh sure, the economy will improve. Eventually.

But why wait? FedEx, Microsoft, and SalesForce all opened for business during a recession.

Maybe you need the right office space.

Except Michael Dell started his computer business in his dorm room. Kevin Plank started Under Armor in his grandma’s basement. And Jeff Bezos started Amazon.com out of his garage.

Maybe you need money.

That didn’t stop Sergey Brin and Larry Page who funded Google using their credit cards. Or Sara Blakely used just $5,000 to start Spanx. And Pierre Omidyar started eBay in his spare time with no upfront funding.

Perhaps you’re waiting to gain the right experience.

Don’t. Mark Zuckerberg was twenty when he started coding the site that would become Facebook. Andrew Mason was just 26 when he started Groupon. And Catherine Cook was just 18 when she started MyYearbook.

Now will always be a bad time to start a business.

There are always reasons to wait.

Steven Pressfield calls this the resistance. (And if you haven’t read his book, The War of Art and are still waiting to start your new business, buy and read it now.)

Successful small business owners don’t wait. They use the resources they have to create their own opportunities. And they work hard to succeed.

Which means that there’s never been a better time to start your small business.

So what are you waiting for?

Start your business now.
Photo credit: @Doug88888 via photopin cc

The post Now is the Worst/Best Time to Start a Small Business appeared first on Logomaker Blog.

Interestingly, Plank’s first business had nothing to do with athletic wear. Rather, he started Cupid’s Valentine, selling roses for Valentine’s Day. He was able to save $17,000 from this success, which he used to seed Under Armor in 1996 (along with about $40,000 in credit card debt). Today the company is worth more than $5 billion—that’s the kind of success that just about any small business owner would love to have.

Like many of the entrepreneurs we’ve profiled over the past two years, Mr. Plank is heavily involved in philanthropy—giving to the V Foundation, Ronald McDonald House, and the Boomer Esiason Foundation, among others. Here are a few things he’s said that might inspire other small business owners working to solve their customers’ problems:

“The competitive flair that built our country—entrepreneurship—is one of the most undersold resources that we have as a nation.”

“There’s an entrepreneur right now, scared to death, making excuses, saying, ‘It’s not the right time just yet.’ There’s no such thing as a good time. I started an apparel-manufacturing business in the tech-boom years. I mean, come on. Get out of your garage and go take a chance, and start your business.”

“Great brands are like great stories. And every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And our job is to make sure that every chapter of our stories makes sense to the one in front of it and make sense to the one after it. There is no such thing as an overnight success. You have to get up and put your work boots on every single day.”

“You need to put your hands around the throat of your business, and you need to run it. There’s no other way.”

“The companies that win are the ones that communicate the best.”

“I never knew exactly what [Under Armor] was going to look like, but more important, I got up every single day and never believed it couldn’t happen.”

“Find out if your product can sell. And if it can sell, do it faster and do it better than anyone else.”

“It begins with one entrepreneur and one idea and… their ability to communicate and their ability to build a great team.”

—Kevin Plank, Entrepreneur and Founder of Under Armor

 

 

The post 8 Inspiring Quotes for Small Business from Kevin Plank appeared first on Logomaker Blog.

We don’t see a lot of new logos for leading news publications, just one or two a year, so the new logo for Stern (Germany’s Time Magazine) is pretty big news. It’s not a dramatic change, in fact, if you weren’t told about the update, you might not notice the subtle rounding of the letters to make the mark look “stronger, friendlier, and more modern.” If you read German, you can learn more here. Or check out what Pentagram (the agency that did the work) has to say about the project here.

Add this new logo to the file, Logos We Hate.

Another type of logo we don’t really see all that often is for cigarette manufacturers. But that changed this week when Lucky Strike unveiled an update to their logo. The new logo adds a bunch of company text in a circle around the name, which is also made less readable with a new font. The old logo is much better, but if cigarette companies make their logos less readable or less cool, maybe fewer people will take up smoking, instead taking up pastimes with better logos (we joke, we joke). Check this link for a collection of old Lucky Strike logos—LSMFT.

As we were writing this update, we got word that Facebook has updated their logo, flattening it by removing the plastic reflection effect. They’ve also update other icons associated with the site.

We’ve known this was coming. UCONN unveiled their new logo after it leaked on the internet. It’s a really nice looking logo. But it seems there is a little problem in that it looks similar to the logo used by Houston Baptist. (Okay it’s not that similar.) That’s a little ironic, in that last year, UCONN forced a high school to give up their Husky logo because it was too similar to UCONN’s. Back to the logo. The old logo was probably too fluffy and nice. The new logo is more menacing. But it’s a very tight design and a good looking logo. We spotted another new collegiate athletics logo this week as well, this one for the Montana State Bobcats.

Need a quick logo-related read? American Express offers a few suggestions for creating a memorable company logo.

