I've never really had a logo for my site before, so I gave them some feedback and they came up with designs. And today, they're running two logos over on their website. Click through to vote for your favorite.
I would be honored if you would take a moment to participate in this process. After all, as a reader, this decision impacts you.
This is a great example of a way a business is doing crowdsourcing in an intelligent way. It's easy to just turn over the creative reins to your community, but experience shows that doing so in an unstructured way or with little guidance or input, the results can be anything but successful. An example that comes to mind is the car that "everyman" Homer Simpson designed in Season 2 of The Simpsons:
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| Crowdsourcing gone wrong |
Of course, the opposite is true as well: Gap suffered last year when they unilaterally redesigned their logo. The response was swift and brutal. Customers did not like it one bit and vehemently objected to it. The result is that Gap rescinded their decision. Currently, there's a question out there about Starbucks' decision to rebrand its logo and whether it will follow in Gap's footsteps.
Ultimately, a logo speaks volumes ("a picture is worth a thousand words") about a brand, but it's only one factor. How important do you think a logo is an the overall branding process, and how can a much-loved brand take steps to update its logo when the times call for it?