How To Approach a Company With Ugly Designs

So, Lee, give to me maybethree or four decisionsor observations that you'remaking prior to saying,you suck.Your work sucks.Well, I'm notreally saying this.I'm just saying thatthere could be improvementand I get what you see as well.Like, you know, there couldhave a reason for it being late.But that's why Isaid on Facebook,you know, withoutsounding like, you know,I'm sort of saying what?I've got better than whatyou have sort of thing.Yeah, that's just for the sakeof our conversation right now.Let's just assumetheir work does suckand what you do haveis supremely better.Now, what are the two or threesteps or maybe more thingsthat you're thinking about thatled you to that conclusion?Let's just play along here, ok?OK, so what are they?I have my notepad and pen.I'm ready to go.OK, so like Ichecked out the like,I got a leaflet from them.This is the actual company here.It's called BSAschool and their logolooks at the sortof outdated stuff.I don't want tosay it's rubbish.I mean, I don't wantto use those words.But then well, for this islike a classroom, right?It's just we're going tohave a real conversation.Let's just not be so polite.Let's just go straight.OK because I don't want to spendall the time kind of figuringout what you're trying to say.Let's just go for it.And it is truly nice.OK, just go to theedge a little bit.So basically, I got thisleaflet and it's a companythat I'm wanting toactually be part of as well.And I thought, oh, well, youknow, the logo looks rubbish.I'm sure I coulddo a better job.And then I checkedtheir website and Ihad the same sort of reaction.You know, I looked on it andI thought, well, you know,it looks like it coulddefinitely be improved.OK, let's start there.I'm still having ahard time figuring outwhy you think it's rubbishwhen you look at that,what are you looking at?Well, I think it's just theway it's sort of laid outand, you know, it doesn't reallyrepresent like it representssort of the sea school.But at the same time,it's not really.It doesn't really say to me thatthis is a professional companyor I mean, likebecause there's somany of a sort ofsailing schoolsand they look like this.All of reallyprofessional and stuff.And this one kind oflooks a bit cheap.And, you know, eventhough, what is it?I needed a pin.I need you to be.I need you to put onyour art director hatand be super precise, likea ninja slicing tomatoeswith a blade.Tell me what it is thatyou're seeing and picking up.You're making alot of decisions,but you're not illuminatingyour thought processat all because I'm like,what do you mean, that soundsreally insultingly?This is super professional.What are you talking about?We've been inbusiness for 20 years.You see, you'restill going straightto the prescriptive conclusionpart like, I don't like this.This is stupid.I hate this.What are you?Precisely, that'stelling you it'snot professional or perhapsdoesn't represent them.I am well, I'm not reallygood at sort of the wordingfor sort of a design critique.Well, I don't know it just.Just it doesn't look like if youlook at a professional companyand then you look at that,you can see the difference.So this OK.Can you go on yourwebsite right nowand pull up something froma professional companyand try to articulate thedifferences that you're seeing?And what we're going todo is we'll start bigand then we'll narrowit down, OK, sohopefully leave youplay along here.This could be a greatlearning opportunityfor this entire group.I understand that not all of usare comfortable either sayingwhat we think or havethe visual vocabularyto talk about what itis we like or don't likeand can't articulatethat to their client.So we wind up just going tothese base reactions, whichis it's not professional.It doesn't representyou, and it's amateurish.So I'm going to tryand help you here.OK, play along and I'll teachyou how to do this on the spot.OK OK.So do you have a websiteor something up in frontof you right now?I'm pulling up now just.And so that we canall play along.Tell me what the URL is, soI can search for it as well.And I'm just looking to behonest, I never realized this,but I'm looking at allof us failing schoolsand they've all got to solve thesame look and solve the look.Yes, see?They were learning somethings together here.You find anything yet.This one's fine.It looks, in my opinion,better than the basic schoolon Marina sailing.So that's OK.Polynyas largest sailing clubapparently showing the screen.OK so is this anice logo to you?Well, it looks nicerthan the best schools on.OK, why does thisone look nice to you?Um, it just looksmore professional.There isn't a bettertypeface, like it looks,yeah, like the registry isn'tlike my pro or somethinglike that sort of really basictypekit, whereas this one,it looks a bit more classy.I'm not sure whichtypekit, but me neither.That the logo is a bitmore simple like this one,it's just it justseems a bit randomthe way things are it and stuff.And if you like, youknow, it doesn't reallyfollow the rules of logoslike, you know, your scaleor just won't even looklike a ball anymore.And you know, because ofthat, the hype around itas well, it just there's somuch space on either side.It just it would look alot better if it was justlike the Marinasailing one whereit was just not on the