Peter Hill Design Receives 10 America Graphic Design Awards From GD USA for Design, Web & Branding Work

Minneapolis, Minn. – Peter Hill Design has been named a winner of multiple 2013 American Graphic Design Awards by Graphic Design USA (GDUSA) Magazine for various graphic design, branding, logo, and web design projects. GDUSA recognizes a selective, top 15 percent with a certificate of excellence. This national competition receives over 8,000 entries each year from members of the design and advertising community.

Peter Hill Design’s winning client entries included a rebranding and website for a Minneapolis law firm’s rebrand; logo, naming, branding and website for a retail consultant; branding and website for a Los Angeles furniture designer; a book cover design for an upcoming fiction author; branding and campaign development for an emerging art organization touting an outdoor opera; a wedding invitation design for an exclusive, Colorado mountain wedding; and a retro, 50-year class reunion invitation for a Wisconsin high school.

Other award-winning projects included two agency self-promotion pieces. The first was last year’s holiday gift, which was mailed to over 100 clients. It included handcrafted high-end, chocolate and marshmallows on stir sticks in custom-designed coffee mug that said ‘Sip’. The second was a ‘fresh’ brochure featuring high-quality food photography and creative writing to introduce the agency to new prospects.

Megan Junius, President & Creative Director of Peter Hill Design said, “It’s an honor to have our work nationally recognized in our industry. We are very excited to have collaborated with all these great client and strong brands.”

The detailed list of awards is as follows:

• Henson & Efron, P.A.; rebrand
• Retail Insights Group; branding, website and logo
• Kim Salmela; 1-logo, 1-website
• No Such Thing As Evil By Andrew Hunkins; book cover 
• Mill City Summer Opera; 2013 Barber of Seville playbill 
• Kristen & Michael Nuptials; wedding invitations 
• Newman High School Class Reunion; invitations 
• Peter Hill Design; “Sip” 2012 Holiday Gift Self-Promotion 
• Peter Hill Design; “Fresh” Self-Promotion Brochure 

“Peter Hill Design is tremendously talented and I enjoyed working with them on my brand development and website,” said client Robert George, President of Retail Insights Group. “They were able to bring my vision of the company to life. Their strategic insight was key in starting my own consulting group after 25 years of industry experience. The results I’ve had since my brand launch has exceeded my expectations.”

“Peter Hill Design’s graphic design work inspired the entire Mill City team to put on the best show possible,” said Karen Brooks, founder and board director, Mill City Summer Opera. “Their work was so striking, it created tremendous buzz for our company as we launched the 2013 season. I am proud to have them as a partner in our success.”

Peter Hill Design is led by Megan Junius, who has been president and creative director of the agency since 2011 when she purchased the business from Peter Hill. Megan is a native of Des Moines, Iowa and a graduate of the College of Saint Benedict/Saint John’s University in St. Joseph, Minn.  She has over 12 years of agency experience and has designed award winning promotions and packaging earning recognition from GDUSA and AIGA. Her collaborative leadership style helps produce strong, creative results for clients of all sizes. The firm’s services include a wide range of marketing and design services. Other team members on the award-winning projects include Allison Krogstad, Whitney Dierks, and Katie Provenzano.

About Graphic Design USA

Since 1963, GDUSA has been the monthly news magazine for the professional design community including graphic designers and other creative professionals. The American Graphic Design Awards is a national, four-decade old flagship competition and is open to everyone in the graphic arts community.

About Peter Hill Design

Peter Hill Design, established 1994, is a design, marketing and advertising firm specializing in targeted brand development, digital marketing, and web design. Since its founding, the agency has grown to include a wide variety of consumer and B2B clients on a national scale with clients such as Disney Garden, Newman’s Own Organics, Career Quest Learning Centers and Hotel Maison. Locally, the firm works with a number of professional service firms including Wellington Management, JBL Companies, Larson • King, LLP, and Burke & Thomas, PLLP. Recent projects include a national consumer product launch, online promotional videos, and digital and print advertising campaigns.

