Friday Fun: Logo Love - what is the brand you identify with and why?

[Eva Kasiak]

Happy Friday, y'all! 👋

There are brands that speak to me because what they do and how they do it. They are close to my heart, instincts, and values. Because I'm an active person I love the whole Nike brand and their motto "Just do it". ✨
I love Toyota because to me it's an inspiration of how big manufacturer mastered management and waste reduction - a few decades ago. Yet these days they continuously innovate and create electric cars as a contribution to reducing carbon footprint. So Toyota impresses me when it comes to management and agility. It also impresses me as a person who is vitally interested and tries to take care of well being of our planet - even on the micro, individual scale. 🌎🚘

I love many NGOs (nonprofit organizations) that are connecting people with nature in either form all in favor of building collective contribution to the planet's well-being and connecting people to create communities. One of them is WWOOF - Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms .

WWOOF is a worldwide movement that links visitors with organic farmers, promotes cultural and educational exchange, and builds a global community conscious of ecological farming and sustainability practices. 🙏




What is the brand that you identify with and why is that?
What values and actions of this brand make it unique in your view?

I'm curious about the local, maybe less famous brands but those that are worth mentioning because they do meaningful things - not only generate revenue. There's a bigger purpose behind those brands than just money, they are compatible with your values and what is that you stand for in life.

[Jack Brickey]

@Eva Kasiak , thanks for sharing a unique and insightful Friday fun day post. I had to really stop and think about this to be honest. I had to think about the companies that influence me or have influenced me in the past. Before I dive into my answer here I have to say that there are both positive and negative aspects for some of my choices. My choices are based upon those companies that have been impactful in one way or another for me over the last decade.

I have to place Atlassian at the top of my list as I love the products and have spent many years engaged with the products and the company. More importantly their values and Pledge 1% corporate philanthropy initiative strikes home with me.

 

I am a big techie and fanboy of Apple. Admittedly they are far from perfect and I don’t appreciate some of their past actions but they build amazing products and have undeniable changed how the world works and plays.

 

Ford is a recent addition to my list based upon their public commitment to go all electric. A very bold move IMO. It will be interesting to see how it plays out for them.

[Monique vdB]

@Jack Brickey my friend John is getting the Ford F-150 Lightning, he wrote about it here. I will be interested to hear how he and his wife like it! 

[Jack Brickey]

@Monique vdB , I have one on hold. Unsure if I will follow thru or no though. We will see.

[Monique vdB]

@Jack Brickey oOOooOOooOOOhh okay keep us posted. 

[LarryBrock]

@Monique vdB and @Jack Brickey - exciting!

I'm curently holding off buying anything waiting (and hoping?) for some sanity to return to auto prices.  My plan is to keep my old 2003 F-150 running for two more years in order to allow the F-150 Lightning to reach market and get some road-time, at which point I'll buy one if at all possible.  My current truck will likely be at 300k miles by then so maybe I'll have gotten my moneys worth. :-)

[Marjorie]

Because the coffee.... the fund raising.... the support of ethical farming....

Because my life is ultimately more organized and collaboration is at an all time high....

[Monique vdB]

@Marjorie I agree on Starbucks! I love their coffee but also have extra love for them because they offer health care to part-time employees.  I was a barista all through graduate school and had health care thanks to them!

I still haven't forgiven them for discontinuing the gingerbread latte though. 

[Marjorie]

OMG, I loved the Gingerbread latte!

[Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_]

I became an Apple fan (then bigot) when I set up a Mac Book Air for my eldest daughter as she was heading off to college. Today, I own two personal Mac Books (one Air and one Pro), an iPad, an iPhone, an Apple Watch, and my home is decorated with HomePods and Apple TVs for my viewing and listening pleasure.  (Since converting, I do my best every day to not touch anything associated with Windows - lol )

Like @Eva Kasiak, I like Toyota. But she is more principled about it than I am. After my first Yota, I fell in love with their quality and probably won't ever buy from another manufacturer.

That said, I occasionally buy a lottery ticket in hopes of buying a Porsche 911 one day. I have dreams.

