People and their stuff.

  

MoscOw, Rebranded

Moscow has been around for hundreds of years and I doubt anyone has ever perceived it as a non-serious, emoticon type of city. Luckily for Moscow, those days are over. The new formula is all about the :) and o_O, perfect for those who love texting (myself included, of course).

As a personal initiative architect Nicholas Pereslegina and designer Alexander Pershikova have launched their very own brand for the city of Moscow without any government involvement (or maybe even approval). And this is not just some proposal on a Behance page, this is a full-on brand with merchandise and souvenirs already hitting the streets of Moscow. The concept of the new logo is Surprise + Smile = Wow.

Moscow WOW is a project ded­i­cated to ‘re-​​branding’ Moscow city and mak­ing it ‘one of the most attrac­tive cities in the world for busi­ness or a living’.

45°C — Modern Slaves of Dubai

«Higher, greater, more luxurious. If it was after Sheik Muhammad bin Rashid al Maktoum — and it is — Dubai will become the world metropolis of architectural wonders and records. This is only possible to achieve with the sweat of a gigantic labour army from abroad. Hundredthousands of these foreign workers labour on the constructionsites for very low vages, live pent-up in tiny barracks and seperate from their families for many years.»
This is a photographic documentary, made by photographer Florian Büttner, is about the everyday-life of the men with the unity-coloured overalls. The men outside the lap of luxury, who exist in the shadows of the skyscrapers.
«They have been the cheapest on the market and the ones most driven to abandon their rights to make a living. Circumstances made them to what they are in my eyes. Modern slaves. Not taken by force like in the old days, but forced by their lives in the arms of the highest bidder for human resources. From roughly 1 million people living in Dubai, around 800.000 are or were foreign workers. This is a new dimension in the history of foreign labours and shows one aspect of globalisation.»
Click images to view in full size!

The workers are waiting for the bus to bring them back to the camp after a hard day of work in the heat of Dubai.

This man waters the imported palm trees in front of Burj Dubai construction site. Every day, all year long.

Sheik Zayed Road, the main traffic vein through new Dubai, is beeing expandet to 10 lanes.

Habil comes from Pakistan, he doesnt know yet how long he will stay. He dreams of buying a house and a car, once he gets back home.

There is not much space for individuality.

The nearly finished Palm Jumeirah in 2007.

Where there is over 50.000 Dollar-millionaires among 200.000 locals, the average income of a construction worker is 180 Dollars a month.

Which they built for years, will be closed for them as soon as the workers are done.

The Burj Dubai in 2007. 3 Years later, it becomes the highest building in the World, with over 800 Meters.

On they day off, thousands of workers stream towards the Dubai Creek and to the Old Dubai to shop, call home and transfer money.

The rising of Dubai Downtown in 2007.

The bus that brings the men back to their camp. Outside of Dubai at the edge of the Desert.

Dubai is dominated by red and white.

If one building is done, the next one is allready started.

Most of the men I talked to feel alien in this city. They call Dubai the city without soul.

Advertising worlds at Downtown. The rulers know how to stage themselves.

End of workday at Dubai Marina.

G.S. Rajans thoughts are often back home. In the last 12 years he only got to see his family 5 times. Though their exinstance depends on Rajans work.

The bus that was ment to pick them up an hour ago is stuck in traffic, like every day.

Burj Dubai at night, driving on Sheik Zayed Road.

These Pakistani men sit down for a dinner after a day on construction site. They share one small apartment with 12 people.

The city is covered in big advertising banners, which look like pure ironie next to the workers lifes.

Assaia comes from Afghanistan and works as a mechanic in a truck repair-shop. The Container in the background is his home he shares with 6 men.

The sight of Dubais skyline from the Emirates Highway.

Twelve Ways to Create Barriers to Competitors

The only real way to grow sales and profits is to create innovative offerings with some "must haves" that define new categories or subcategories for which competitors are not relevant. The goal is not only to find and successfully introduce such offerings but to create barriers that inhibit or prevent competitors from entering and becoming serious customer options.