For more information regarding Peter Hill Design, please contact 612.925.1927 or mjunius@peterhilldesign.com and visit www.peterhilldesign.com.

The Impact of Online Videos

Online video is making a statement like never before. Brands across multiple industries are seeing more customers respond to their online videos. Video advertising is establishing a place for itself in the world, it is educational as well as entertaining and inspiring.

Online Video Benefits

Easy to Share

On a variety of social media platforms and mobile devices.

Bring Success Stories to Life

Record client testimonials for
future customers.

Increase Visibility

Videos increase your likelihood of
showing up on Google searches.

See Our Recent Video Work

Is Your Company LinkedIn?

From American Express to Social Media Examiner to Eventbrite, more than 3 million companies have created company pages to connect with over 225 million professionals on LinkedIn.

 

Why Add a Company Page?

• Increase online searchability and web traffic
• Build upon company brand and web presence
• Generate new leads and attract talent by making more connections 

Getting Hitched

Summer is here and wedding season is in full bloom. Did you know that June is the most popular month for weddings? $72 billion per year is spent on weddings and the average wedding budget is $20,000. How much of that budget is spent on invitations and printing?

Some experts say that between 5-10% of the overall wedding budget is to be spent on invitations and related stationary expenses. The Bridal Association of America estimates that couples on average spend$659 on wedding invitations and reply cards for the big day. Of course many bride and grooms spend much more and also many spend less.

Design on a Deadline

Does the adrenaline rush of working on a tight deadline produce your finest creative inspiration?

Sometimes deadlines are self-induced or sometimes they can be client driven, either way, pressure is pressure. Who knows, maybe your best work is done while the clock is ticking down to zero? Or are you more of a slow cooker, simmering ideas to perfection over several days or weeks if you can get them? Whichever way your creative personality leans, it is hard to escape the inevitable reality of deadline pressure in the commercial design world.

Searchability

 

Everyone wants to come up first in Google or be remembered with a quick and easy URL for people to quickly type in. But often, this isn’t always the case. Allowing customers to easily find you is the most important marketing that a company can do. 

Getting the News Out

Every company faces the same challenges when it comes to putting their own news out. Everyone seems to want regular news out but few get organized to achieve that goal. 

Sales departments want to get a regular newsletter started, but there is internal staff member who can pull it all together. Who is going to come up with the topics, write the stories, get company or customer sign-offs, design the template and execute the distribution?

FAQs and You

What does high-res mean? PMS, EPS, CMYK, RGB, PDF? With all the acronyms flying around how can we make it easier to understand these design terms? At least twice a week, we have to explain that a photo or logo just pulled from a website isn't usable in a printed piece. 72 vs 300 dpi is hard to grasp for more. What about domain names versus hosting accounts? This is another common one. Or EPS files versus jpegs?

Here are basic answers to some of these frequently asked questions:

High-Res or High-Resolution is required for anything printed. Any image needs to be 300dpi or dots per inch. Most images used on the web or on screen are 72 dpi, which will result in a low quality print (even though it looks fine on screen!). If you don’t have Photoshop to check the resolution, here is a quick way to tell if the image is print quality. Check the file size. A print-ready file is usually 1 megabyte or more, while a low-res image is usually under 1MB.

EPS or Encapsulated PostScript is a file format used for illustrations and vector-based graphics. What does vector mean? Vector is an image or graphic that is made up of points and lines. This is how a designer creates shapes and fonts. The difference between vector and raster is that the shapes can still be manipulated when they are vector through a program like Adobe Illustrator. Raster is more like a Photoshop image. EPS files are preferred for working with logo files because they can be placed over a background color or image and are already ‘outlined’. A rasterized logo as a default would be on a white background. An EPS image can also be blown up to whatever size necessary – like for a large sign on a building, without losing resolution because the file is all based on vector points and not pixels.

