Brand? what brand?

The other weekend when I was in London I was strolling along the Thames and I suddenly noticed that Pizza Express seemed to have changed it's branding. Well I was surprised, especially as I quite like the Brand its nice Art Nouveau style logo and overall a nice European feel. But some one obviously felt it was time to move on. They had changed from Blue to Red a move I am pretty sure is basically unheard of! The font now sans serif, supporting colour black not white what and a fairly modern building.

In fact in a way it looks like they have moved the style forward to a 1920's or even an Art Deco feel. So Blue To Red? something not many foot ball fans cant associate with, why would consumers? why make such a dramatic change? who decided this was a good idea and who at Pizza Express said "oh yeah forget brand guide lines and consistency"? Well whoever it was I don't mind it! What do less brand aware consumers think?

So never one to frown upon a brand exercise until I have really thought about it...(still not keen on Pepsi's new stuff.) I plodded on to find...another Pizza Express this time it looked totally different it was it the old style but it felt even more Nouveau than other restaurant and it's blue really blue! Something isn't clicking here.

May be it was the building, and surrounding area, sometimes there are rules in place to have shop fronts in keeping with the original surroundings of the building. In Prague the McDonalds there in some areas have chrome arches which I think they fit in better with the surrounding medieval architecture, what a clash of culture that is! But this is defiantly the Pizza Express, with the Art Nouveau type face and logo I have used and am familiar with although it's very blue. What is going on I thought seems that the re brand had spread less than a mile. Then the following day we where walking around Shore Ditch and I saw this...

Another Style?! what the...now "I" was thinking, my brain doing ten to the dozen trying to fathom out how and why a marketing manager or brand guardian would allow such different styles of signage. I now wish I had gone inside the restaurant to see how that internal marketing looks. I predict it's the same menus and printed literature and what we see happening in these examples, is adapting the brand to the surrounding area.

So Consumers, marketing managers and brand guardians why do we have such uniform rules between outlets? Honestly I think this is good news I have recently had a discussion about a similar concept and Idea myself. Why do we accept the high street today? for so long we have refined brands, and become so brand loyal that small traditional shops have fallen and only the Brands and giants survive and that's why every town looks the same. But why should it, what if we took Pizza Express as an example of brand strength, "with" Diversity?

I think many big brands could do this, although they would have to spend more on each shop, to make them all different, yet keep them to a standard of look that suited. It would be great because they would be giving more to each town or street that they appear on.

I would like to know what Pizza Express are doing with their various shops and would like to know how people think about my Idea of "Brand Strength with Diversity" I say lets here it for "Brand Strength with Diversity!"

(I'll be contacting Pizza Express questioning this issue.)

My First blog

Since this is my first blog I'm not quite sure how to begin I guess topic or subject matter would be the first port of call. But I ask myself Why start a blog? Who cares what I say? Why do I care what I say? When should I do my first entry? I'm not sure If I know enough to blog!

There seems to be a lot of this blogging going around and I have been following sporadic threads leading me into the unknown depths of the internet, I casually glimpse at other people's lives and opinions, gather snippets of their knowledge and expertise, see art work and holiday snaps and read a whole array of different topics. So I think a blog is whatever you want it to be. A diary, a news feed, a folio, a rant you name it there is a blog on it.

So what about a blog on blogging? well sadly that kind of blog exists and quite extensively too. But whilst on my blog search and browse mission (is there a term for this? there seems to be for everything else.) I cam across numerous things of interest to me. So if you don't mind I would like to share a few of my current finds now and even see how Blogs have worked for others.




ffffound is ablaze with things that make my eyes pop out of my head! such design and creative loveliness that I make regular trips to see what kind of Ideas I am missing out on! This site should come with a warning to all design bods and creatives, too much good stuff can it be a good thing?



typeneu - Truly pretentious use of type is very prevalent I love it! and a really nice layout too. I love navigating it, although it does require quite a bit of effort, let me know any thoughts on this kind of web page layout.




Septemberindustry More nice design Bloggage.

Now for some stuffage that I just like:

Monsterism! So OK this is a tribute to Pete Fowler artist and Illustrator who has been around for Donkeys now but I used to really be into his stuff. In fact I still like his style a lot. I enjoyed collecting some of his work and vinyl figures.



Then there is card boy I loved these guys as soon as I saw them! You purchase them in blind packs unfold the box up into himself, hey presto card boy! Lovely vector styling and it's been creatively updated too, with OXO boxes, old printer cartridge boxes and shoe boxes. (I have a thing for card board robots.) if you look on the card blog he has done some visuals for star wars specials. I'm glad the designs didn't go ahead, I must admit I'm getting a bit sick of the star wars band wagon merch "And discuss..."

However if you fancy trying out being a fan of card boy on the home page, get the PDF of the OXO box card boy calender! Print out an construct I'm gonna make mine as soon as I can.



Picture of the day (I'm gonna try and keep this up):



So I guess its taking shape I have put up some blogs and I uploaded an image from today I'm doing a blog on me, by me and for me! If you happen to "get on my thread" and even become a reader or subscriber then I guess your comments and feedback may shape the way my blog develops.

But for now its easiest to say life, design and other things.