Data Portability Drops the Ball on Branding: The big movement about allowing your data and social graph connections to become portable has become a big issue recently in the social network space. The Data Portability Workgroup wanted to establish their brand and create a presence with a Logo.

So they did the social thing and opened up a contest for the design of the new brand logo. Great Idea!

The panel short listed the top 15 submissions. I am a huge fan of Data Portability and when I saw the choices I was not impressed. They then let the public decide the winner.

Hey, I am all for democracy and voting, but they would have been better served to have a branding & design professional make the final call. The logo they chose means nothing. It conveys nothing. They actually picked a logo that earned them a Cease and Desist from Vivendi in a matter of days according to TechCrunch. OOOPS!

The basic tenants of brand design: “Be original and stand out in a positive way”. It has to be something people can quickly relate to the service or product easily. The logo they choose does none of those things.

I have shown some examples of designs below that never even made the short list. Even the worst of these is far better than the one they ultimately chose for the final logo. I suggest the panel revisit their short list choices. Let a branding professional make the final call. They have looked at tens of thousands of logos over their career and will know when something might be too similar to an existing brand very quickly.

I guess these Data Portability stickers are collectors items.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24037307@N05

Technorati Tags: data portability, branding

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