CMYK/RGB/PMS are all color terms. CMYK refers to cyan, magenta, yellow and black which is how most printers output color. RGB refers to red, green and blue – these colors are used to make up a digital display. When working with images for print, they should be switched to a CMYK file format for accurate printing but web images should stay at RGB. PMS refers to the Pantone Matching System. This color system is widely used as the standard for printing colors. Each color can be ordered as straight ink but formulas are also provided to make the same color using CMYK inks. Graphic programs use the Pantone library of colors so the print outputs already have the color break formulas in them.

Domain Names vs. Hosting are both web-related terms. In order to have a website, a domain name or URL is needed. Domain names can be purchased through companies like GoDaddy, Network Solutions and myriad of others for 1 year or more. But purchasing a domain name is just the first step. A hosting account is still needed. Hosting is usually charged monthly. This charge is for the server space the website files will reside on. Web hosting can be purchased through numerous companies and often web developers prefer to host the sites they work on. After hosting is set-up, the domain name can be pointed to the hosting company so the web files show up on the right web address.

Most people don’t need to know all these terms which is why they choose to work with a professional designer or web developer. But it seems like more and more people are taking things into their own hands. Many people have Photoshop now and have company logos or product images that need to be managed. Websites are not just for business anymore as many people have personal sites, side projects, hobby or family sites. With the world becoming more and more digital everyday, some basic knowledge of color, resolution and file formats is necessary. This is just the tip of the iceberg!

Monogramming Madness

From iPad covers to dishes, everything has a monogram lately. Pottery Barn features a whole online monogram shop with towels, table linens, glasses, picture frames and jewelry boxes. Etsy.com features baby clothes, linens, wall art, hats, soaps and even decorative pillows. Home décor catalogs are showing headboards, lampshades and bedspreads with monograms.

Giving newly married couple monogrammed gifts isn’t a new idea, but decorating our homes and offices with our initials is a current trend. Since when do we need to have our initials on everything we own? I doubt it is because we think we might lose our belongings. In this mass-produced world we live in, it just might give us a sense of having something uniquely hand-made and exclusively “ours” as it incorporates our own personal flair.

Monogrammed or personalized stationery has been popular for a while, but using an initial as a personal trademark is a trend that looks like is here to stay. It gives something a personal touch – a kind of human ‘territory marking’.

Back in the Victorian era, monograms symbolized the upper class. Those in higher classes adapted the monogram as a symbol of their place in society. Today, corporations often shorten their names to initials and then use the monogram as a design element. Law, engineering, consulting and architecture firms often go for this approach as their firm names are commonly made up of three last names and one is sure to be too many syllables!

For instance, it is much easier to use the shortened ‘PWC’ instead of ‘Price Waterhouse Coopers’. The space that the full three-word name takes up for a logo or design element is quiet long. But do big scrolling initial letters as a design element really say anything about what service or product a company offers? An embroidered ‘LK’ on a golf shirt doesn’t immediately read top-rated law firm or a brochure with a BKV doesn’t necessarily say ‘award-winning architecture firm’. Just like an appliquéd pink “M” on my briefcase doesn’t mean anything if you don’t know my name. But people are drawn to monograms because they give a sense of personal pride. My briefcase screams, “I am ‘M’!” A monogram then becomes a personal logo of sorts.

When it comes to this monogramming madness craze, less is more. One article of clothing or an accessory works but embracing this trend throughout our home décor becomes overkill. Linens are one thing but soaps, pillows, lamps AND a bathmat? What’s happens when you want to donate that “W” pillow to Goodwill? These items become harder to reuse for sure. Using company monograms as a design element can work too but used in the right instance. A simple watermark on a letterhead done correctly can be beautiful but using initials in a direct mail piece probably isn’t the best marketing idea. Let’s remember that not everyone always knows what those letters stand for!

Long Live Handwriting!

What will happen when the world no longer knows how to sign their names? Will everyone use printed block letters to sign legal forms or checks or even credit card receipts at a restaurant?


There is a great debate going around not teaching cursive in schools. Many schools have already shifted from less penmanship to more keyboarding. Supposedly, there is not enough time in the day for all the subjects kids must learn today and handwriting is one of those getting cut.

