Brand Tags

Recently ran across the concept of brand tags via an article in the Wall Street Journal.

"It’s called Brand Tags, and in just a few days the site has attracted more than 30,000 visitors and about 183,000 individual responses, according to Mr. Brier. His thinking: If a brand can be defined as the sum of all perceptions about it, what would he learn by asking people online to give their snap reactions to a bunch of logos?

Mr. Brier decided to show the results as a tag cloud–a format in which the size of the word corresponds to its frequency among responses. Frequently submitted words are shown in giant type, while rarely-submitted ones look tiny on the screen."

We all know that a brand is what your consumers perceive it to be. This experiment is a voluntary gut reaction. Interesting. Just for fun or will corporations use this as yet another resource for focus group chatter?

New chefs

mike and i would like to officially welcome our two newest faces at mindsalt.

ashley revlett. our resident web designer and self-proclaimed youngest person in the group. ashley joins us after several years of freelance and attending school at the University of Louisville.

ashley has picked up many a spilled plate for clients and comes out on top each time. we value what she has done in these first few months.

ashley can be found on facebook, the local coffee shop, listening to a new band that comes to town or relaxing on her couch dreaming of code.

the second newbee is josh beatty. we first met josh at doe-anderson (somehow which becomes our 2 degrees of separation). josh curageously left doe to pursue his own company greener way, which he still manages and runs today. strategic planning and new business are his strengths, but resident barista and smart-ass are close seconds.

thanks to you both for helping push mindsalt to the next level.

Role reversal

It's not easy being account manager in any size firm.  It is a delicate balancing act of client approval and expectation management mixed with in-house loyalty and honesty.  In other words, account managers work all day not to tick anyone off.

Recently, however, I went from account manager to client here at Mindsalt with my suddenly booming side gig -- Little Treasures Kid's Sale.  We needed re-branding from top to bottom and of course, I trusted no one but Mindsalt.  You must understand that I am a PR person here, but Little Treasures is my baby.  We've grown this business from as small and insignificant as you can imagine to now regionally recognized and drawing people in from 4 states.  

So that being said, I now have a much greater appreciation for what it's like to be in the client seat.  We have to trust branding professionals, designers and the like with truly knowing our business from the inside-out so that it can be captured across all mediums.  

I'll have to say, I'm 100% satisfied with my client experience at Mindsalt.  It was somewhat difficult to muster up the courage to ask my employee for some tweaks here and there (as the client).  But in the end, we were all happy with the result...designers, client (me) and account manager (me).  Check it out:  www.littletreasuressale.com.  Response to the new brand is excellent.

Convenience

It was on a recent trip to France and Italy that I realized how far behind America is in reducing its footprint in the world. What do these two country's do that we don't? The simple design of convenience. The convenience in having recycling bins on the street next to garbage cans. The choice to do the right thing and throw your plastic and paper in a recycling bin rather than a garbage can that gets sent to a landfill. Businesses use larger bins that were placed on the street to recycle wine bottles and plastic. Come on America, take a cue from France and Italy.

acoustic guitars: phase one

at long last, the acoustic guitars (and my bass) from the first two harlan guitarworks lutherie classes have been completed (end of last year) and photographed (a special thanks to videobred: jamie, kara, chad and kirk, thanks for the use of the studio; and brian for letting me break his D100). looking back at the last year-and-a-half and the photographs of everyone's hard work, i'm beiginning to realize the significance of our efforts.


we started shortly after the newport guitar festival almost two years ago. after seeing some of the crazy stuff independent makers were trying (and after a beer or three), ted harlan (www.tedharlan.com) and i came back to the shop in louisville with an amplified entusiasm and few crazy ideas. after extensive designwork, tons of jig-building (my favorite part) and a little trial and error, we got under way.



learning (and tap tuning) every step of the way, we prepared tops and backs; bent sides; cut bracing; kerfed, bound and built the boxes; hand built the necks, bridges and tailpieces; inlayed, detailed and finished everything in clear laquer; strung and tuned them up and – what-do-you-know, they all sound great.



now we have two enthusiastic new classes, a much improved process in place and a new body/neck design. we're sending files out this week to have very precise plexi-glas pattern parts made in the hopes that we can continue improving the efficiency of the classes and, we've been looking at the work of lloyd loar so that we might gain a better grasp of acoustics.


can't imagine how guitar-building/woodworking relates to graphic design? as far as i'm concerned, they're identical in every way. they both require an ability to understand complex ideas, to pay attention to detail, to recognize process efficiencies and, most importantly, it requires an innate understanding of the visual language of design. are we there yet? maybe not, but we get a little closer and we improve every day.

my thanks to ted. working in the woodshop has always been good for providing useful knowledge and valuable perspective.