100 Thieves: The history, culture, and apparel of one of the fastest-growing brands in the world. I wrote an in-depth profile of 100 Thieves for BMB, and there are a lot of lesson’s brand builders can learn from this rapidly growing brand. This brand went from a dream and a logo, to being invested in…

Colin talks with Allen Adamson about maintaining brand relevancy in a fast-changing marketplace. Allen Adamson is a brand guru. He is the founder of the branding agency Metaforce, as well as an author of four books regarding branding. He has taught at New York University, Cornell, and Harvard. I was honored when he reached out…

Some types of products and some brands defy the laws of economics and can charge whatever they want. Something that fascinated me about branding is that some brands would be able to charge whatever they want. Some brands were known to be expensive, and people bought their products because of the high price not in…

My thoughts on the trends in logo design were featured both on BMB and Just Creative. It’s a new year, and a good time to reassess where logo design is heading. The first place I look when I am looking for trends is at companies who have rebranded in the last year. If a big…

Exterior business signs are a great way to add visibility to a brand… but are often poorly designed. Recently, Burlington Sports And Spine (whose brand I designed) asked me to design the sign for their plaza’s pylon sign. Pylon signs are the towers with a bunch of rectangular backlit signs, one for each of the…

Endorsements are a powerful but misunderstood tool in marketing. Every brand benefits from endorsements, whether it be a patron who raves about a bakery on Instagram or Nike spending $100 million + to secure a top athlete’s endorsement. But endorsements are not understood by marketers. Few people understand the nature of why endorsements are so…

An easy to use framework to help you evaluate your marketing ideas. Your brand to compete in today’s marketplace where customers are blitzed with thousands of marketing messages a day. That means only putting messages out there that are memorable, if not remarkable or shareable. I created a framework so you can evaluate any of…

Logos can be expensive because they take time and thought to get right, and great logo designers are in demand. I just put up a post on BMB (Brand Marketing Blog) entitled Why does professional logo design cost so much? When it comes to logo design, there are smart ways to spend money and dumb…

Edward Cervantes and my podcast about business and culture is on it’s second episode. In this episode, Edward has his mind blown at the scale and growth of the Esports industry. I find it pretty crazy as well, but I knew about some of the numbers around the industry size and prize pools. Bottom line:…

I read and reviewed “Amazing Decisions: The Illustrated Guide to Improving Business Deals and Family Meals” written by Dan Ariely and illustrated by Matt R. Trower.

I start my regular podcast with Edward Cervantes called The Unobstructed Podcast. Our first cast is about the rallying cray fo the Toronto Raptors: We The North.

Monstercat is my favorite example of a brand with a well-defined Brand Essence. This week, I wrote an article for BMB with a bunch of examples of brand essence. Brand essence is the reliable feeling fans of a brand come to expect when they use products or see media from that brand. Every valuable brand…