While keyboarding is ever important in our digital world, what will happen to the lost art of cursive? And if script writing it isn’t taught, will our children know how to read it? Many historical documents are in cursive including The Declaration of Independence. Formal wedding invitations with lots of loops and curls could be a thing of the past. Script fonts could go away entirely. Those fonts designed to look like handwriting will lose their relevancy for sure.

What happens to our personal brands if we no longer have signatures? A signature is a direct link into a person’s identity. The long curves of our capital letters and way we scribble our middle initial is unique. A slanted signature can show that the signer is left or right-handed. Handwriting experts have said that Barack Obama’s signature shows “intelligence, fluidity and fast thinking.”

No one will collect souvenirs with famous people’s autographs anymore without unique signatures. Trying to sell that foul ball you got signed by the baseball star on eBay won’t be worth as much when the name is spelled out in 3^rd grade all caps letters. Will there be such a thing as ‘book signings’? I can’t imagine authors sitting at a table printing their names.

When future generations grow up to sign away their life on their student loan forms, they will block print their names. When they write a thank you note it will be in print – WAIT – they will never send a handwritten thank you note. They will type it or just send a text, right? Maybe this is why children don’t need to learn how to write in cursive because everything is being done electronically. Some students can even use computers for standardized tests now.

A signature is something that is supposed to be ‘one of a kind,’ similar to our fingerprints. Used on everything from mortgage papers to driver’s licenses, our signatures are even used by banks it to verify deposits. Forgery would be more common if everyone printed his or her names. In the future, will our signatures become some form of electronic signature using fingerprints or microchips?

Formal letters from CEOs and Presidents are signed to show importance as well as give a personal touch. It looks like they took the time to sign that formal letter. Our signatures say something about each of us. It’s sad to think that a ‘#’ or ‘@ ‘before our name will be the new signature. The “new handwriting” will be designated by the font style in our emails. Is script doomed to be forever dead?

It is Just too Easy to Share...

It can make us all squirm – thinking about the threat of a colleague or employee crossing the line with your corporate brand via social media. Social media is difficult to ignore for its power to communicate. But what if it’s not always positive? An American Red Cross employee accidentally tweeted a beer-related post to the charity's Twitter account, rather than to her personal account. Not long after that came the Chrysler Corporation that tweeted about the bad driving habits of people in Detroit.


Freedom of expression and ease of use makes everyone a ‘publisher’ nowadays. Companies have been afraid to open the floodgates on social media in case people say bad things about them because online opinions can spread far and wide – and quickly. But ‘word of mouth’ has always been around – these technologies are just new ways of spreading it. These conversations would be going on anyway, so businesses might as well figure out a way to join in and effectively manage their message.

Whether it’s a disgruntled employee or an unhappy customer, negative posts can be damaging to a brand and business. Here are some tips to prevent an errant ‘post’ and manage your online reputation:

1. Develop an internal social media policy including who posts for company. It should include guidelines for response comments and privacy rules.
2. Carry your brand voice and common sense to social media. It’s public!
3. Know the legal issues around identity disclosure on comments. No ‘fake’ reviews!
4. Review posts frequently and quickly remove any out of bounds posts. Use online tools to monitor your brand and all activity.
5. Take a deep breath before responding to comments. If you’re unsure, have someone review your post for tone.

But mistakes happen, even on large companies’ sites, but monitoring often lets you catch mistakes faster and minimize the damage. There are all sorts of new social media tools out there that can automate this process and allow you to respond quickly to negative discussions.

If there is unfavorable chatter, here are some ways to put out the flames. Always own up and admit the mistake. Make sure to apologize publicly and personally to any one harmed by the mistake. The Red Cross has been praised for using humor in response to their employee’s beer-talking tweet and turned it into a way to gather donations.

Then make sure to pull any damaging content offline– but don’t pretend ‘this never happened’. Use the mistake as a teachable moment and don’t stop the conversation or social media initiatives all together. Not everyone is going to love you, your business or your product so pessimism is inevitable. Hopefully any negativity can be easily downplayed and turned into a positive.

