Backard Snapshots
Ongoing
OCAD University’s new morphing logo
I always liked Google’s playful treatment of its corporate logo with many different “doodles” over the years. The idea of logo variations was added on after the original logo was created. Toronto’s OCAD University unveiled a new logo last week that has this type of creativity built in from the get-go. I am not a designer but I love the concept.
“[T]he new logo is a triumvirate of Mondrian-esque frames, with ‘OCAD’ in one frame and ‘U’ in another. The third, largest frame, is left open for whatever the university wants to throw inside. It could, for instance say ‘OCAD University.’ It could also say ‘Imagination Is Everything,’ the school’s battle cry. But its primary purpose is to show off students’ creative toils. Each year, graduating student medal winners will be invited to mine their portfolios and contribute a piece to the logo, whether a sculpture, a graphic work or a painting, providing a set of logos for the following year.”
– Suzanne Labarre, Senior Editor at Fast Company Co.Design in Bruce Mau’s Smart Art-School Logo Is A Mini Art Gallery For Student Work
More perspectives and images can be found at blogTO, Fast Company Co.Design and OCAD University’s visual identity pages.
[Image Source: blogTO – Video Source: Fast Company Co.Design]
Testing WordPress sharing on Flickr
Just a test post straight from my Flickr account
Infographic of Infographics
Visual notes from SXSWi
Ogilvy is creating “visual notes” of panel sessions at SXSW Interactive. I especially like the two notes Ogilvy created for “Public Transit Data, APIs and City Governments” and “Social Media Data Visualization: Mapping the World’s Conversations”. The Publishers Weekly blog has more background on the project here.
In Toronto, the use of the city’s open data platform has already led to the creation of a few good projects, including Google Transit for the Greater Toronto Area and mobile apps for the TTC.
Source: OgilvyNotes for Social Media Visualization and Public Transit
Why he loves his 3D printer
This is just awesome. Great presentation design, fantastic delivery of presentation (by a ten year old boy), and a truly interesting topic (3D printers). Needless to say, now I want one too. Came across the MakerBot in a New York Times article.
Alternative video of the presentation available at Howcast
Social Media Business Trends
Dave Fleet presented an overview of the status quo and some of the current trends in social media at Podcamp Toronto yesterday. There are a lot of good thought starters in his presentation, so take a look at the embedded SlideShare deck below.
One best practice he highlighted was the need to “measure outcomes of [social media] activities, not outputs”. While the same is true for all activities related to communications and marketing, it is was a welcome reminder that social media too needs to have a clear business purpose and be integrated into the organization, rather than exist as a standalone or bolt-on activity.
20 Social Media Business Trends in 2011
View more presentations from Dave Fleet