The Bee Docs' Brand

As I have mentioned before, I have been working with graphic designers on an update of our logo, website, and marketing materials. As part of this effort, I have been working on defining and clarifying the Bee Documents brand.

By "brand" I mean the characteristics that make Bee Documents unique. What makes us different than Microsoft, Apple, OmniGroup, Delicious Monster, Panic, or anyone else? This is a marketing question because the marketing should communicate and reinforce the brand to customers who are learning about Bee Documents.

However besides marketing, the "brand" question is also important, even more important, for other reasons. It can serve as a guide for choosing new products to develop, employees to hire, features to prioritize, and more. A strong brand is not just about perception, but also about reality. For me, the "brand" serves as a goal and guide, a representation of the way I want to do business as well as the way I want others to think of the company.

With that said, here are four pillars of the Bee Docs brand to which I gave a lot of thought and presented to the design team working on the new logo:

HUMAN TOUCH

First and foremost, I want Bee Documents to be about people. The people who use the products, the people that make the products, students, teachers, artists, film makers, professionals, parents, writers... The list goes on and on.

Sending out hand written thank you notes is an example of an effort to make a human connection to customers. The new website will feature customers and their work as much as our product. We'll continue to seek out ways of bringing humanity, human relationships, and human contact to the center of our brand.

Not enough software companies focus on people (I include my own in this criticism). I do have to give a shout out to Plasq though who gets this more than anyone else I've seen. Their customers are featured all over their website. Their team has also been very thoughtful and encouraging in communicating with me personally, even before I won any awards etc... Props to Plasq. Patagonia and U2 have also been inspirational for me in this regard.

NATURE INSPIRED

I believe nature contains the very best examples of design both in form and function. So many tech companies look to other tech companies for inspiration and it shows in their products and marketing. I hope to look to nature for inspiration and I want people to feel that connection when they use our products or encounter our marketing.

ARTISAN

What I mean by "artisan" is products that reflect the designers point of view, a distinct character, and a connection to a specific culture. In other words, the opposite of generic or anonymous. Artisan products don't seek to please everyone but they are made and consumed with passion. To me artisan also implies a relationship between producer and consumer (see Human Touch).

CINEMATIC

Apple has been encouraging developers to be "Cinematic." This is a challenge that I embrace. Not only do I want our marketing and products to be cinematic, I also want to enable our customers to be cinematic using our products. To me, cinematic means excitement, motion, sound, storytelling, and expression in a highly visual medium.

So those are big goals! I believe our work so far has reflected these characteristics but that it will be a continuous journey to reflect them even stronger. Some of these characteristics have been part of my brand thinking since the beginning in 2002 ("Nature Inspired"), some are newer ("Cinematic"). I'm sure the brand will continue to evolve as we learn and as we grow.

Rethinking the brand

Thank you to everyone who left a comment on the two logos I posted. You didn't say what I thought you were going to say, so it was very educational to hear your first impressions.

As you may have guessed, I have begun a process to rethink the brand of Bee Documents. I picked the name and came up with the concept for the original logo (pictured here) in December 2002. At the time, I was working exclusively on a web-based document management system for lawyers, thus the "Documents" in Bee Documents.

In the last five and a half years a lot has changed. The focus of the company is now timeline software, I have much more business and life experience, and the company generates income to name the first three things that come to mind. I've decided it is time to update the branding. It is an ongoing process, but hopefully you will see some improvements to the brand in the coming months. Eventually the changes should show up on the website, blog, videos, product design, etc...

By the way, the black and white logo that I posted first was meant to represent the stamen and other inside parts of a flower. I had this ambitious concept that instead of making the viewer look at a bee, the perspective would be reversed and the viewer would become the bee looking at the flower. Out of the concepts that I have played with so far, this was my personal favorite but I can see now that it is too abstract for folks to grasp at first glance. So, back to the drawing board...

Logo #2 - Feedback Request

Here is another logo from Design Hovie Studios for which I would appreciate your feedback. Just to reiterate, the kind of feedback that is most useful is not what you would change about the logo or even whether or not you would personally choose it, but rather the feelings, connotations, and impressions that the logo gives you. Thanks!

Logo Design - Feedback Request

Here is a new company logo I had designed by Design Hovie Studios. Would you please a quick comment with a word or two that describes the your impression of the logo (For example, "breezy", "uplifting", "oppressive", "bubbles", "itchy", etc...). Please be creative and don't just say -liked it-.

There are a few hundred people subscribed to this blog so I would like to see at least 50 different comments on this one. It will only take a second... Please?!