Unoriginal brands
As some of you may know, I collaborated closely with Shaun Walker and others on the DotNetNuke® Core Team to develop the DotNetNuke brand identity. It’s not quite done and is still evolving, but I am quite proud of my role in the team effort that brought the new DotNetNuke logo to life in a relatively short period of time. I had promised Shaun that I would document the process we went through, and I have started doing that, complete with scans of sketches/doodles etc. that showed how the logo evolved. I will publish the document very soon.
Recently, the official DotNetNuke Trademark Policy and Logo Guidelines were published. Even though we took care to ensure that the policies are sufficiently detailed to cover most situations, and we even provided visual examples, I am baffled by the types of questions that people post or email. It seems as if some people are just plain lazy. They don’t want to take the time to read and would prefer to waste your time by asking questions that are already very clearly answered. It sounds a bit harsh, but I cannot think of a better explanation.
Even more perplexing to me is the sheer number of people who just don’t get the concept of branding. For whatever reason, these people believe that taking someone else’s brand (in this case DotNetNuke) and somehow adding to it their company name or some other graphic element results in a “cool” brand for their use. Again, I am being harsh, but seriously, how can you categorize this behavior as anything else but “clueless?” Don’t people realize that this simply demonstrates their unoriginality and their inability to give their company or business its own unique identity?
Any self-respecting artist prides her/his work, and I am no different. Although legally the DotNetNuke brand belongs to Perpetual Motion Interactive Systems, I am still bothered to see my work bastardized by people. Additionally, it sucks to see the DotNetNuke brand diluted by such leeches. I think the people who do this are quite aware of what they are doing. They are just missing this thing called a conscience.
