Should you or your company in Copenhagen require a specialised event sign, on blackboard or any colour of signage, then please get in touch. A hand written bespoke sign adds a personalised touch to any event or occasion. These can be drafted in advance in Photoshop, then the final artwork created when the final design is okayed.

So whether for a wedding, birthday, conference, product launch, bar, restaurant, hotel or shop, I can add that special hand written touch, that a printed product can never reach.

You can see more of my blackboard work here www.iaincameron.dk/design-portfolio/blackboard-and-mural-artist/
And see more of my graphic design work here. www.iaincameron.dk/design-portfolio-for-business/

Generally speaking a successful company has a quality logo.

What are the components of a quality logo? What makes a logo work or not work? Why is it important?

A logo is often the first impression the world sees of a company. As with people, first impressions count. A logo is a communication tool.  It needs to be unique, it needs to stand out from the crowd, conversely it may need to fit in with perceived standards. It needs to be instantly recognisable. This is so once you’ve seen that logo somewhere, or have an interaction with the company, the next time you see it, you recognize the company’s ‘signature’, and are therefor aware you are with the same company or people. Brand recognition.

It needs to give trust, reassurance, make potential customers want to be part of it, or intrigued to find out more of the company.

It needs to be simple, clean and professional. It needs to work at a small size, or very large size. Ought to work in black and white or colour.

What it doesn’t need to do is describe what the company does. In fact with regard to the actual work of the company it is more likely to aspire to the values the company wishes to stand for, rather than a descriptive image of what the company does.

That’s quite a lot a logo needs to do.

Ultimately like almost all creative endeavors, a logo works or it doesn’t. You can have the best idea in the world, and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, and you come up with something else. It takes hard work, creative thinking, research, intuition, reworking and reworking of ideas. Returning to earlier designs, and also a little bit of time needs to be spent with a finished design, to live with a design, to test it’s potential longevity.

Iain Cameron logo design

What’s my logo about? (top left) Just a font. No colour. But a memorable word shape always set on white. Minimal, discreet. I’m not selling me, it’s not about me, it’s my work for other clients that is important, that leads to others wishing to use my services. My designs are not about me, I am a facilitator of design for companies.

While a hand written signature was considered, my first name is an issue outside of Scotland. Iain. That first letter is an ‘i’ for ice cream, not an ‘l’ for lettuce, as it may appear. Clarity was important. Hand written would have added to the confusion.

Colour would distract from my portfolio. So in some ways a logo is a system of elimination. There is always a great one there for every company. Unless like me discretion is a deliberate choice. It’s a process of peeling back the layers until you find it.

A picture paints a thousand words.

A detailed case study of one of my logo designs.

My graphic design page which has many logo designs.

The ultimate commissioning letter. Two successful, wealthy, talented artists, at the height of their powers. Mick Jagger and Andy Warhol.

The advice from Jagger. Offered, with self depreciation.

“In my short sweet experience, the more complicated the format of the album, e.g. more complex than pages or fold-out, the more fucked up the reproduction and agonising the delays.”

For a short letter, he goes into real detail to explain what he doesn’t want, and why there are issues with complicated designs.

Then he jumps back, a creative person aware of a creative brain’s response to demands, ‘But having said that, I leave it to your capable hands…’

‘And please write back saying how much you would like’. Not ‘paid’. How much would you like. Not negotiating, not trying to claim ‘we haven’t much budget’. ‘How much would you like’. You decide your worth.

‘Here are two boxes of material you can use’, presumably photos, and negatives. Oh ‘and the record’. Almost a throwaway. Not listen to our brilliance, and be inspired by our magic. Just ‘…and the record’.

There are lots of creative people in the world. Not so many who can weaponise it for enormous success and financial reward, without compromising their art. Amongst all the  myths and debauchery of both artists, the sex, the drugs, the rock n roll. Two very intelligent, disciplined, very smart business brains. Skilled in social communication, and respectful of others’ talent. As well as creative geniuses.

FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened is a fantastic Netflix documentary on the Fyre Festival. The documentary tells the story of the festival, which was marketed as the ultimate luxury festival on an island in the Bahamas, and was a complete disaster due to chronically poor planning and financial impropriety. The main organiser is currently in prison for fraud.

The documentary is a fascinating watch, for many bad reasons. And sympathies to everyone affected by the event. But in amongst the sheer awfulness of the organisers behaviour is what I felt a very important lesson in marketing. The power of high quality marketing. The power of high quality design. The power of doing things right when selling your product or business.

Watching the video again, even knowing it was a disaster, there’s a bit of me, that would still like to go.

Investing in design

I often meet clients and potential clients who have a business or service that is a great concept. However they don’t have, or won’t allocate the funds to market this concept properly. The complete opposite of Fyre Festival. It’s sad that the power of marketing isn’t trusted given it’s importance in business.

In an extreme example recently, I was approached by a potential client regarding a logo design. She’d liked my portfolio, we discussed my work process. I then told my price. The client got back to me later the same day, to tell me she had just bought a logo ‘on the internet’ for ten dollars. She was proud of this, and wanted me to know it. The fiverr mentality.

Firstly I wish that woman the very best and her business every success.  But skimping on, or not investing properly in the logo, the design, the marketing is such a short sighted way of opening or running a business.

A life lesson

So what did the Fyre Festival design people do? Look at the video above. The models are the A listers, the very best. I’d say the camera people are also the very best, they knew they’d need a helicopter, despite the cost, they knew the weather had to be just right. The editors, the design company behind the logo, the brand, the music. Everything is the very best. That’s why it reached so many people, was massively over subscribed. Was a huge *marketing* success.

In life we should learn from the best. On occasion we can all learn from the very worst.

FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened is on Netflix.

Iain Cameron is a web designer, graphic designer and illustrator based in Copenhagen.