§ 103. Wanna have it like this

The customer doesn’t have to be a design guru or connoisseur, therefore in all likelihood he wants something that he has already seen somewhere: “The N Corporation has a pretty logo, I want you to make something like that for me”. However, to make “something like that”, one needs to know at least why N made it this particular way, what it had in mind in the beginning and what sort of mistakes it had avoided.

Customers drooling at the BMW logo forms forget that their colors and position allude to the Bavarian flag, while the logo itself symbolizes an airplane propeller for engines that Bayerische Motorenwerke once built. This logo is only good as long as it is attached to good cars.

Good design, a highly recognizable emblem or a logo, an all but perfect corporate organization chart, consumers going ape at the sight of corporate identity elements are all the trappings of a company of good standing supplying quality products and services.

It’s not hard, really, for a company to get there: decades of painstaking work will make its design a worthy model for imitation. Borrowing the paraphernalia of a successful company will have an effect on business just as tangible as the contribution of gnawing at an athletics champion’s ankle to a victory in marathon.