Brammo is a promising young alternative transportation company out of Oregon that’s been gaining a lot of press lately. I’ve spoken fairly positively about them in that past. BestBuy began to distribute the Enertia electic motorcycle at select locations on the west coast last month and the company has created an innovative approach to marketing a motorcycle.
However, late last month when they submitted their logo design project to crowdSPRING, a crowd sourcing design site, it hit me close to home. For a company that presents itself as being concerned with design, it is disheartening to see this complete disregard for actual designers. Crowd sourcing has been beaten to death and I refuse to contribute to that argument, it’s the hypocrisy that gets me.
Brammo’s own website touts that the success of the Enertia is contingent on design: Its materials, engineering, environmental impact and marketing are all presented with an underlying notion that good design equals success. So to leave the most important marketing tool a company has to an army of ill-conceived, poorly executed, poorly researched interpretations knocks Brammo down a few.
It really speaks to the true underlying philosophy of the company. Design isn’t a commodity, it can’t be packaged into a 24 pack (or a 754 pack in this case). It’s terrible to see Brammo take the design-by-shotgun approach. So I’m sorry Brammo, I’d really like to like you, but I just can’t.
…And to the designer that wins their $1k for this one. Take your money. Take your money and chew on it like Private Pyle chewed on his jelly doughnut.
