2Active Design

A high profile financial institution in Honduras has acquired corporate face-lift. This bank is everywhere in the country so they are impossible to avoid. They sponsor our Honduran National Soccer Team that has qualified to the World Cup. As a citizen that frequents the streets of Honduras and watches local television, I’m disappointed that such a recognizable institution has gone through a re-brand resulting in a much more fragile image. It is my intent to be preventive and learn from this unfortunate re-branding process for FICOHSA so this does not happen to other organizations, large and small.

The Buzz

On social networks, some people actually think the new logo and website are refreshing, but most disagree. Lets begin with the logo. As a graphic designer, we learn that a logo is the absolute most important part of any company. It is an image that represents your entire operation. It should be distinct so that it is easily recognizable to your brand. It should work in grayscale, and it should work in many different sizes. Additionally, a logo should carry some sort of metaphor behind it, as this is what actually makes art, art.

The Best Bank in Honduras

FICOHSA’s previous logo evoked a sense of growth with it’s normal and over-sized “F.” Additionally, it’s shiny surface, though, now cliche, gave it a sense of polished refinement and a hint of stability which is great for a bank to have. However, this image was dated, and other banks have successfully re-branded their own image, FICOHSA decided to follow suit.

Questionable Redesign

I couldn’t hide my confusion when I first saw the new logo. While it works in many ways, it is not ideal for a strong financial institution. Perhaps they overplayed the “coolness” factor and overdid it with the 3D twisting motif. Additionally, the colors were softer which undesirably led to weakness. The first time I actually saw this logo was on a billboard by a street and I thought it was an old sign because it looked so washed out. But those were the real colors, and it was a brand new sign! Their TV campaign also includes a white logo built with clouds surrounded by a light blue sky. The contrast in this is quite minimal. It only works well on darker backgrounds. This is a serious mistake that an experienced graphic designer would not make. To compensate, different backgrounds has to be used in order to make the logo stand out.

The colors on the new logo are so bright that they almost blend into a white background. This breaks a major rule in graphic design. A logo must work in grayscale for it to be easily noticed from a distance. So how does FICOHSA justify their color choice? The person managing FICOHSA’s image redesign claimed that the colors represent the Honduran Flag. Honduras does not have a bright turquoise and white flag. It is actually a deeper blue and white. Since the marketing team did not mention anything else about the meaning behind the logo, we can only assume that the twist on the logo and 3D look was nothing other than a gimmick, and it was made to look “cool.” Sadly, this means there really is no metaphor. The logo does not evoke beauty and security, rather, it evokes movement and camouflage, which I know, makes you very confused. You would not want your logo to have this kind of response!

A Pretty New “Cookie Cutter” Website

Let us move on to the website. While their new website is functional, and I’ll admit, it is a step in the right direction to include a blog and to utilize a CMS like WordPress, they could have done it with a little more class and originality. A template is well suited for a client who decides that their budget is not sufficient for a custom design. However a bank, one of the largest in the country, should not give us this impression. Perhaps the good people at FICOHSA Marketing did not realize this, but the site is nothing more than a slightly modified $40 template. Anyone could buy their own FICOHSA site for $40. If you read my blog, you’ll know why serious brands do not utilize templates, but for your convenience, let me quickly restate a few of these points. A template is cheap, but it is not original. There are hundreds of other businesses that have that same design with a different logo stuck onto it and maybe variations on the color. However, a design is not just about a logo and color. It is also about layout. In some cases it is ecological to reuse and recycle, but not when it comes to design. We need something new and fresh. Only bad design goes in the trash, good design will stand the test of time. Again, even some of our clients have opted to use templates in order to lower their development cost. We warn them of the consequences, but sometimes the budget does not allow for an originally designed site. This makes us wonder if FICOHSA is in financial trouble which is a question we should not be asking ourselves when it comes to national banks.

Problems Under the Hood

Even though the theme is inexpensive and may look satisfactory, you know that you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. You wouldn’t buy a car if you knew it had a bad engine much in the same way you shouldn’t get a website that has poorly written code. Poorly written code might look OK, but it takes longer to download since it is so disorganized. It might even be insecure and could lead to your website being hacked. A proper design studio takes pride not only in their visual design, but also the coding. Themes rarely have efficient code. I find that they all need to be optimized since theme makers aren’t aware of SEO optimizations and they often throw in several unnecessary features that will slow down your site. FICOHSA’s source code has so many holes in it. A properly designed site should have very few blank spaces for it to be efficient. Yes, we are THAT careful when we make our websites and our clients deserve to get every bit of performance out of their site.

No Habla Español?

One key component that is missing from most new sites in Honduras is the multi-language capability. Automatic translation just has too many mistakes to work properly. All websites need to have the ability to provide at least two languages. Unfortunately FICOHSA will not be catering to their English speaking clients online, which ironically, would be the easiest place to serve them since not many staff is fluent in English at their physical locations and getting a one time translation is relatively cheaper than having a bilingual employee available at every location.