top.And then, you know, the two.So OK.So what you're doingthere is you'restarting to pickit apart and you'restarting to be able todiscern very specific things.And I can help coachyou through this.OK, so let's just break it down.One thing at a time.What I would suggestthat you all dois start with thebiggest stuff first.So there's this icon,and to you, the iconlooks visually pleasing.It will scale downand reduce well.I would not necessarilysay accordingto the rules of logo design,because nobody cares.And you just in very plainspeak so that people do care.So the logo itself willreduce down really well.It reads easily.It can use as astandalone element,or it could beused in conjunctionwith this particular lock up.The lockup itself betweenthe word mark and the symbolfeel fairly balanced, and it canbe configured in multiple ways.You can see that it can stackor it can be centered like thisbecause the upper left corneris the logo stamped right,so it seems to be working.The icon itselfseems to imply speed.It's reflective ofthe sail, but it'sabstract enough that could becool kind of just by itself.And the word mark itselfhas a very simple type set,but there's justenough customizationin the initial letters the m andS that seems to appeal to you.Perhaps you likethe serif typefacebecause it feels classic becauseserif typefaces are older.Maybe that's what it is.And then they have this littlebanner underneath the kindof group it all together.And literally there'san anchor underneathto kind of hold it down.OK so there's some nice thingsgoing on it going on there.There's some issues,obviously to mein terms of letter spacing andthe weight of these strokes.The m seems to be like strokesor inconsistent with the waythat the and R's are drawn.And there's.Right so now wecan see that we canbreak this whole thing apart.And it looks like tome that since 1962is a differenttypeface, so they'reusing a couple of differentthings going on there.I'm not sure that'snecessary, but weshall see even the California'slargest sailing clubs,a different typeface as well.Yeah so there's alot going on here.OK OK.So if we scroll down,we see like there'ssome really beautifulphotography for sure.It's breathtaking.It makes me feel likeI want to go sailing.There's images of the family.And this is what you would do.You just go through andliterally break downevery single thing thatyou can see and spotand just try to describe it.Now, notice most ofthe time because Idon't have the advantage oflooking at the crappy logoyou're looking at, but I trynot to say disparaging thingabout a person's company.You feel like I give you thewebsite for the not so nice.Well, it's basicallydev.mysql.com Bay City bay,baresi C school, Si school.Yeah hopefully, you'renot punching me.And sending me to aweird site that OK.OK all right.So here's the thing.I tried to focusmostly on what Ithink is positiveabout somethingso that I allow the clientto fill in the gap themselvesbecause sometimes whenyou attack a person'swork or company or logothat they didn't believeto be a problem to begin with,you're kind of insulting them.And I wouldn't feel thatway, but a lot of peoplewould feel that way.And so we want tosteer clear from thiswhen we're talking to clients.OK Yeah.Now I just told youa bunch of thingsthat I feel which arereally not relevant to you,so what I would do is Iwould ask people a seriesof questions, OK, and this ishow we're going to do this now.I'm going to stopthis sharing here.Michael, go back totalking to you, ok?The trick to getting a clientto think the way that you thinkis to try to illuminate theway you think to them by askingthem a series of questions.Now, if you don't knowwhat you think and youcan't articulate that well,we're kind of stuck right now.So what I would recommend allof you perhaps drop into an MFAlike a master's infine art programand watch how theytalk about work.There's a way that they look atthings the language they use,and it won't take too longbefore you start learninghow to speak about work.Mfa candidates aretypically notorious for overdescribing processand thought processthat you look at the work.It's like, I think youjust threw paint on that,but the way you're able to talkabout is quite interesting.OK, so that's needsome practice there.So we're going to learnhow to ask questions.So you notice at thebeginning of this,I didn't just go into it.I started asking youlots of questions.Yeah and that allowsyou to come to at leastin the middle to see theworld the way that I see it.If I just told you,you're all wrong,it's just terrible andshut up, and this is notthe way you talk about design.Then you are going to beimmediately turned off by thatand you're going to shut down.Your hands are goingto come and you'regoing to close yourself off.And this is what aclient's going to do.It's like walkingto somebody's homeand critiquing everythingabout their home.It's a tough business to be in.So the better way todo this is to ask them.I'm curious, do you feel ifyour identity and your brandingis reflective of whatyou think you are?How would they respond?I'm just writing thisdamn thing, right,because you came to it saying,this doesn't represent you.You made a lot of assumptionsthat me and that this is notconnected to me.Yeah America.OK, so you're going to askthese kinds of questions,it's