Meanwhile, this blog has impossibly rigid design guidelines.

I’m really not exactly sure which side of the fence I’m on when it comes to identity standards.

I’ve seen guidelines as simple as a few pages and I’ve seen them bound in massive volumes. I’ve come across some that made sense and some that make none.

(One that makes no sense to me is Hershey Resorts. One mandate is that “Hershey” and the different property names are always CAPITALIZED and another is that you always have to have the ® immediately after the “Y” if you use the word “Hershey” alone. This means ― and I am not making this up― that if the occasion arises, you are required to do this: “HERSHEY®’s”. But that's just my personal opinion and does not reflect any official position by Nasuti + Hinkle, its employees, subsidiaries or any of our relatives.)

Then again, I’ve been in a situation where three people from the same company handed me three totally different business cards for no good reason. And I’ve seen logos so misused that somebody ought to be hung out to dry. Honest, I understand how identity standards can help protect the value of a brand. But let’s live in reality.

I’ll buy you lunch if you can show me one instance of someone not doing business with a company because they stacked the logo in a narrow ad or, the company name was in white on a black background instead of black on a white background. Or how on earth the brand is compromised because the HOTEL HERSHEY® wasn’t all caps in an ad.

Like I said, I’m really not exactly sure which side of the argument I come down on when it comes to identity standards. Common sense, perhaps.

Which, I guess, usually leaves out all the lawyers.