My Digital Wish List

From how far digital presses have come, they still have a ways to go to overcome some common challenges.

I wish digital presses could…


Print letterheads. 
For the small identity project, this would be ideal. For some reason the letterhead isn’t an option because the digital presses leave a slight coating on the paper that makes it hard to rerun it through a customer’s inkjet or laser printer afterwards.

Print envelopes. 
Envelopes, we all know this one. They just can’t line up right unless they are run flat and then converted which is too pricey for most jobs. #10s would complete the identity package or announcement envelopes would be great for party or wedding invitations. Think of the impact of 4-color printed envelopes in combination with variable data?

Print spot colors. 
Ever wish you could match something else that ran offset? Wouldn’t it be great if there were a way to run a spot color along with a digital job? HP just introduced white ink; maybe spot ink is next?

Print heavier stock/130#. 
In the design world, the thicker the better – that’s been the trend. Some business cards are now like chipboard they are so thick. Does heavier imply more expensive or important?

Increase the sheet size to accommodate folders. 
13x19 is a bit limiting right? Folders would be the ideal project to run digitally as many customers tend to not need very many. These are expensive projects as the converting and die costs add up. Many times folders are done with just 1 or 2-color printing to keep the costs down. This is a design challenge, especially for company that uses a 3 or 4-color logo.

Reproducing Consistent Color – Is it Possible?

How do we achieve the perfect PMS corporate blue across all mediums and keep it consistent? The blue on screen looks different than on a billboard, a printed ad or a tradeshow booth. The same blue on uncoated or coated paper printed at the same printer using the same ink will look different.

As designers, we do the best we can to know these tricks of the trade and create consistent color. But will the client notice or care that their PMS corporate blue can’t be replicated when printed digitally CMYK versus 1-color offset? Do they need to know the intricacies of the printing process – RGB, CMYK, PMS, different papers and substrates – it sounds like a foreign language to most.

Some clients don’t care. Some clients care too much. As much as we can explain the reasons for the slight differences, it will never make much sense to most people. Even though digital printing is not at all new now, it still needs explanation – the method, the outcome, the pricing: “The price per piece goes down with offset printing, its ideal for quantities of 500 or more. The price per piece stays about the same for digital printing no matter the quantity.”

Consistent color is so important to brands that it is necessary for designers and brand managers to police this and attempt to make the assigned PMS color appear to match throughout all of its uses. But what about when a client wants a specific color to match on an electronic letterhead on their screen and on their desktop inkjet print-out? And still match on their client’s screen and corporate laser printer – it’s just unattainable. We have to manage these expectations and explain that it is nearly impossible to control all of these printer outputs and monitor settings.

All these things considered, here are some tips to maintain color consistency:

• Ideally, choose a PMS color that has a good CMYK break
• When printing uncoated versus coated, adjust the PMS – usually just adjusting one up or down works
• Beware of colors with a lot of opaque white or reflux blue in their make-up, they never look right digitally printed or process offset
• Adding a 5^th color to a 4-color offset job isn’t that expensive and give you peace of mind that the corporate color will be printed accurately
• Most importantly, create a document with all the standard color variations including RGB breaks for Word, CMYK breaks, PMS coated versus uncoated, Hex colors for web – stick to it and pass it around for everyone to use as reference!

The Creative Process

Everyone’s creative process is different. Do you start with a blank sheet of paper, a white screen and stare at it until something pops into your head or jump right in and get going? I like to mull things over for a couple days and start with an idea or vision of what I am going to do.

Sometimes thoughts come to me while I am driving or sleeping and I wake up with a vision of how I am going to do something. My friend says her best creative comes to her in the shower. I also know people like to work in coffee shops with the buzz of people, music and caffeine all around them. I can’t disagree that a good cup of joe always helps get the mind moving. Another colleague likes to share all her ideas and talk through them.

What’s your creative process? Do you start with words, photos or maybe a sketch? If I don’t have a clear direction to begin with, I may need to get inspiration from surfing the web for either stock photos or fonts or just browse other web sites. Books are great, but sitting in front of the computer is just easier since we are all so programmed to multi-task anyway – God forbid we miss an email coming in.