The firms that have enjoyed years or even decades of life with no or weak competitors have created such barriers. Here are some twelve routes to real barriers the last six of which involve the brand. I would be interested in examples of others.

• Proprietary technology. Diamond's (formerly P&G's) Pringles, Prius' Hybrid Synergy Drive, and Dreyer's Slow Churned Ice Cream all have technologies not easily copied.
• Ongoing innovation. Becoming a moving target as Apple did by following the iPod with products like the nano, shuffle, and iTouch, and Gillette did with razors from the Trac II to the Fusion ProGlide. Chrysler went for 18 years without a serious competitor in the minivan category it created in part with innovations like sliding driver side doors, swivel seats and removable back seats.
• Scale. IKEA, Starbucks, eBay, and Apple's iPod all have scale economies often based on first moverstatus that provide ongoing competitive advantages.
• Investment. A high investment protected brands like CNN, ESPN, and Kirin's Ichiban for many years.
• Execution. Zappos.com with its Wow! experience, its culture celebrating weirdness, and its 24/7 call center that will even find an open pizza shop presents a high bar.
• Brand networks. Supporting networks such as the Apple App suppliers and the Pampers' links to organizations involved in raising babies and keeping them healthy can be hard to duplicate.
• Customer involvement. Some brands can organize a community around the brand as Harley-Davidson has done with their Trip Planner and General Mills has done with the Betty Crocker Kitchen. Others can associate with a common interest such breast cancer research (Avon), creativity (Sharpie), or outdoor hiking (Columbia).
• Self-expressive benefits. Functional benefits are often quickly copied; it is much harder to copy self-expressive benefit such as those offered by Prius. A driver of a Focus may or may not be driving ahybrid but there is no such doubt about a Prius driver
• Brand equity. Muji, Zipcar, PowerBar, and Enterprise Rent-A-Car all have strong brands with visibility, associations, and a sense of authenticity.
• Brand loyalty. If a brand can capture the customers most likely to value the "must haves" and can keep them involved and happy, competitors will be faced with less appealing segments on which to build a business.
• Branded differentiators. A branded feature, service, program, or ingredient that will define a "must have" such as the EarthGrains Eco-Grain, Aquos' quad pixel, Weston's Heavenly Bed, Oral B's Action Cup, or Amazon's OneClick can be owned by the firm.
• Exemplar status. If the brand represents the category such as Fiber One, iPhone, Whole Foods Market, Geek Squad, or Jeep then other brands will have a difficult time getting considered.

These barriers can inhibit competitors from getting traction, becoming visible, and being perceived as authentic or credibility. As a result, they may be weak players for a long time. Even better, they may be discouraged from entering in the first place. To paraphrase Bruce Henderson, the founder of BCG, "the essence of strategy is to convince competitors not to invest in areas of strategic importance to you." It really is a different way to look at strategy. Don't try to beat competition but, rather, make them irrelevant and discourage them from even competing.

David Aaker is the Vice-Chairman of Prophet and the author of Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant and the davidaaker.com blog on branding.

30 Brilliant Logos With Hidden Messages

Presbyterian Church

Done by Malcolm Grear and Associates, it’s a true masterpiece of simplifying complexity. It appears a simple Cross shape but hidden inside are a dove, a clerical robe, a pulpit with bible, flames, and a fish. The below image will give you a better idea.

Eighty20

The Eighty20 logo is a bit of a geeky one to figure out. The two lines of squares represent a binary sequence with the blue squares being 1’s and the grey squares being 0’s. This makes 1010000 which represents eighty and 0010100 which represents 20.

London Symphony Orchestra

The logo looks like a single flowing line creating three initials L.S.O in air. But, the harmonious graphic of this logo marks the unbreaking rhythm of an Orchestra.

Yoga Australia

At first glance the logo is a simple picture of a young girl doing her yoga but if you watch it carefully the body posture is creating the Australia Map.

The Brand Union

Brand Union is a global leader in creative design consultancy, and the Union’s logo is a vivid example. The carefully chosen and placed black and blue shapes not only make the brand name but also enables the negative space do the same.