Mixed Signals

FICOHSA is doing well in Honduras. Their brand should reflect their success. Architecturally, they don’t hold back, and they have created beautiful, inspirational buildings that we like to look at. A website is a lot like a building. Even though it is much cheaper to make, the same level of care should be taken with it. You wouldn’t want your building to look exactly like another bank down the street would you? Even if it saved you some money? That’s what FICOHSA did with their website. I don’t know if they realize it, but they got an assembly line website that is not unique or special, but it is functional and cheap. Does it look like this building and the new website belong together?

Without exception, all web developers I know were disgusted with the website. Some said it was a bit ugly, and others bashed it for not being a custom design. This is on par with having a TV commercial that looks exactly like another TV commercial from another company, except it has different colors and a different logo, but the layout and the timing is exactly the same. This evokes laziness, makes things look cheap and it makes design professionals worried and confused when they should actually feel awed and inspired.

Looks Familiar

This is the template that the new FICOHSA site is based on. It is what we like to call a “cookie cutter” design because it saves time and it is easy to set up. It requires absolutely no creativity and no design work whatsoever. It’s quick to setup if you know what you are doing. And you can rinse and repeat as often as you like and make plenty more “cookies” to sell to everyone. This is great as long as the client knows that their site is not going to be so unique. But it can be an ethical problem when someone charges you $2,000 and installs a “cookie cutter” $40 template in a mere 3 or 4 hours. The real problem is that all this was approved by the team at FICOHSA Marketing. Regardless of how cheap this site is, there is no doubt that they should have custom design. This is an obvious mistake that corporations of this size and prestige should avoid at all costs!

Lack of Effort

The marketing executive at FICOHSA stated at a press conference that this was a huge investment for them, and a big effort. While the logo itself is not bad, it is not great since it does not meet all the graphic design requirements. However, we still deal with tremendous mediocrity in this country simply because we don’t know what is good design since we are rarely exposed to it and it seems, perhaps, unattainable and too expensive. The website, however, is a total disappointment, and comes off as being very cheap. FICOHSA might be safe with this one due to the same mediocrity and lack of exposure to good design that has been previously mentioned. The brand was given full praise by individuals who are not experts in the graphic design field. Unfortunately, just because it is Honduran and because it is new, does not mean it is good. This is the essence of mediocrity that we have to break through eventually if we are ever to compete at an international level. Perhaps it is sufficient for Honduras, due to little competition offered, but when stacked up next to other international financial brands, FICOHSA would fall far behind.

Don’t Trip on the Same Stone Twice

A respected financial institution, one of the largest in the country, made a series of mistakes when it comes to their branding and their online presence. Please don’t play with your brand this way. If we learn anything from this, it is that you must get second opinions. It doesn’t hurt to shop around! Ask other designers and developers for quotes and talk to them a little about design. This is perfectly possible if you have a dedicated marketing team like the folks at FICOHSA do, and even if you don’t, it is well worth the effort.

What can we learn from this? How can this be prevented?

• Be selective. Ask designers for previous work and compare it to other work by other designers. Don’t settle on a design firm just because they look fancy and have big names for clients. Look at their work and see if it strikes some sort of emotion to you and your peers.
• Educate yourself. Sometimes you get what you pay for, and sometimes you get ripped off like FICOHSA does. You have to know a little bit about what you’re getting. Make sure your designer educates you on proper design. If they can’t do this, they probably don’t know what they’re doing. I for one, enjoy talking about design rules with clients because I get to show off my own knowledge and make sure that my client will have a successful project even if they choose someone other than me because they’ll make sure their project meets the requirements.
• Don’t settle for less. If it doesn’t work, keep at it until it is something beautiful and inspirational while still maintaining its simplicity and elegance. Don’t be afraid to get new designers if your current ones don’t work out. There’s plenty of fish in the sea, and some of them are more likely to make better logos!
• Get to know your designer. The designer must be an artist. Look at their previous work. Do you feel inspired by it? Is it beautiful? Do they even have previous work? Can they truly say they created 100% of it? Remember, in the age of the internet, more and more people are taking credit for others’ work. Take your time to know who you are working with.
• Get guarantees. What happens if you don’t like the design? Do you still have to pay? Will they do a redesign? If there are mistakes, will they be corrected? Make sure you discuss this upfront.
• Understand what you are getting. Ask your designer why! Everything must have a reason. There are no mistakes in design. Everything must be carefully planned out with several reasons behind it. If something is there just because, this should sound an alarm to let you know that your designer really isn’t following the recommended procedure to make good design. Don’t let chance drive your brand. Get a real professional.
• Most importantly: Listen to your audience! Hundreds of people shared their thoughts on the FICOHSA re-brand. I’d say a large majority were unhappy with it. If FICOHSA paid attention to social networks, like all businesses should, they could have reacted and pulled the new website before it caused too much damage to their brand. Yet, they missed their chance and already gave a press conference. They spent large sums of money to push the new image out all over the country.