very important.Does this represent you?How do you feel about this?Where would you like to go?What kind of challenges are youhaving surrounding the identitythat you've created?I'm just curious, areyou making merchandiseand is it selling well?What's been the customerfeedback been around this?So you see, like all thesequestions are carefullydesigned to get themto say and think what?I want them to think.They say we have sort of sayingthis is how it should be.You're trying toget them to realize,like be on the same sortof level as you solve them.Well, you're just trying toteach them what you think.This is what experts do,this is what consultants do.Like I said before, in manyof the lectures I've given,anybody, including a child,can prescribe a solutionlike my son who knowsnothing about design, really.He's 12 now, but before he wasmuch younger, he'd walk in.It's like, yeah,dad, I don't know.I don't like that.And then you just walk away.I'm like, what?Like, what do youknow about design?Get your littlebutt out of here.Right, and that's kindof what you're doing,you're going to getswatted away and dismissedlike that littlekid like my son.But if he's like, dad, so whatare you trying to solve here?Do you think youraudience connectsto this kind of imageryor what kind of imagerydo you thinkresonates with them?Then eventually, he would leadme down this path, I'm like,then my only conclusion thenwould be, yeah, this kid smart.He's thinking hehelped me to cometo the realization of a problem.I did not realizethat I had before,or maybe that Icouldn't articulate it.Yeah all right.That makes sense.OK, so it's a dangerousbusiness to bein when you arrive at thedoor with all the conclusionsall the solutions workedout having not even talkto the client.Ok?does this helpyou guys with you?Suck and you need me?Yeah, definitely helpful.All right.If you are able to changethis, Lee and everybodythat's watching this.If you're able to changethe way that you thinkand the way that youcommunicate this to your client,you're going to seesomething wonderful happen.You're going to seea transformation,you're going to see that fliphappen that Blair ends talksabout when the client seesyou as a vendor and it flipsand they see you as anexpert now as a consultant.And that's critical.OK can I ask a followup question to that?100 percent?Who's talking?This is victor, Victor.Fire away, man.So what does this encounterlook like in your head?I mean, does he justshow up at the doorand start askingthis question outof nowhere, the sea experiencewhat the school is like firstand then try to make someconnections from that.Right he wants to turn thisinto a prospect, right?So how does hebegin this dialogue?Now I'm going to assume thatLee is somewhat of a sailingenthusiast becausehe seems to knowa little bit about sailing.He knows about websitesI don't know about.So he already is connected,and so he has a passion for itand some kind ofknowledge there.I've shared this withyou guys before, the waythat I would reachout to them isto kind of figure out an angle.Ok?they distribute these pamphlets,these leaflets for a reason.What do you thinkthey're trying to do?And Lee might say, well, they'retrying to get more peopleto take classes orsomething, or theywant to spread theword of sailingand why it's important they'resailing evangelists, somethinglike that.So what you wantto do is just askthem a very simple question.I received this wonderfulleaflet in the mail.And I'm an enthusiast.I'm a sailor orI've been certified.I'm just curiousif this is meetingthe objective that you set out.Are you getting a good responsefrom putting out this leaflet?And then that shouldbegin the conversation,I've shared this example beforewith the real estate companybecause they send me stuffin my inbox all the timeand all I reached out.All I did was thesethings are wonderful.I get them all the time.I love seeing the new productsthat you're working on.It's getting the kindof result that you want.That's all.So you see how quickly Ican elevate the conversationfrom it being aboutyour logo sucksto like what is the purposeof this leaflet to begin with?Maybe you don't need a leaflet.Maybe the logo, nomatter how bad it is,doesn't even impactthe business at all.Dare to think like what aradical thought that maybethe logo doesn't matter at all.And you guys mayhave heard me saythis, unless your companyis in the fashion businessor something where.Or an automotive industrywhere the logo actuallyis part of the designpart of the product.The new the logodoesn't matter at all,like your experience in termsof the teaching or the sailingexperience will be impactedalmost zero percent,whether or not they have a nicelogo like Marina sailing or BCsailing.It makes no difference.In fact, many people wouldlike to scratch off and removelogos off things, they removethe thing that you guys holdso dear.So a much better conversationto have with themis why did you make thisleaflet to begin with?No, you should know theanswer to that question.So you should rephrasethat question as in.Is it getting theresult that youwant in terms of people signingup for a classroom or a class,or something like that?Victor, did I answeryour question?Yes, he did thank you.Great, are there any otherquestions around this.And then we'll move on.Fine beautiful.OK