Above, top to bottom: Quaker Oats mascot; Sealand identity proposal by Metahaven.

Almost two years ago, I was asked by SVA MPS Branding Chair Debbie Millman and Co-Founder Steven Heller to teach a course for the new program, which kicked off its inaugural year this September. Over the months leading up to the program’s launch, I had the opportunity to immerse myself in research and to seek out the opinions of fellow faculty as I prepared this class. I am grateful for their contributions, and for the smart and hardworking students that enrolled in the course. I couldn’t have asked for a better group, and their contributions deepened and amplified the themes I’ve laid out here at every turn. I found few resources online for assembling a class of this kind, yet its topics seem to infuse our contemporary discussions of design and identity. I offer the syllabus here as an evolving document and will be adding to it myself over time. I welcome suggestions for additions as well. —RG

Course description: Beginning with the history and underlying ideas of branding and identity design, this course will examine the development of classic identities as well as seminal identity designers and design studios. We will also review contemporary cases that highlight the challenges of brand and identity creation in specific sectors including fast-moving consumer goods, durable goods, services, organizations, places, and ideas. At the same time, we will examine both critical viewpoints around the practice of identity design and speculate on the future of brands and branded environments.

Above all, this course will:

• Educate and train your eyes
• Ask you to observe, evaluate, and critique basic claims and assumptions
• Provide you with a platform for research

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Wally Olins’s lecture “The Nation And The Brand And The Nation As A Brand” from 2007. It’s well worth watching all four parts.

“When we received the assignment, we immediately read both of Senator Obama’s books. We were struck by the ideas of hope, change and a new perspective on red and blue (not red and blue states, but one country). There was also a strong sense, from the start, that his campaign represented something entirely new in American politics — ‘a new day,’ — so to speak.” Steven Heller interviews Sol Sender about the development of the O monogram. Interestingly, the interview implies that Sender LLC never met directly with Obama during or after the mark’s development.

Above: Barack Obama’s signature O designed by Sender LLC and Mode of Chicago, IL.

A new day dawns.

The best part? It was there the day Obama announced his candidacy and they never went back, never changed, never wavered. The symbol was fresh and original from the start, but it became an icon because Obama stuck by it and continues to stick by it. An admirable quality in both a leader and a logo. Stay true. The greatest strength comes from confidence, consistency, and vision.

Reporter Matt Vella from BusinessWeek and I recently exchanged emails about the complex branding implications posed by the Delta/Northwest merger. Some of our exchange found its way into Matt’s article on the merger, but I thought it was worth sharing the rest of it here. —RG

Matt: What, if any, opportunities does the merger of two tarnished brands present for “starting over”?

Rob: I’ve recently flown Delta and was really underwhelmed. But, when Delta’s low-cost airline Song was around, I flew Song and had a wonderful experience. I think this speaks to the power of what a little updated branding can do. The employees were behind that brand. They were proud of it. Yes, Delta folded it, but that had more to do with Delta’s going into bankruptcy than with Song’s failure as a brand. After Song was folded, Delta’s CEO at the time, Gerald Grinstein, noted that having an airline-within-an-airline was a difficult prospect within the industry. But everything Song was as a brand was what Delta needed to learn from and import. I don’t think that was done.

Nevertheless, brand-wise the situation is far from dire for either airline. Air travel is a difficult experience to brand because, especially recently, it has become such a uncomfortable and taxing experience. But Delta and Northwest have been around for a long time and customers know the names of these companies. So while it may not be the best time in the lives of either company, there is still a lot of brand equity and recognition there.

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Softbank, one of the three largest cellular carriers in Japan, has joined forces with Pantone to develop a color-coordinated selection of new phones. See the energetic ad here (thx, Leslie).

“The absence of the printed word not only draws attention to the role text plays in the modern landscape but also simultaneously emphasizes alternative forms of communication such as symbols, colors, architecture and corporate branding.” From Matt Siber’s great photo series Untitled Project (via DO).

“Umpqua has revamped its marketing strategy, and today considers itself a retailer rather than a bank; in fact, it refers to its branches—which offer attractions like free Wi-Fi access, Umpqua-branded coffee, sewing groups, yoga classes and movie nights—as stores, and sends its employees to training sessions run by Ritz-Carlton Hotels and Resorts.” Umpqua Bank gives kids in the northwestern U.S. a kit and seed money to start lemonade stands in order to demonstrate its commitment to small businesses (via Subtraction).

“The public made it clear that it didn’t want to support a brand it associated with a cold, gigantic corporation that exploits Third World child labor,” said Mark Ingersoll, head of DesignOne, the San Francisco-based graphic-design firm that created the new logo. “So we totally did away with that harsh, ‘corporate-looking’ lettering and went with a friendlier, more inviting font with a little more warmth and visual flair.” The Onion shares a story of a corporation whose new logo changes everything and inadvertently finds some truth along the way.

In recent years higher education has gone bonkers for branding. The potentially educatable are now the educated potential, and, at least in terms of marketing and focus groups, the students have become the teachers. To wit, this article from NYT, which was instrumental for our critique of the New School’s new identity for BusinessWeek.