I am a huge fan of being outdoors, so REI is a huge favorite of mine (and the brands that they carry). And I will only buy Specialized bikes although I have my eye on a Trek bike for which there is no comparable Specialized bike at this time. I have an obsession with Columbia, L.L. Bean, and Northface clothing.

~~~~~~~~~~

Wow. I see clearly now that I am exhibiting an unhealthy amount of unhealthy  American consumerism. I should be more like Eva!  As they say, the first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem — so I'll take some solace in that — and aspire to be more like Eva. :) 

[Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_]

P.S. I hope to buy an all-electric or hybrid car next.  So, that's good, right? 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I don't really have too strong an affiliation with any particular brand.  Adaptavist and Atlassian obviously leap to mind, and then a couple of places I enjoyed working and was there a while - BP (BP Amoco at the time,  I was there when before rebranded to bp and stole the flora logo they use now, and most of my swag from there is branded with the old green shield), and the other is at the bottom left of this:  

But the only brand I can think of that I have a strong affinity for is

[Rob Horan]

Despair.com because

((gestures vaguely at everything))

[Linda Milne_Togetha Group_]

Or in my case, gestures vaguely at nothing. Cant think of a thing.

[Rob Horan]

I misread this at first, thought it was just brands in general.  Hahaha oops

[Jimmy Seddon]

@Eva Kasiak I love this topic!  Outside of Atlassian, there is one other brand/logo I'm very much affiliated with and I love what it represents and how the logo speaks to the brand.

Extra Life is a charity organization where people who play games (video games, board games, etc.) come together to raise money for Children's Miracle network hospitals.

[Marjorie]

Extra Life sounds interesting.  Thanks @Jimmy Seddon 

[John Funk]

Like Jack - one of mine would be Ford since we own two right now

The other would probably be Coke

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Oh, as an aside, we should be careful - if the marketing people at Adaptavist see this thread, they might start "borrowing" logos again.  (Says he who is wearing an Atari-test-management shirt, carefully selected from between the ScriptRunner-bladerunner and Scriptrunner-coke shirts, next to the Harley-davidson-summit shirt)

[Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_]

😆

[Mikael Sandberg]

So I am an Apple fan too, ever since I got an Apple MacBook Pro back in 2008 (which my daughter killed by covering up the fan vent holes playing a game...no grudges...).

Since my roots are in Sweden, I do love what Volvo is doing when it comes to car safety and going all electric by 2030. Not to mention what Polestar is doing right now. (And no, don't ask me about SAAB.)

Another brand dear to my heart is Pepsico (since we already mentioned Coca-Cola). I prefer the NC brand over the GA one... 

And off course, I do have the love the brand of the company my wife works so hard for, Malicious Women Co, and they have been fighting the b*tt off to make it through this pandemic, and still do.

[Linda Milne_Togetha Group_]

LOVE IT!!!

[Paloma Fondon Araujo]

Hi @Eva Kasiak and hi all!!

Some time ago I discovered by chance a sunglasses brand called Kai Sunglasses.

It's a Spanish brand that makes sunglasses with recycled plastic, their temples are inspired by the shells of different sea turtles and are committed to ocean conservation and promote good practices to save marine species and their habitat.

I think it's a fantastic idea and I agree with the sustainable policy they apply to all their products. Besides, the sunglasses are very nice!!!!

[Alex Koxaras _Relational_]

Fantastic idea!! Thanks for sharing this!

[Monique vdB]

@Paloma Fondon Araujo how cool! My daughter and I are huge fans of The Ocean Cleanup* and they also make sunglasses from plastic they remove from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. 

*She earmarks some of her allowance to "donate" and she loves donating through Atlassian's company portal, which doubles her donations.  Thanks Atlassian! 

[Eva Kasiak]

these sunglasses are sooo cool - thanks for sharing!

[Alex Koxaras _Relational_]

Well, I got to say Atlassian.

Not because I'm writing on this community, but because indeed Atlassian changed my life in the last year. The journey started for sure 3 years ago, but it was the last year that really mattered. Despite of my journey, Atlassian promotes their values within their employees, and having been nominated best working environment, it kinda makes me wonder what it would look like if I was working with them :)

