To me, Jeffrey Zeldman is the King of Cool. It feels like he’s always 1 1/2 steps ahead of whatever’s going on. With a savant-like mastery of design and web standards, he still manages to exude incredible humanity.

So not for a second does anyone believe he’s the wandering noob he appears to be during his recent challenges with an expiring domain, and his flickr Pro account. One important lesson companies can learn from him is “don’t bury your mistakes”. Without malice for the companies that failed to watch his back, Zeldman shares his mistakes, and offers advice for preventing these situations in the future. A genius, a visionary and a guru - but human like the rest of us. It’s his brand.

Many businesses go to great lengths to hide their flaws, mistakes or even simple lapses in attention. They feel it would hurt their credibility if anyone were ever… ...(more)

As a designer who spends some time designing logos, I want to state for the record that your logo doesn’t matter. That’s right. If you created a spectrum of all the problems facing large companies, small companies, stagnating companies, companies experiencing painful growth, you won’t find one that a logo can fix.

So I wanted to offer some logo advice for business owners I’ve gathered through my experience in developing brands:

- Your logo is not your brand. Don’t expect it to be.

- If you are unable to articulate why someone should choose your company over your competitor, a well designed logo is not going to fix that problem.

- Trying to look like a big company when you aren’t one is a bad strategy. These days, 2 guys can have a billion dollar idea. No one cares how much overhead you have. That is old thinking.

- Your logo is also not your value proposition. Don’t expect it to be. “How will people… ...(more)