Thanks for your feedback! I agree that the (RED) organizations are engaged in something that is hard to label. Perhaps this is just the complex nature of real-world CSR. I will do some more research into Carl Roger’s diffusion of innovation theory. There is a lot of speculation these days of whether Twitter has crossed that threshold of early adopters and is now closer to mainstream. I think to answer that question we have to redefine what we consider mainstream. Twitter users are a diverse bunch, and many do not stay active with the service.

I’m glad you enjoy my blog. I created the image header in Photoshop but my blog is still hosted on the WordPress server. I plan to self-host in the future.

It’s perhaps a law of human nature that we’re more likely to act, even in noble ways, if we perceive some benefit. Erving Goffmann, the early scholar and social scientist often credited as a founder of framing theory, understood that, in essence, we’re ‘performing’ any time we present ourselves to others in our daily lives.

So too are organizations. PR, in a sense, is simply a more formalized process of attending to the public consciousness.

All of this is a strained way to suggest that the (RED) campaign is quite innovative in reaching people through new media forms and poignant messages. And the fact that (RED) has tapped into the social orientation of some high-profile businesses is, in the big picture, a practical success to achieve its ends. I’m impressed. Twenty years ago, we might have termed all this progressive.

For a way to help explain how a campaign like this might spread, we can tap into Carl Roger’s much-cited theory called diffusion of innovation. (RED) is working new media channels to reach change agents and early innovators who are sensitive to the issue and inclined to embrace movements that arrive in poignant, artistic formats. Like this blog.

By the way, I like the design here, especially your header. Did you design it yourself? Use Photoshop? Or are you using the WordPress CSS service? Just wondering — and you’re a good teacher.

1) All depends on the contract and who signed what.

2) Again a contract spells it out, I can’t put some of my work on my portfolio because of such contract, also if you are an agency you wouldn’t sell logos as cheap as $150 – $1000. Maybe stock clip art like GoMedia, but not logos. There’s no revenue in it.

3) They don’t. It depends on complaints and if they bother them enough to begin with.

4) You don’t. Clients will think what they want to think.

Your comment regards to Redbox and Netflix, they are not close enough to cause infringement. Also a lot of the top brands in the world use mostly either blue or red. The typography makes all the difference.

Rephrased another way, I was asking if clients have a way of owning/controlling creative design work, so that it doesn’t end up on Brandstack. I believe extremely similar and competing logos, color schemes — basically any branding identifiers — can weaken two organization’s brand identity, especially if they compete against each other. Someone buying something on Brandstack because it looks like a big name is riding on coattails and I think that’s unethical of the Brandstack designer and buyer.

For example of too similar brands, I have a hard time differentiating between Netflix and Redbox: they’re two completely different organizations, but its hard to remember that with the similar reds and curved logo. (Even their websites look extremely similar.) The dude who started Redbox used to work for Netflix, so go figure.

I would like to point out about your comment on the Apple and Starbucks logo scraps showing up on Brandstack. Serious branding is about lots and lots of research – costs and payments can reach 5 figures and beyond for one mark.

I could go on forever but examples are researching the typography – where people have seen the font and what do they associate it with, the mark e.g. too many Ms in circles are associated with Metro, the exact color value, has this color been tested on various screens as well as print settings… I mean it is painstaking work!

Also there’s been too much of “inspired by” designs at Brandstack that the work is hardly original anymore, and defeats the purpose of branding.

I would like to share it with you and read your thoughts on it.