Apart from this, and due to recent news, Atlassian (and especially Mike) are really concerned about climate change. His recent actions reveal that he's taking this very serious (https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/mike-cannon-brookes-pledges-1-5b-to-climate-initiatives-ahead-of-cop26-20211020-p591p5.html#:~:text=Atlassian%20co%2Dfounder%20Mike%20Cannon,degrees%20above%20pre%2Dindustrial%20levels.)

[Monique vdB]

@Alex Koxaras _Relational_ I agree with you about Mike and climate change! Also wondering what happened in the past year that Atlassian changed your life, tell us more :) 

[Alex Koxaras _Relational_]

I got a job at my current company, as a(n future) Atlassian consultant. And that's thanx to Jira (and a little bit to confluence)! For the past one year I've learned more about Jira that I did on my own a couple years ago. Got two certifications and planning the next ones. Got involved in this fantastic community and started meeting quite interesting people!

(keep in mind that my major is economics. I used to work for 7-8 in a bank on NPL loans. It was really hard to change direction and deal with something technical like Jira and the whole Atlassian suite. I was very fortunate to do that, and thanx to Atlassian I was able to succeed and start my second, and more exciting, journey!)

[Walter Buggenhout]

I am not much of a brand guy myself either. And though it's not going to win me an award for originality on this forum, the only brand I really have a strong affiliation with, must be Atlassian.

I guess the main reason is I can relate 1-1 and very strongly with the company values. And the way the company and its people practice what they preach, is an amazing guiding light for many. 

[Monique vdB]

@Walter Buggenhout you're a winner as far as I'm concerned! 😂

[Walter Buggenhout]

😂😂😂

Well, that was totally unexpected! A big thank you goes out to my parents, without whom I would have never been able to receive such great honour!

And to you of course, @Monique vdB 💙

[Fabian Lim]

Don't have an affiliation with any majora brands, but I've been using Ray Ban's glasses for almost 15 years now. I like their designs.

[Mike Rathwell]

Ok... A lot depends on context but on my wrist, the 3 most occurring in my collection are:

Perhaps a little "less" known in USA and part of why those are my usual choice to use my allowance foolishly on.

Unlike others here, I TRIED going back to apple and iOS and... it's awful (for me) so...

And for my keyboards, all Kailh switches all the time.

[Brant Schroeder]

I love logos that have to do with the outdoors and nature.  I am going to have to go with Lamson Waterworks as they are a company in Idaho that makes great products that I love to use.

[Suvradip Paul]

@Eva Kasiak  Interesting topic ! To be honest, my favourite ones have changed over time.

I am not going through the entire list as it would be a long list. In childhood, it was more fantasy world and characters but now it's mostly techie company logos, some brands. Yes, I also like some brands for their catchy attractive tagline and work in relevant area as they share in brand promotion. 

[Carla Ann Rowland]

Hi All:

I do love Atlassian Products JIRA Server and Confluence server were the two products that I used most when starting my Atlassian Way.

For other brands:

First part-time job was computer store-- knew product well won logo T-Shirt from sales rep-- even beat my boss on the quizzes.

This car clicked for me since first time I saw it when on vacation in Hawaii with parents when is was kid. Was torture when neighbor has restored 65 convertible --red of course -- and would not even give me a ride in it! 

This 80 icon always makes me laugh!

Sci-fi fandom: Star Trek, Star Wars, and Dr. Who.

[Tom Kakanowski]

I don't identify with brands (at least not in the context of commerce, products and services), but will pay enough attention to branding to focus on what to avoid and who to avoid supporting.  Branding is/has become about the manipulation of culture to maximize economic endeavours.  I don't like being manipulated.  So groups like Nestle for example, who's dozens of brands spin the benefits of their products while exploiting and misleading people, is a group of brands I watch, in order to avoid supporting economically.  Take Facebook, who have just announced they are rebranding as Meta; same deceptive behaviours,  deceptions and manipulation of culture, but hey, now its all new and improved, just forget about how they've spread hate, fear and misinformation for profit while violating people's privacy.

So, I'm both sorry and happy to say, there is NO brand I identify with, because I don't care what image a product or service wants to convey to me, I care about the actual product or service and how they execute (and that all changes over time in any case).  OP noted NGOs though, and I don't put them in the same class as commercial organizations, but I respect brands in this model so...

[M Amine]

waw it is amazing to read your posts :)