Mexican television station, Galavision, renamed itself “Gala TV” and announced a new logo design to go along with the rebrand. The new logo is a concept called, Caleidoscopio, and looks a bit like a tornado of color and hue. We like the mark quite a bit, but don’t love the type treatment, especially the shadowing on the letters that makes it harder to read.

Chinese care brand Chery unveiled a new logo and a new brand strategy.

This isn’t new, but we came across this very interesting article about how designer Michael Doret created the title treatment (basically a logo) for last year’s Disney movie, Wreck-It Ralph. If you’ve ever wondered how an artist goes from concept to final designs, this is a good read. The process took several months and the article doesn’t include every single revision and round of feedback, but the pencil sketches of the first ideas show a nice breadth of thinking and some delightful ideas. We really like the way the design team captured the look and feel of early 8-bit game design. It’s a nice tribute to early game design (as is the movie).

Another interesting logo-related read: the return of the “frankenmark”, logos that combine a typographic treatment with an icon in the place of a letter. Though we aren’t sure we agree with the conclusion that “frankenmarks” don’t have staying power. Lots of logo concepts at the link.

Unlike last week, we did get a new Google logo this week (it’s animated), this one celebrating Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler’s 306th birthday. He is considered one of the most important mathematicians of the 18th century.

Did we miss anything? Let us know.

The post Logo Design News This Week 3.16 appeared first on Logomaker Blog.

What do scientists know about which logo design styles are best?

Turns out there is a study that looked at that and the findings are interesting. Academics from seven countries tested logos on five continents to see if certain design styles (things like complexity, naturalness, and harmony) worked better in one country than another.

It’s no surprise that customers in the West (Germany, UK and USA) tend to see logos very similarly, and differently than those in Asia (China, India, and Singapore). Consumers in Russia perceived things even more differently, preferring less complexity.

Simple logos tend to do better in the West (and Russia), while elaborate logos do better in Asia. The study’s authors recommend carefully choosing simple images or icons that represent the objectives of the brand or business. They also advise small businesses to stay away from trends and short-term fashions that may not translate between cultures.

Simple designs, used consistently.

Sounds like the scientists agree with the advice we like to give to small business owners.

Speaking of which, here are a seven good tips to keep in mind when you are ready to create your logo.

And here’s a great place to create your logo design, when you’re ready.

Photo credit: NASA Goddard Photo and Video via photopin cc

The post Another Logo Design Study Says Keep Your Logo Simple! appeared first on Logomaker Blog.

Ms. von Tobel worked as a trader at Morgan Stanley trader, then in business development for drop.io, before starting business school at Harvard. But the urge to start her own small business was too strong and she dropped out and formed LearnVest. She launched her company in the fall of 2009, and when lifestyle website DailyCandy mention the new company, 10,000 people signed up over the next 24 hours. Sometimes it’s best to be good and lucky.

In addition to being called the Suze Orman of a new generation, Alexa von Tobel has been named to lost of “best of” lists, including Inc Magazine’s 30 Under 30, Forbes’ Women to Watch, and BusinessWeek’s list of “Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs.” Along the way she’s offered advice to other small business owners looking for the kind of success she’s had. Here’s a taste of what she’s had to say:

“Before you take the leap, before you jump, really make sure it’s going to be something you want to get out of bed [to do] everyday, because it is so hard. So you want to make sure that you’re really committed.”

“What drives me is the fact that, wow, we’re doing something that matters and it’s really making a difference. And I’m so passionate about it. It’s that passion that feeds me when I’m… exhausted. I love what I’m doing.”

“Make sure that you’ve been thoughtful about ’what are the things you don’t know?’ …You have to know what you don’t know, and you have to where the warts of your business are because eventually you’re going to have to fix them.”

“One the first goals—not to say obsessions—of any entrepreneur who wants to build a lasting, valuable company is to get funded. I have one piece of advice to anyone on that quest: Don’t follow the money. Follow the passion. Find investors who believe what you believe, who see the world the way you do, and who want you to succeed almost as much as you do.”

“As an analogy, I always point out to fellow entrepreneurs that if you’re planning to climb Kilimanjaro, the easiest way to start is to find 10 people who have already done it and pick their brains. What did they pack? How did they train? Who did they take with them? What path did they take to the top?”

“A disprutive team has to be willing to put in those crazy start-up hours without complaint, and it must be driven not by immediate returns but by the thrill of building something new—and much better.”

“As an entrepreneur, the line between personal life and work life often blurs. You’re living and breathing your company, and to keep that disruptive edge, it’s critical to develop a company culture around your brand.”

“How do you find innovation? Research (look high and low), listen (to everyone in all your networks), and focus (filter your ideas). Repeat.”

“If you’re not nervous every day, a little bit, then you’re not pushing yourself. My New Year’s Resolution was: ‘Get up, dress up, and show up.’ Get up on time, dress up every day, and show up with a smile. Do that every day–half of life is just showing up on time.”

“When everyone zigs, zag. Life is all about trying to get somewhere first!”

—Alexa von Tobel, Entrepeneur and Founder of LearnVest

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