The original look.

The revised look.

In what seems like a lifetime ago, I was given the nickname “Captain Digital.” Back when I began blogging, I put everything under this blog’s banner. Eventually, I realized it would be better (for any number of reasons) to refocus this blog to cover just marketing, advertising, and design, and relocate all my political and pop culture posts to another blog, and thus, www.captaindigital.net was born.

When I first created a visual look and feel for Captain Digital, I wanted to evoke a 1940’s style cartoon look. While that worked well as far as the original goal, the reality was that working with the color halftone pattern was a major pain. Nice idea – not worth the extra effort to pull off the look of a Ben Day pattern. Add to that a desire to remake Captain Digital’s image into something just a wee bit more modern and hip, and you have a need for a image refresh. Problem was, I really didn’t have time to work on it. I tried an intermediate step of using a modernized cartoon version of the original, but there were some things I wanted to fix – in particular, I felt like losing the helmet would be a good idea. So As of today, we’ve got a new version of Captain Digital. The old/original drawings will be retired, as I can get to it.

As you can see, the character’s costume has remained fairly consistent. I made things a little more consistent as far as the colors go, but the biggest change is getting rid of the helmet (and replacing it with a headset), and the addition of a little facial hair (which is more consistent with what I really look like (would that I could trade bodies with Captain Digital – he’s in MUCH better shape than I am).

When you get a chance, click on over to the CD blog and check out the new look and feel. I’m hoping that it will reinforce the content with a more consistent visual style.

At the end of the show, Dick pulled out a 35mm camera, ostensibly to take pictures of all the young commedians. After snapping a few pics, he opened up the back of the camera and pulled film out of the canister, exposing it, as if it was a Polaroid instant-film camera. Dick sighed, and told Tommy that he’d ruined the film, explaining that 35mm camera film has to be developed, and if exposed to light, it ruins the pictures.

Tommy smiled, and said, “No…it’s a rhetorical camera…you don’t need pictures.”

It was a funny bit, and it points out the dilemma here – the title of this post is – and isn’t – a rhetorical question.

The straight answer is that, like everything else, marketing is worth what you are willing to pay for it. Maybe more. I read a brilliant quote today by Joe Whitley, where he opined, “If you think advertising doesn’t work, consider the millions of Americans that now think yogurt tastes good.”

I’m experiencing something of a paradox right now. I have a friend who’s after me to do some design work for their company. They sell advertising-related products, and for them, design is not a profit center. Therefore, they treat design as a necessary evil, much like radio stations treat copywriting and production for spots. Radio stations sell air – not creative. My friend’s company sells products – not creative. So when she approaches me for design work, it’s within her company’s worldview that assigns value to their physical products, and treats the creative process as if it has little value.

This creates a conflict for me, on a couple of levels. First, I am essentially competing against myself, at least in theory. If companies like hers simply didn’t offer design work, forcing their customers to go elsewhere, then their customers would have to seek out companies like mine. But they don’t. They either do the design work in-house, or farm it out to anybody willing to do it for the bargain-basement rates they are willing to pay. Keep in mind, they aren’t marking the work back up to what I consider graphic design shop standard rates – they look at it as a cost of doing business. (In some cases, I’m not even sure if they are charging the customers for the work.)

That begs the question, what’s marketing/advertising/design really worth? If I can get $X,XXX for a corporate identity, is it worth it? What if I’m competing against the guys that take the Earl Scheib approach, who’ll design that logo for you for $99.95?  Obviously, as a full-service design shop, I go the extra mile, and give my customers not only the logo, but layouts for everything from business cards to letterhead, and a style guide to teach them how to use the logo without violating their new corporate identity. But how much is that worth?

My dad used to play with a symphony orchestra. The conductor once told him he was the highest paid member. My dad knew better. It was a union gig – all the sidemen earned the same hourly wage. The conductor said, “No, as a percussionist, you’re paid the most per note.” My dad thought about that for a minute, and replied, “Yes, but if a second violinist misses  a cue, nobody notices. If I miss a cue, everyone does.”

It’s a matter of perspective. Some people judge merit based on how much they pay. (Neiman Marcus makes great gobs of cash of people that believe the NM bag indicates an automatic guarantee of high quality.) Some people judge merit on how big a bargain they received. (You paid how much for that logo? Huh. I paid half that for mine.) Then their are the clients that actually look at the work, and judge it on it’s own artistic merits.

The problem is that there is no standard for any of this. I’m usually willing to help a friend that needs a break, but when it comes to cutting my own throat, I’m less enthusiastic. So the question remains…what is marketing worth?

Out with the old...

...and in with the new.

Seen the new WalMart logo? Like most good updated corporate identities, it doesn’t stray too far from the old logo. They went with a little less corporate blue, and dropped the all-caps lookfor the more friendly upper and lower case treatment. More interesting is their swapping a star for an asterisk. You can argue that stars are ‘so last year’ – and you’d probably be right. (The term “star” has been devalued – when was the last time you heard some entertainment reporter refer to some newly-discovered Pop Tart as a “superstar”?) The asterisk is certainly star-like…it looks something like a star, and the effect is something like a friendlier star. Of course, it occurs to me that the asterisk is something of a risk for them. I mean, in the wide, wide world of sports, an asterisk next to your name means that there’s some special circumstance associated with your name in the record books. As in he holds the home run record* (but he did it on steroids). Not a good thing.Then there’s the original meaning of the asterisk – footnoting. Does this tell us “Walmart…Save money. Live better.* with a footnote disclaimer like “your results may vary” or “void in Vermont, New Mexico, and the Yucatan Peninsula.”

I also wonder if Walmart ditched the star for the stylized asterisk for copyright reasons. A star is virtually impossible to reserve as intellectual property. On the other hand, something stylized is a slam-dunk. Which is somewhat worrisome, as I’m afraid of what might happen if Walmart decides to protect their new identity by suing everyone who uses an asterisk. It would be kind of like copyrighting “blue.” Can you imagine the lawsuits? “I’m sorry, we own the asterisk, blue and yellow. Your logo is infringing on ours. Pay up. My logo is a blue ball with a stylized “g” in the middle. Would they sue me over the blue? Could I sue them for using the letter “g” in their ads?

They’ve also changed their slogan, from “Always lower prices. Always” to “Save money. Live better.” I suppose they realize that they’ve nailed the ‘lower prices’ thing in the minds of the public, so they’ve decided to start pointing out the advantage of those lower prices to the probably 1% of the population who doesn’t already get it.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of these hypocrites that likes to slam Walmart for “enslaving the poor” and selling cheap goods made in China, all the while shopping there. Nope I shop at Walmart regularly. And I see nothing wrong with them selling stuff at a lower prices to increase sales. That’s capitalism at its best – and the American Way. I admire Walmart. (I am a little concerned about the Chinese merch, but that’s a topic for another post.) Here’s the thing. I think the fact that Walmart is freshing their corporate identity to be a smart idea. They seem to be a pretty sharp bunch, which means I doubt you’ll ever see any nonsense about suing others who use some kind of asterisk bug (unlike Monster Cables, who have sued everybody BUT Halloween itself, for use of the name “monster.”) As to the meaning of the asterisk, I guess we’ll have to leave that one for the record books.