There are lots of branding companies you can go to when you need a visual identity. They have portfolios detailing the logo work they’ve done, explaining the ideas that are conveyed by each logo element, what the choice of colors conveys, the importance of a logo, how it can help propel your unique brand message and achieve separation from your competitors, etc.

We would argue that you can tell a lot about what a branding firm really believes in based on the work they’ve done in presenting their own brand.

Landor, Interbrand, Pentagram and Siegal & Gale all wax poetic about the power of the logos they created for others, yet they’ve all chosen to go gentle into that good night, sans logo.

Instead they each opted for a type treatment.

Note how each visual identity demonstrates their respective understanding of the power of visual identiy to communicate the unique qualities of their individual brands.

We think they’ve each succeeded in communicating that understanding brilliantly.

It’s Friday and time for a laugh. Granted, the appeal here is narrow, but if you’re a Gallagher or Carrot Top aficionado, you may be in for a treat. Of course that would mean you have bigger problems, but we digress. Try and read through this case study, straight from the Interbrand website, without busting a gut:

Xignux
Building a Future

Business Issue

Axa Corporation, owner of Conductores Monterrey and Zwan and other diverse businesses, sold its brand name to the French insurer Axa when it entered Mexico. In determining a new name, Axa wanted to conserve the equity it held in the letter X. The required change of name also presented an opportunity to renew the company’s identity.

Brand Solution

Interbrand generated proposals for suggestive and abstract names, given that a descriptive name could not cover the diversity of Axa’s commercial interests. The chosen name, Xignux, is derived from a word with many positive connotations by using “signo” (sign), with the abstract device of starting and ending with the letter X. The visual identity communicates the dynamism of the group’s businesses as well as the synergies between them.

“…conserve the equity it held in the letter X”, now that’s funny!

Which reminds us, “A duck walks into a pharmacy and asks for a three-pack of Certance for the weekend…”

For those of you wishing to get out from under the manky tutelage of “The Phone Company” and go your own open source way, there is a GNU kid in town with an interesting name. He’s short and ill tempered, with a long standing set of issues concerning goats. From LinuxDevices.com:

According to project leader David Sugar, the current stable version of Bayonne provides only a script-driven model for servicing voice applications that require basic switching, a constraint that has limited the software’s utility. “There are many specialized applications, such as VoIP-PSTN gateways, [in] which Bayonne’s entirely script-driven approach is difficult to manage or deploy,” Sugar acknowledges.

Sugar released the first developer’s release of Bayonne 2 on Jun. 27, saying the software would continue to offer a script-driven server, while enabling “completely new voice application services to be constructed using core Bayonne services and drivers as linkable libraries.”

According to Sugar, the new Bayonne release includes a basic PSTN-to-VoIP service binding called GNU Troll, which is intended as a “proof of concept” for a new Bayonne plugin model. “Basic incoming call handling should work under Troll at this point, although much work remains to be completed,” he said.

Sugar adds, “This is the very first step of an inititive to introduce basic IP-PBX services and new functionality to the core Bayonne 2 platform in a modular, user selectable, and incremental fashion. Different bindings will offer different services, and one can choose a binding appropriate for the application being developed, whether it is for integration with traditional analog or digital telephone networks, application services, or gateways for use within an existing VoIP infrastructure — or in eventually offering a complete Bayonne 2-based VoIP infrastructure and other turnkey telephony solutions.”

“Freedom” from the phone company will come at a price. You’ll most likely have to sign a deal with the Devil. So what’ll it be? The Devil you know or the Devil you know? Now that’s freedom of choice.