I discovered “From My Bottom Step” through the monthly Geek Dinners in London when owner Greg Fowler started attending regularly earlier this year. I was impressed with the content he was publishing, but I wasn’t with the sites design. Particularly the photograph he was using as a logo in his sites masthead.

Greg needed a proper logo and a more cohesive brand, so I approached him with some concepts at the following meet up and he was sold.

As with any logo the first step was to sketch out ideas, I’m not terribly good at drawing (as you can see) but this process helps flesh out ideas and often allows new ideas to flow much easier from revision to revision then possible on screen with a mouse. Once a handful of concepts are on paper I can then take the best of them to the computer and mock them up in Corel Draw.

The primary concept I went with was to represent the step aspect of the name in type using perspective, size and weight. However the divergence in my sketching was in deciding how to include the image of Greg as a child on his Grandparents steps, or if to include it at all.

I experimented with the figure and the various perspectives to go with it, but in the end it seemed out of place, forced even, to include it despite having so much brand equity. Rather I settled on a simple typographic logo set in Futura with varying degrees of kerning and sizes to create perspective as if looking at a set of stairs. The colour black was selected for it’s strength and versatility, giving the effect more visual impact. The website that followed used the same colour pallet to give the content more prominence and alleviate the noise often found on news websites.

I did end up finding a way to include the iconic image of Greg during the development of the new website by making it the sites favicon, as well as putting it in the footer as a logo for “Fowler Media”, a parent brand for Greg to apply to his network of sites. At launch the reaction from people was overwhelmingly positive at it’s continued inclusion, instantly being a favorite element of the new site.

Dan Brown from the London Free Press wrote about my review of London’s independant media in his blog and in a column in Fridays paper ^{(Aug 22 2008)}.
Continue reading ‘London Free Press: London Indy Media Review Sparks Disscusion’

In March some friends and I attended the London Indie Media Fair, to promote our monthly new media meet up, and I had the chance to sit in on some workshops they were holding. The first I attended was “The Importance of Independent Media” by Anthony Verberckmoes, and while it didn’t explain how it was important, it did discuss how the “mainstream media” is sophisticated propaganda perpetuated by rich white men. It wasn’t a surprise to hear Anthony espouse these sort of views, independent media is often very critical of the way the mainstream media operates and even markets itself, despite some of the similarities between the two, but if independent media wants to gain acceptance as the news source of choice it could definitely benefit from these evil tools of the mainstream media; branding.

Branding the idea of independent and user generated media, capturing its diversity, and building a community around it is key to reach out to those who want to be able to identify sources of passionate and free voices. But better brands are needed, and they need to be better than anything mainstream has to offer before they can grow.

In this article I’m going to take a look at six of London’s most prominent alternative media sources online, and go over what they do well, where they could use some work, and where they fail.
Continue reading ‘State of London’s Independent Media.’

Londoners are probably familiar by now with the “We’re on board” posters that appeared on London Transit buses in October, and more recently bus shelters. It’s a campaign designed to get riders to “Ride Respectfully” with a series of four posters.

The posters feature very low quality 3D models of passengers varying in race and sex and a little note at the bottom telling riders how to behave. Some take one or two of the characters and highlight them to make a point about that specific user demographic. Overall the posters are poorly done, with unnecessary drop shadows, poor type selection, poor 3D graphics, and the use of almost identical imagery for four separate ads. I’m not the first to point this out.

Based on the fact that the logo is of a much higher quality the the posters I’d say the logo was done by an outside company and the posters done in house. The in house designers are also likely the ones to stick a ring around the logo with the URL in a very low contrast colour.

  

So I threw together some mock-ups of my own, in somewhat of a parody, but still following the visual style of the campaign. I didn’t spend too much time on these, as I’m sure is obvious, but I think they are an improvement. I also kept in mind the time and cost restraints the staff probably had using stock photos and keeping the time on each under 30 minuets (including material sourcing). Ideally, with the tone and style the logo gives us, I would have preferred to use illustrations rather then photography; however I am not an illustrator.

Rather then copy the posters verbatim, two voice some long standing gripes from riders. The desire for 24 hour service or at the very least service past bar hours, and large strollers impeding pathways through the bus. The third takes aim at the current poster implying that youth are trouble, especially the ones with skateboard, iPods playing Red Hot Chili Peppers, and little fashion sense. People over twenty-five would never be rude, right?

   

The LTC (London Transit Commission)’s branding strategy, if there is such a thing, is a mess. They put decals of old versions of their logo in the windows of new buses, and a portion of buses have yet to be fitted with the new brand at all. It’s not surprising people have little respect for the LTC, when the LTC doesn’t take the time to improve appearance and service, but chooses to chastise it’s customers instead.

The LTC isn’t alone though; London itself seems to be having an identity crisis lately.

As a new resident in London I tend to watch the local community cable channel Rogers 13 quite a bit. It’s an invaluable resource for discovering events in the area and learning more about the politics, people, and culture of the city.

The other day I happened to land in the middle of a program I hadn’t seen before, and since they were talking about London Transit I decided to watch it, as transit is something I’ve become interested in as of late.

Larry Ducharme was talking about a BRT or Bus Rapid Transit and the branding that would be needed to inform and encourage people to use the service. It’s interesting he was discussing branding as the show he was on suffered from confusing info graphics and a brand that appeared to be straight out of the 80’s.

The first issue I encountered was a confusing “bug” displaying the name of the show, which was troublesome becuase I happened to land on the show when Mr. Ducharme was in focus causing me to think his name was actually McLeod. The bug is far too active to not be confused as some point or another sitting higher then the Rogers bug and being in full colour drop shadows and all. Only latter did I realize that is was the shows name and not the guests after they displayed a graphic showing his acctual name and title in place of the show bug.

Secondly the logo behind the host seemingly changes between camera shifts from a rogers promotion to the shows name. Which is kind of unnecessary as the Rogers bug is omnipresent in the lower right.

Having been an associate producer on a television show in the past, I don’t have any misconceptions that this isn’t low budget mostly volunteer work, but still, these issues seem glaring to myself and worth pointing out as no one else seems to have. I’ve submitted an application to volunteer and maybe help them out, but haven’t received a call as of yet.

McLeod airs Tuesdays at 9:00 PM on Rogers 13 in London Ontario.