branding

Canon Cracked Image

Canon Has an Image Problem

Canon has an image problem and I'm not talking about photos. The company currently has a battle on three fronts when it comes to the perception of its brand: no third-party lens options, the actions of its printer division, and the company's stance on climate change.

Your Work Deserves a .photography Domain

If you’re trying to establish your name as a professional photographer, building the right website and choosing a proper domain name for your business is essential to your success.

Don’t Make the Critical Facebook and Instagram Photography Mistake

I have a good friend that uses Facebook as his photography business’s digital platform. I have multiple friends that use Instagram as their portfolio. This also goes for, yes to a lesser degree, using Behance, Tumbler, Model Mayhem, Imgur, and Flickr as a portfolio destination.

Nikon Was Almost Named ‘Nikorette’

In a documented but little-known fact, Nikon was very close to being instead named "Nikorette." The name was only changed when executives were afraid that the word sounded "weak."

Personal Branding Photography: What It is and How to Get Into It

If you haven’t heard of personal branding photography, you’re not the only one. It’s a small but growing sub-genre of commercial photography that has been gaining popularity among female entrepreneurs and small-business owners.

Why Your Instagram Isn’t Growing

First off it’s not you, it’s Instagram. It comes down to a few very simple things that can be summed up in three words and two reasons: chronological order and saturation.

Photos of Cattle Branding in Argentina

20 years ago, photographer Marcos Furer decided to move away from his life as a newspaper and magazine journalist in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and to the slower lifestyle of the inner country. His personal work has since focused on the people and lifestyle Furer sees on a daily basis around him.

Bye Bye Gura Gear: Company to Sell All Camera Bags Under the Tamrac Brand

The Tamrac brand of camera bags has been around for nearly 4 decades now, and it looks like it will continue to live on much longer. Gura Gear, on the other hand, ends here.

When Tamrac went bankrupt last year, Gura Gear swooped in and acquired the company's brand and assets. Now, a year later, Gura Gear has decided to drop its own brand name in favor of the older Tamrac brand. Thus, Gura Gear will be no more.

Thinking About Brand, Thinking About Photography

There has been lots of discussion recently on how to brand what it is that we do, since so many of us are doing multiple things. Do we brand each thing or genre we do, or brand it into some sort of ‘holding company’ title? That’s a lot of work.

Brand Licensing and the Nikon Phone

By this point, the crippling blow dealt to compact cameras by the rise of smartphones is old news, but camera manufacturers are now mounting counterattacks. They've certainly suffered for long enough. Sales for compact cameras fell by 30% in 2011 alone, and kept on falling. They're at 102 million units for this year, compared to 144 million units just three years ago.

Shooting Photographs for the New KFC eleven Concept Restaurant

KFC Restaurants recently opened a new concept store in Louisville, Kentucky called KFC eleven. (The "eleven" being a tribute to the 11 herbs and spices in KFC's original recipe chicken). The new store has a distinctly modern look, and is far from the red and white color palette made popular by Colonel Sanders.

The new concept required a new direction for the photography as well. KFC eleven's creative agency, (Creative Alliance) asked us to help them create the visual feel for this new brand.

ZEISS brand 1

Carl Zeiss Rebranded, Now Just ‘ZEISS’

Famed and well-respected optical systems manufacturer Carl Zeiss is taking a step forward to create a "more consistent" image of the brand -- a brand which, up until now, has been known as Carl Zeiss AG.

According to a blog post from earlier today, Carl Zeiss AG will simply go by the name ZEISS moving forward. The company is, of course, named after its optician founder.

Cyber-shot Branding May Return to Sony Phones Alongside Serious Specs

Sony has used its "Cyber-shot" brand for digital cameras since 1996, and from 2008 to 2009 the company also slapped the brand on its Sony Ericsson camera phones. Now, with the smartphone industry investing heavily in camera technologies, Sony may soon be reintroducing the brand to its Xperia smartphones in order to compete against other photo-focused phones.

Cameras and Film in White, With All Visual Branding Removed

New York City-based photographer and brand strategist Andrew Miller has finished his project Brand Spirit (which we featured earlier this year), a photo-a-day effort to capture a well-known product in a way that's completely devoid of visual branding. For 100 days, Miller painted an object completely white and then photographed it on a white backdrop. Of the 100 objects he chose, three of them are related to photography: a Polaroid camera (#65), a Canon FTb (#86), and a roll of Kodak film (#39).

Photos Documenting the Illegal Use of Olympic Branding

The 2012 London Olympics is pretty strict about how the Games' branding is used, prohibiting the unauthorized use of everything from the Olympic symbol to the word "Olympic". Enforcing the rules is another story, as businesses both near and far use Olympic branding extensively to promote their own interests. Photographer Craig Atkinson recently decided to start a project documenting illegal uses in London through a photo project titled Illegal Olympics.

Household Objects with Visual Branding Completely Removed

Brand Spirit is a new photo project by NYC-based branding strategist Andrew Miller, who writes,

Every day for 100 days, I will paint one branded object white, removing all visual branding, reducing the object to its purest form. Each object may be purchased for less than $10, something I own, something another person gives me, or something I find.

See if you can identify each of the objects despite their lack of branding.