Northwest Airlines

The old Northwest Airlines logo may look like a simple logo but if you take a closer look at the symbol on the left, it actually represent both N and W and because it is enclosed within the circle it also represents a compass pointing northwest.

Rehabilitation Hospital Corporation of America

The highly symbolic logo of the Rehabilitation Hospital Corporation of America logo communicates a complex message with just a simple design. The globally renowned cross symbol represents help and medical attention and the steps reflects on the steps taken back to normal life.

Carrefour

Carrefour in French means “Crossroads” and the logo shows two opposite arrows inside a diamond shaping the C letter with the negative space between them.

Piano Forest

The Piano Forest logo may look like a simple text logo with trees above it, but if you take another look you will see that the trees actually represent keys on a piano.

The Guild of Food Writers

The Guild of Food Writers (GFW) is an established organisation dedicated to excellence in food writing and culinary education. Mark closely and you can see a spoon inside the nib.

Schizophrenic

Another logo that plays in representational symbols while relating heavily to the brand name is the Schizonphrenic logo. Being a medical disorder that often depicts split personalities, the logo characterises this with simple shapes that depict a happy and sad face.

Museum of London

The Museum of London logo may look like a modern logo design but it actually represents the geographic area of london as it grew over time.

GreenLabs

This logo is just not a simple green tree, but if you look at the tree crown, you’ll see that it can also be interpreted as a brain. The logo lays emphasis on the strong intellectual capabilities of the company’s staff and also reflects ‘green’ and ‘labs’ parts of their name.

Big Ten

The Big Ten collegiate conference has eleven schools but they didn’t want to change their name. However, they used their logo to hide the numerical “11” in the name.

Toblerone

The Toblerone logo contains the image of a bear hidden in the Matterhorn mountain, which is where Toblerone originally came from.

Treacy Shoes

The Treacy Shoes logo is very cute logo with a shoe hidden between the t and s.

Milwaukee Brewers

The old Milwaukee Brewers logo may look like a simple catchers mitt holding a ball, but if you take a second you will see the team’s initials M and B.

Elle Hive Tractor

It is a company which designs compact tractors. The letters “E” and “H” make up the symbolic image of a tractor.

Sun

The Sun logo is one of the most famous ambigrams in the world. You can read the brand name in every direction; both horizontally and vertically. This logo was designed by professor Vaughan Pratt of the Stanford University.

FedEx

The FedEx logo looks like a plain text based logo but if you take a second look between the E and the x, you will see an arrow which represents the speed and accuracy of the company’s deliveries.

Amazon

The Amazon logo is an extremely simple logo and while the arrow may just look like a smile, it actually points from a to z. This represents that Amazon sells everything from a to z and the smile on the customers face when they buy a product.

Newman

The reversible Newman logo is simple yet classy.

A.G. Low Construction

In this logo, the name of the company is written in thin, square letters that hold a great purpose; they are designed to look like the floor plan of the house, which happens to be the company’s specialty.

Cattleyard

Being music related business; the creator of this logo has used various graphics of musical instruments to form the overall shape of a cow. Clever example of combining the graphical elements to express a company’s name.

Baskin Robbins

The Baskin Robbins logo may look like including a simple BR above the name but if you take another look you will notice that it includes a pink number 31. This is a reference to the original 31 flavors.

Formula 1

At first, this logo might not make much sense. But if you look closely, you’ll see the number 1 in the negative space between the F and the red stripes.This logo also communicates a feeling of speed.

Egg n Spoon

In this logo, the negative space cleverly show egg and spoon which is the brand’s name.

Sony Vaio

Sony Vaio is a well known brand of laptops. But did you know that the name Vaio logo also had a hidden meaning? Well, the first two letters represent the basic analogue signal. The last two letters look like a 1 and 0, representing the digital signal.

Lafayette

If you’ve ever visited one of the famous stores in Paris – Galeries Lafayette, you will notice that it’s logo represents Paris with its joined letters “t” to form Eiffel Tower.

Forkwire

Being an Online Food Delivery service, its logo shows a fork formed into an @ symbol.