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Yes, I have proclaimed my fervent interest in Olympic logos before and I shall again here. It’s international design, it’s so incredibly personal for the competing cities and some of the designs are way cool (some in comparison are not way cool). It’s a fun and artistic exercise for me. You may just want to wait for the TV show, that’s your call 🙂

First a brief story about how this post came about and some design blogs that you may want to subscribe to because I know I enjoy their stuff. Brand New is a logo design site that I have spoken of before and it always seems to show me new stuff before it hits mainstream. This proves I am not the only logo nut out there just probably the only one who can’t draw a straight line.

Well today, Brand New was talking about the rebranding of the kids cable channel Nickelodeon. It will include a new logo and I’ll try and address that debate in a future post as there seems to be no official word from the network (though many hints) on the final logo version. The point is that Brand New referenced another logo design site called idsgn, who was also blogging about the Nickelodeon change – but they also blogged about the 2016 Olympic Candidate Cities and their logos.

Their question for you to answer in their comments is: “If the decision (to pick the 2016 Olympic host city) were based solely on design, which candidate would win?”

The four cities are: Chicago, Madrid, Rio and Tokyo. Please go to idsgn.com and leave your vote in the comments

Now if you don’t want to be swayed by my opinion stop reading here because I am going to tell you my choices in order now.

Again, last chance, stop reading if you don’t want to know my votes.

OK, they’re gone so now we can chat.

If I went with my heart rather than my design eyes I would have to pick Chicago. I have walked through O’Hare and seen their huge banner promoting their cause as host city and just thought it would be awesome if they won.

But because I have to pick with my design goggles on: it’s Madrid. Then I would rank them: Tokyo, Chicago and then Rio. When you go to the idsgn site and read the stories behind the logos, I think the spirit of the Madrid logo as well as its design match perfectly with what I feel is the Olympic spirit.

P.S. Here is a great follow up post on Olympic logos and how they’ve changed from bid to final logos over the past few Olympics

Tags: branding, commentary, logo design, marketing by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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I’ll admit that I don’t watch a ton of TV. I don’t have time with the kids and there isn’t much that catches my fancy. There’s nothing wrong with people who do watch TV, it’s just a current lifestyle thing I guess.

But Sunday night the Discovery Channel was running a bunch of episodes of Cronkite Remembers episodes that I came across. It was very enjoyable.

But while watching the shows, I happened upon this network promo for Discovery which I see has been running for a while (me, again, always late to the party). I just thought it was brilliant.

It reminded me of the kind of smart, memorable network promos I haven’t seen since ABC-TV ran the “We’re the One” promos in the 70’s (featuring Ernie Anderson) and NBC ran the “Come Home” promos in the 80’s.

Maybe I’m still all about the jingle! Anyway, if you haven’t seen it, I hope you’ll enjoy it.

Tags: branding, commentary, marketing, tv by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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It is possible that maybe no one else but me finds fascinating the stories of how some famous logos were born. Further, it is possible that people would disagree with me about what constitutes a famous logo.

Well, it’s my blog and I’ll logo-verse (I call copyright on that and all iterations) if I want to!

Music Television International has deemed sacred the original black and white MTV logo so that’s the only version of the logo they will use in their on-air identity (you know, until they create ANOTHER on-air identity)

But I never knew the story behind the original logo’s creation.

Courtesy of Creative Review via Brand New here’s the scoop:

Working with John Lack, the executive vice president of Warner Satellite Entertainment Company (WASEC), Robert Pittman, a successful radio programmer, helped establish a groundbreaking cable television channel: MTV, the music channel. Fred Seibert, a former jazz record producer and radio station promotion coordinator, was hired by Pittman to oversee the identity of the channel. Seibert turned to his lifelong friend Frank Olinsky, who had just established Manhattan Design with two partners, Pat Gorman and Patty Rogoff, to create the logo. The process was remarkably collaborative: Rogoff first drew the big M and worked with Gorman to determine its perspective; then Gorman suggested a pointy TV to its side, which Olinsky took and spray-painted it. Meanwhile, the M was subjected to productive tomfoolery, with the partners rendering it in bricks, polka dots, and zebra stripes, and suggesting the logo could be all these things.

Seibert presented the mutating logo to Pittman and Lack, and met resistance to both the solution and the firm behind it. Seibert was asked to hire a big-name designer like Push Pin Studios or Lou Dorfsman to do the logo. He did, but as the process extended and time became a problem, Manhattan Design’s was approved. Seibert next focused on the station identifications for broadcast, which Pittman equaled to radio jingles, instantly recognizable and memorable. The first pool of collaborators comprised production houses like Broadcast Arts, Colossal Pictures, and Perpetual Motion Pictures, who created surreal ten-second animations that gave life to the MTV logo. For MTV’s top-of-the-hour identification, illustrator Candy Kugel at Perpetual took the still images of Neil Armstrong’s moon landing (available in the public domain) and colorized the MTV logo on top of the American flag. On August 1, 1981, at 12:01 a.m., to the unmistakable sound of MTV’s guitar riff, this image launched a new generation of viewers, artists, designers, and citizens.
— From our own Graphic Design, Referenced

Tags: advertising, branding, commentary, logo design, marketing, tv by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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NOTE: this was supposed to publish two days ago and I thought it had. Obviously this is WordPress’ fault because I NEVER make mistakes! Stupid WordPress!

The nicest man (and one of the most talented) in voice over has updated his brand.

Bob Souer has unveiled his new web site and blog (likely the most widely read in the business) which now boldly proclaims him to be a “Professional Story Teller”. A more accurate description couldn’t have been created by Shakespeare himself.

Please stop by and have a look around. Now doubt he’ll be adding new pieces in the days and weeks to come but no one deserves the kudos more than Bob. Great job!

Tags: branding, commentary, internet, logo design, marketing, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover blog by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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So you think: “tell me something I didn’t know.”

Well, the thing is with the hullabaloo about the Facebook vanity URL and LinkedIn has their vanity URL thing, Twitter has theirs and Google has theirs, I wonder if I’m falling prey to the “me, me, me!” syndrome that can plague social media or if I am just doing the smart marketing thing?

Or can you not be a smart marketer within social media without being at least a little (or -God forbid- a lot) “me, me, me”? I’ve read the “me, me, me” ridiculing commentary of social media and it stings a bit because I wonder if that’s how it comes across to everyone.

Ick! I do not want to become that person. Or, because of my past and existing social media presence, is it too late?

My hope is that by asking the question, by examining my conscience on this odd matter, I may be a smart marketer plagued by a kind of slightly social media channels-forced behavior that a true egotist would never even bother to consider.

Has any of this ever occurred to you? Are you bothered by it or how do you deal with it? I want your opinions on the concept here, some street corner analysis – is social media merely a public exercise in vanity and narcissism?

Tags: branding, commentary, facebook by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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OK gang, fun idea time!

As this blog is about voice over (vox), marketing (market) and advertising (tising) I thought we should have some summer fun here and combine all three into a voice talent business card gallery.

Simply email me a decent quality jpeg picture of your business card (front and back if you print on both sides) and we’ll show them here. Email peter (insert the at sign) audio’connell dot com and I’ll post all entries. Maybe we’ll have a card beauty contest and pick a winner…we’ll see first what kinda legs this idea has.

By the way, I’m not a pro at sizing these cards and images to fit the blog so some cards will be bigger and some will be smaller but size does not equal talent…at least in this effort.

Here’s mine to kick things off:

Tags: advertising, blogs, branding, commentary, community, logo design, marketing, radio, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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