When everyone thinks alike, no one is doing very much thinking.

While many people will say they want to stand out and be bold and take their organization to a new level with a new image that will stand out from the crowd, when it comes right down to it, that isn't always the case.

Time after time a new client will spread out a handful of their competitor's brochures and say "I want to look like that!"

Why wouldn't you want your competitor to look at you and say, "I want to look like that!"

Or a new client might look at a proposal for a new logo and then start tweaking, twisting, bending...and before you know it, he's got something that looks like his original logo.

Be bold, step out and reject the mediocrity around us all. Remember, what was once popular has become obsolete. To do the unusual and different, requires fortitude and vision.

Good design will always stand out.

Good Design is Good Business

Good design is more than a pretty picture. It's more than computers and software.

Good design is good business.

Good design is solving a problem. There is a need to communicate a specific message, your message, to a specific audience. Some companies spend millions on it and some just don't see it's importance.

A successful business has learned to recognize the importance of relevant, compelling design to communicate to the world who they are. The secret of good visual communication is "meaning". Any design based solely on aesthetics or a clever style is doomed to fail. Style based design tries to "be" something while meaning based design tries to "do" something. It can explain a concept, identify a company, change an opinion or persuade a shopper to buy something. Good design can be a machine for communication.

Target, Starbucks, FedEx and Apple, to name a few, have discovered design. Tom Peters said "In a world loaded with stuff that looks like other stuff and performs like other stuff, good design will always stand out."

Someone once made the observation that "five percent of the design out there is really bad, five percent is really good, and the remaining ninety percent is just there."

So what do you want to look like?