I’ve gathered a range here for your viewing delight. For the sake of protecting these brands, (from scorn and ridicule) I’ve removed the names. In full disclosure I did not thoroughly investigate any of these brands to understand the history or what the logo designer was trying to accomplish. I’m critiquing these logos choosing to take the vantage point of the average man (speaking as a woman of course).

Grade: D-

D stands for dull. The above logos are my least favorite because or their obvious solutions. “Oh, it’s an outdoor outfitting company…let’s put a mountain in the logo.” This seems to be the thought process behind these logos. Seriously, half of them even have the sun or some sort of sky behind the mountain. These are supposed to be logos, not illustrations. These logos have the essence of Wil E. Coyote – lots of spirit, but no real strategy. It’s the lack of creativity that’s really a shame here.

Grade: B

B stands for better. These logos are not only better executed but they are attempting something. Dated though some of them may be, you can see an idea was there – it may not have stayed long, but it did visit. Perhaps one of the logos above was visited by his cousin adidas.

Grade: A

A stands for “alright!”. These logos may not be perfect, but if you had to have a mountain logo I would go this route. These logos not only have originality when it comes to mountain shapes (never mind one of them looks eerily similar to Motorola), but they have spunk. Now if I can just get one of these companies to send me a free jacket I think that’d just about do it.

Water enters water tanks during rainstorms and is pumped out during dry spells

Water problems solved:

1. Conserves water during times when processed water should be used for humans/animal types not plants
2. Prevents rainstorm runoff from getting into our waterways (what’s wrong with that?)
3. Gives slacking rabbits a job

Should be cost effective and uses time proven technology – the hand pump. What would hold this idea back are city utilities (install it for them!) and the fear people would drink this water… and rabbits that would want to get paid.

I will NOT tell you about whether gators can fly – you’ll have to go next year to find out.

openbox9 Mascot Carlee leads the pack of hikers into the wild

Mascot Kathleen pets Swampy the aligator

Our logo (designed to look like a patch) made into a real patch - cool.

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To see some of our other work for NWF, we all invite you to click here.

Tips on designing for audiences

When considering designing for an audience, it is important not to get hung up on characterizations and stereotypes. While they can be considered, they usually are more offensive than helpful. For National Wildlife Federation, I choose to group audience types by passions and what motivates them. From that grouping, you start to see what commercial brands attempt to tap into those passions and makes decisions on whether you agree with those attempts (do all moms like picnics on a flower filled hill?).

Part of the research also requires looking at competitor sites and define what audience type they are trying to speak to. For NWF, we felt the audience we wanted to reach out to was not being considered by the competitors — outdoor types that enjoy their old Jeeps and ratty chinos. The audience that wants to feel nature on their face while they tend to their heirloom tomatoes in pouring rain. People that know the granduer of the outdoors cannot be contained in a web browser but appreciate a design that tries with big bold photos.

The website designs and the multiple subsite designs are completed but you’ll have to wait until October to explore the live experience. In the meantime, NWF needs our support to protect the threatened and disappearing wildlife – visit www.nwf.org for info.

It was a grand project that Alcoa and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change took on — build a calculator and resource site to equip the employees of Alcoa “To Make an Impact” and help save the Earth. What openbox9 provided was the strategy for the user-experience, the branding (logo created by 3rd party), and the interface design. Our hope is that the site does make an impact and our Earth reaps the rewards.