Evolution of a Brand - Professional Squash Association
You can not fault the management of the PSA (Professional Squash Association) for "trying to do too much in-house" or being afraid to look outside the organization for ideas and specialized skills.
In fact CEO Alex Gough and COO Lee Beechill should be commended for drawing extensively upon the expertise of outside consultants and firms (albeit primarily UK based companies).With the apparent support of Chairman Ziad Al-Turki and the Board of Directors the PSA has engaged Greenspace (video, pictures), Perform Group, Total Sports Asia, Sunset + Vine, MOOV and KHP Consulting.
The firm had the important task of creating:
- three new identities simultaneously for the PSA (association, Super Series tournament and SquashTV.com)
- a print advertising campaign as well as stationery
- media brackdrops, broadcast idents and animations
Corporate ID
PSA Squash TV
PSA Super Series
While beauty is
certainly in the eye of the beholder, I think Whitestone/PSA
largely got it right.
In my inexperienced opinion the muted blue of the corporate
brand lacks the visual strength, however the three logos when
considered as a group provide a cohesive look and
significant improvement over past graphics.
Job well done.
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2 Comments
Is it me or do the logos look hazy too? Like the font though and colors of Super Series logo.
1. It must be distinctive, stand out, have impact.
2. It must reflect the organisation's brand character as defined in their Brand Model
3. It should indicate the nature of the business or the sector in which the organisation operates.
On the basis of the little that we know about the PSA brand and the brief, it seems that the designs created by Whitestone, who I was aware were working on this, tick these boxes and, while, no doubt, there are solutions that could have sqeezed a little extra mileage from the brief, this stuff works well enough. The thing is that all of this, the advertising, the graphics etc. are just the starting point. Every organisation in trouble goes here and that's right, they should do, but it isn't the solution, its just one tool used to support the promise. What really counts is delivering that promise and its here that MOST organisations fail.
The first indications of whether the PSA even understand what's required will come with the first advertising developed using this Corporate Identity. The best people in the world at this are organisations like Philips and Tesco who have a clear formula that every communication has to adhere to and judgement criteria to ensure that they do. The general rules are that the text of an ad. should reflect the idiom of the brand, the headline should pick up on one of the pillars of the strap line, which in turn should encapsulate the brand promise and the body copy should support the headline, linking it to the strap line. A similar set of rules can be applied to any communication, action, roduct, event or whatever. I run an entire workshop on this subject and its far too complex to go into here, but I'm happy to discuss it with anybody who is interested. Meanwhile, having explained the process I have to say that even then we are still just leaving the starting blocks. There's a lot more to do just to get in the race and to win it ...
My feeling is that the graphic development has taken too long already and life is like squash in that it divides people into two groups - the quick and the losers! I'll be interested to see what happens next and as always happy to lend a hand.
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