by Jonathan Marshall

There’s no doubt about it, times are tough. The economy is in the gutter. People are talking about it every day. It’s in the papers, on the news, online and even at the jobs many longer have. Frankly, I am sick of hearing about it. How can companies expect to become better and turn things around when everyone is miserable and terrified of what’s going to happen next? Sometimes we can’t control all of the circumstances we find ourselves in, and letting it ruin every day of our lives certainly isn’t going to help anything- so why not laugh about it? Optimism is the most important thing. It takes more muscles to frown than smile, this too shall pass, yada yada yada, although mockery has always been one of America’s greatest defenses, I think it holds true in this case as well. Some businesses have considered re-branding and are attempting to take on new identities that are tailored to the current economic climate. San Diego Identity Design agencies have been creating new identities for many businesses that are struggling to survive today. In the spirit of smiling not to cry, check out some of these very funny and very fake post-recession logos of some of the most recognizable global brands:

Jacob Tyler has designed and re-designed Web sites for over 9 years now. Most often, we are tasked to re-brand a company and create a new Web site and corporate identity. At this point, I would say we have done this for well over 50 companies and unfortunately we have never saved the original version of the logo and site. Thinking about it, this is a disservice to potential clients and a bigger disservice to our team because the sites we create for our clients are such a huge improvement based on the original version and we should really show off the difference. Well…here you go.

Digital Dimensions hired Jacob Tyler to re-design their Web site. After initial review, we suggested that their logo was not a good representation of the brand and requested (actually more like “forced”) permission to re-design their corporate identity prior to designing a new site. The result of the re-design can be seen now at www.ddicad.com

A couple of quick notes about the re-design and our methodology. DDI is a Solidworks (CAD software) reseller with stiff competition in California and Arizona. As well, they offer full service training and support for the Solidworks line of products. The problem with the initial Web site is that it lacked appropriate messaging that would quickly engage a site visitor. Thus, their “bounce” rate (meaning how many users went to the home page and left without clicking on any links) was very high. The site was difficult to navigate and some of the sections lacked a cohesive look and feel with the rest of the site.

JTCG re-designed the identity with an added tagline “Forward Engineering Solutions” to quickly communicate the breadth of their services. Along with the new logo and color scheme, JTCG created a Web 2.0 site with interactive functionality to create a “sticky” environment for visitors, including Web casts, Pod Casts, Blogs and more. From customer research, we had determined that site visitors wanted to feel that once the technology and software was purchased, that they would fully be supported and constantly updated with tips and tricks. Also, we determined that many potential customers really didn’t know what software was right for their needs. With that in mind, we created a section called “Solutions for You” that is database driven and asks the user very specific questions about their business and directs the user to the correct product choice. DDI edits the site daily with content and specifically requested that the site be built using the Joomla platform as they had experience using that content management system.

Please visit www.ddicad.com to see the new site. Come back here often as we are going to keep adding more before and after case studies.