I also have a collection of ‘cool samples’, that’s the label on my bin. I save direct mail pieces, invitations, magazine articles or anything I see that seems to have ‘done it right’ – whether it’s a great headline, a smart way to do a reply card or call to action, or something with fun colors or paper. It’s useful to look through these things periodically and see what others have done.

Then there are those great resources that paper and print reps are always bringing in to inspire us. Some have lovely foil embossing techniques others have crazy one-of-a-kind die-cuts or 10+ color fluorescent UV printing. I love seeing all these fancy techniques and sometimes it sparks an idea. Often, clients can’t always afford these over-the-top extras, but sometimes there is a way to achieve a similar technique affordably too.

The best way to get inspired could be to just get out of your element. Stop in a gift shop, the grocery store or hop on the subway or a bus – just somewhere with a lot of sights and sounds. Just sitting in quiet place – a park or quiet café with just a notebook and your thoughts can be a nice way to clear your mind and allow creative ideas to stream in too.

To me the hardest part about the creative process is the idea. Once something is down on paper or started on the computer, editing it to be a solid final creative entity is easy. Figuring out how to turn on the creative juices is one thing but working on something in progress is another. So start thinking, get inspired and work ‘your process’. Once you’ve identified what your process is, it’s a lot easier to know how to work with it, not against it.

A Burst of Sunshine

Lemon, citrus, charteuse, goldenrod, mustard, solar. Whatever shade you call it – it’s yellow.

Yellow is everywhere right now. From wall colors to dishes to clothing, retailers have the trend pegged. Crate & Barrel’s new catalog features a ‘banana’ colored mixing bowl and J.Crew is promoting custom Sperry duck boots in ‘lemon twist’. Benjamin Moore is showing kitchen walls painted ‘grape green’ against dark chocolate cabinets. And Nordstrom’s features a pattern of yellow sun rings on their main Juniors’ webpage. Shop windows, catalogs, commercials, product packaging and websites are all featuring this peppy color. It must be because springtime is calling for a little bit of sunshine to brighten our dull and dark winter palettes.

It’s easy to follow this design trend. Pair a citrus yellow with charcoal gray or black to tone it down, or a complete a vibrant palette with a pool blue, grass green and tangerine orange. For a modern look, use lots of white and a splash of hot pink against big blocks of lemony yellow. Or mix a soft butter yellow with light teal, pale pink and brown for a vintage inspired design.

Printing on a yellow paper stock is also a way to get a richer hue instead of printing a process yellow on a white stock. Using yellow on the web is a bit trickier; it doesn’t always display accurately on monitors and can be hard to read as type. It makes a great background, though, and a variety of colors look great with it.

Does this yellow trend invoke happiness? It sure is cheerful. Picture a field of daffodils or sunflowers against a cloud-free blue sky. It can only make you smile.

Will the lean to yellow last? Unless you are planning to completely overhaul your brand look, corporate colors, wardrobe or living room, your splash with yellow doesn’t need to stand the test of time. Like the sun, you can just welcome its presence, especially after a dreary winter. Everyone seems hungry for this burst of color to brighten the more neutral hues around us. So go ahead, find a yellow hue that’s right for you. Feel the glow!

What’s Your Personal Brand?

I recently designed a program for my friend and former boss’ memorial service. The program was supposed to reflect him and his style. It got me thinking about everything that goes into a personal style or brand. How do we determine what someone else’s style is?

Maybe it’s in the clothes we wear, be it all black and grey or bright orange and red. Many friends reminisced about my boss’ bright pink shirts and bold purple ties. It could be reflected in the patterns we love – soft feminine florals, bold stripes or textured neutrals. Some choose to make a personal statement through how they decorate their houses or offices. I love sleek and modern interior décor but usually surround myself with a mix of modern and traditional pieces since all modern can be stark and cold.

