The Carolina Panthers recently announced a new logo design, which cleans up and streamlines the look of the 18-year-old mark. The new mark is not revolutionary, just evolutionary, along with a new stylized sans serif logotype. The changes are subtle, but refreshing and refined, almost leaning towards a more corporate feeling. Word on the street has it that the uniforms will not change, only the helmet and logo will be updated.

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A simple diagnostic test to gauge the health of your brand is to take your brand’s pulse. It’s really easy. All you have to do is ask five separate audiences two questions.

Here are the audiences you need to ask:
> Yourself—first!
> Employees—pick one each from sales, service, marketing, administration, product management, manufacturing, and finance
> Customers—choose one or two of your best customers, one or two of your marginal customers, and one or two of your “yet to become” customers
> Suppliers—select a few different ones like your bank, raw material suppliers, IT suppliers, business service suppliers (health insurance, etc.), and / or creative suppliers / printers, etc.
> End users (could just be different types of customers)
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To keep things fresh in web design, we visit these seven sites + more. Take a look at some of our favorite links:

thefwa.com the “favorite website awards” – a great source of web + interactive inspiration
onepagelove.com as they say, the “ultimate showcase of one page websites”
webbyawards.com an awards showcase for the best of the web
siteinspire.com great site portfolio resource that is searchable by style, theme, type, or random selection
webcreme.com thumbnails + links to sites that inspire
webdesignledger.com a platform for inspiration, tips, tools + more
designrfix.com/web-design a community for sharing creative web design, e-comm, wordpress templates + tutorials

Do you have a favorite? Send us a note!

I can’t help but be a bit sad to see the blue and green Wachovia signs being replaced by red and gold Wells Fargo signs. All vestiges of First Union and Wachovia, once strongholds in North Carolina, are being erased. The end of an era notwithstanding, I find the red and yellow / gold of the Wells Fargo logo glaring and unfriendly, and as a non-designer friend put it, “that font has got to go.”

But what is it about the colors of a logo that brings about such negative feelings?
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Most of the time we deal with “normal” brands (not the Oscar nominees)—the brands you may come across everyday—not the big powerhouse brands like Apple, Starbucks, Budweiser, Ralph Lauren, etc. And from our experience, we initially spend time counseling our clients on how to innovate their brand to fully realize its true and untapped potential. So, we thought we would layout the basics here, just FYI.
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