All of us have a personal style, but not everyone is deliberate about translating that to our personal brand. I designed and digitally printed personalized thank you notes with hot pink, purple and spring green graphics on a softwhite paper for my daughter after she was born. Everyone said how cute they were and that they are “so her”. Did I start creating her brand already as an infant by the typeface, color and paper choices? I wonder if she’ll choose a completely different style and brand as she gets older – no doubt!

I designed an identity for a colleague a while ago who has bold, curly red hair. I created a twisty curly red graphic element that tied into the letters in her name. She continues to use this for her personal stationery and claims it “fits her perfectly”. This red curly-q is now part of her personal brand, a trademark of sorts.

In branding and design, we are taught to be consistent. It’s almost driven down our throats and in turn we teach our clients to be consistent. Use your logo in the same way every time, stick to the brand manual and use the same colors and fonts, pick a standard paper – all these choices create your brand.

Maybe our personal brand is just ingrained in who we are. It’s how we sign our name, the words we use, our speaking style and the colors we prefer. And while consistency can be a good thing, sometimes we all can become a bit stale even in our personal brand. Always wearing all black and white and pinstriped? Shake it up a bit – it’s a new year. Add a dash of citrus yellow or a pop of red, splurge on a new striped lunch bag, change your default email font to a serif instead of Arial, or spec a colored envelope for your next identity project instead of white. Come on, even corporate brands need a bit of refreshing now and then.

Brand Legacy

 

Peter Hill, the founder of Peter Hill Design, passed away last January after battling bladder cancer. Peter’s friends recently gathered to play in the first annual, memorial charity golf tournament in his name. This event exceeded all expectations for participation and funds raised. The generosity and outpouring of support continues to amaze me. Peter left a lasting impression on so many people.

I am proud to carry on his legacy as the new company owner to the business he created over 13 years ago. As we planned my purchase of the company last fall between his chemo treatments and settling into our new office space, keeping his name as the company name was always a topic of discussion.


If we changed our name, how would the brand continue and our clients find us? If we kept it, how would we explain who Peter Hill was to new clients? My biggest fear was losing clients to too much change and the impression that the company no longer existed. Keeping the name was one way for us to show them our service would stay consistent. Many companies face these challenges, but especially when the founder’s namesake is in the company name. Does the founder in fact become the brand?

Many law firms continue with partner names in their titles long after the partner leaves. If Oprah died tomorrow would HARPO cease to exist? I doubt it. The brand equity that she has created is off the charts successful. As much as Oprah brings to her company, she has a whole team around her that really helped create her brand. Ralph Lauren is on the verge of retirement at the age of 73 and his megabrand will likely continue as-is without his leadership. His son, David, is posed to take over according to a recent Fast Company magazine article. Although David has a different vision, he will take his father’s company and continue to build on the established brand equity. It helps that David has the same last name but even if he didn't, I am sure “Ralph Lauren” will still be in existence years from now.

It’s been 9 months for now us without Peter, and so far the name has stuck. Our brand has stayed consistent and our clients have stayed with us. Peter’s name truly became the company brand. Prospects haven’t inquired to why there is no longer a ‘Peter Hill’ at Peter Hill Design. Our company culture, without our original leader, isn't too terribly different from when I started here over 10 years ago. Our small, close-knit team has stayed working together and our vendor and client relationships have stayed consistent.

What’s behind the name is what makes it valuable – the customer relationships, products and people. We might change our name down the road, but for now, "Peter Hill Design" still has brand equity and a nice ring to it!

Mergers and Acquisitions

As the world watched the royal wedding in awe, it got me thinking about mergers. How are William & Kate going to merge their personal brands? In this case, Kate might just be joining the royal family and losing her whole sense of personal brand to this larger force. Considering the royal family has the ultimate brand standards, Kate will definitely have a strict path to follow. But does the same happen in more “common” marriages or mergers?

It happens with company mergers all the time. AT&T Wireless became Cingular Wireless and then turned back to being AT&T. The Cingular name is now gone completely but they kept some of their brand equity through their use of the orange color. Sometimes large corporations swallow up small companies and the small company loses it’s name and brand entirely.

Are women who keep their name after marriage holding out to keep their brand? Catherine Middleton is now Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge or can also be called His Royal Highness Princess William of Wales, or Her Royal Highness Catherine of Wales. Is the simple ‘Kate Middleton’ gone for good? Some women try incorporating their maiden name into their married name and have two names like Hilary Rodham Clinton.

Some companies do a transitional period for people to get used to the new name and brand after a merger or acquisition. One of our clients started off as Doboy, then they were bought by SIG, a Switzerland company and became SIG Doboy, then Bosch bought them and they became Bosch Doboy and now they are known as just Bosch Packaging Technology, Inc. They went through many years of keeping the Doboy brand alive until finally dropping it.

Another client has just updated their 90 year-old brand from Howard R. Green Company to HR Green. It took them many years to take this big step and lose the iconic handwritten “g” in their logo, as well as their founder’s full name. But the easy part of the change was that their customers and internal staff were already using HR Green when speaking because the original name was long and cumbersome to say and write. Their URL and email addresses had also been hrgreen.com for many years so the transition had unconsciously begun before they even knew they were doing it.

Name and brand changes can be confusing to the public and the customer’s perception of a company. Is Comcast now Xfinity or is Xfinity Comcast’s way of naming their products and services? As a Comcast customer, I don’t think it’s very clear. When considering a merger or brand and name change, proper planning is necessary to limit this confusion and get everyone on the same page – internally and externally. From presenting the new names and logos together on everything from marketing materials to invoices to having the right message come across when someone answers the phone – this all must be considered.

I am sure William and Kate have thought long and hard about what it means to formally merge and become the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge; what it means to their personal identities as well as their new fame as a royal couple. Let’s just hope that the public takes hold of their new titles and their supporters continue their enthusiasm for the union.

Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Blogger, BlogSpot, Yelp…

Everyone’s into social media now and as designers, we’ve held back a bit. Not that we don’t use social media to connect with friends, but as a business tool there’s something a bit limiting about a square picture in a strictly designed templated page layout that puts us off.  But it’s changing daily and becoming so popular that some companies are even using Facebook over their main web site to connect with their customers.

Do our social media choices define our style? A friend of mine does financial communications and is all about LinkedIn – it’s more formal, less chatty and all about business connections. A produce market client swears by their Facebook page where they put up daily deals and what’s fresh. Another is a ‘Yelper’; she loves the short reviews. Twitter of course sings for brevity, not much for looks. Everyone should now get on board and learn how to embrace these mediums because it’s become the way of the world.

If properly planned out, it is possible to use social media and have a defined brand and style. Most company logos need to be adjusted to fit the pre-determined pixel sizes instead of just slapping it up there and getting partly cut-off. The tone and voice of the posts or tweets need to be defined and consistent. The best way to do this is to set up a style guide or make sure one person is responsible for postings. The communications need to be regular and frequent. Nothing looks worse than seeing that the latest post is from 3 months ago. The photos need to reflect the company’s brand and always stay professional (no happy hour photos!)

With so much communication happening through these new online channels, is there a place for print? Print has just become the vehicle to drive customers online. Something printed still stands out more amongst the clutter and glut of email and social media posts. A nicely designed printed invitation in a sparkly envelope is still the best medium for parties or weddings. But now the RSVP can now be an online reply instead of mail-back card.

A magazine ad can promote a company’s social media sites for special insider offers.  Direct mail campaigns can use variable data to personalize customer’s names and drive them to unique landing pages. And who doesn’t like to get something personally addressed to them in the mail? Imagine if holiday cards become links to Facebook family photos or family blogs sites instead of the yearly letters? It’s starting to happen but something just gets a bit lost in translation, it’s less personal and more public.

Doesn’t there still needs to be a balance? It can’t go all online, can it? As designers and marketers, we can embrace what should go online – timely communications and customer engagement campaigns. Let’s create digital brands that best fit these mediums but still produce some lovely printed pieces that drive social media traffic for our customers.