C&G PARTNERS ON CBS NEWS SUNDAY MORNING
March 5, 2006

C&G Partners appeared twice on CBS News Sunday Morning, first on the annual show called “The Money Issue”, and then the next week. We were asked to create a visual brand identity for the show itself, and the correspondent and a camera crew followed our staff around the office for three days as our team worked on many different solutions.

We don’t normally do assignments like this in three days (and we like more than three weeks, too) but we were happy to help CBS show the process that these important visual elements require.

Frequently Asked Questions
Since the show aired, we’ve been getting a lot of questions from viewers, and a lot of those questions have come up more than once. Here are a few of the most popular so far:

Is this your normal process?
No. We normally take much longer and we normally have a client who collaborates in the decision-making process over time. This was just a demonstration, and we had a lot of fun.

What, exactly, was the assignment you were given for this show?
Good question. We were asked to come up with a visual brand identity of some kind for the annual “Money Issue” of CBS News Sunday Morning. We were not asked to redesign the logo of Sunday Morning itself. The incentive behind this experimental assignment was that the “Money Issue” is so popular that it is being considered to be spun off into its own show or its own segment.

Was this an actual assignment?
No. As far as we know, there is no actual intention to spin off the “Money Issue” into anything other than an annual themed program. This was only a demonstration, not a real project. But you never know…

What is a brand? What is a sub-brand?
Unfortunately for the layperson (and everyone else), there are many slightly different definitions. Here is our favorite, adapted from the AIGA’s version: a brand is the perception that people have about a company, organization, product, event or other person. A sub-brand is a perception about something strongly connected to a main brand. For example, CBS News is a sub-brand of CBS. A logo (or a logotype, or a brandmark) is one part of the visual component of a brand or sub-brand. For more, Google “a brand is”.

How can I have a logo made?
Contact us and we’ll start the ball rolling.

Do logos always take three days to make?
No. Three days is the shortest period of time we’ve ever been given. Normally this takes much longer. In three days, there was no time to research the existing company and its other activities and graphic languages, the competition, or talk to any member of the client group about their plans. We also had not time to perform due diligence checking on the creative solutions to ensure they were not already in use by other legitimate concerns.

Do you just make logos?
No. First, please bear in mind that even in the visual identity part of what we do, we don’t just “make logos.” A symbol or wordmark is part of a much larger system of visual identity that must be created at the same time. Plus, visual identity is itself only part of what we do. We are a design company active across a wide range of project types, from identity to exhibitions and environments to print to signage and many places in between. Check out our Portfolio to see more.

The logo you made for the CBS show looks just like another one I know, shouldn’t you tell CBS’s lawyers?
Again, we were not given time to research or check. It may very well look similar to other work. This was a demonstration only. It only becomes a legal issue if it is used as a trademark in actual business.

Can I (or a talented child or grandchild) get an internship or job-shadowing positions at your firm?
We do not do job-shadowing, and we do not normally offer any position to people younger than college age. For everything else, please see the careers and internships sections of our site.

How do I vote on the logo I like?
Unfortunately, the voting is over. Go to the CBS site to see the results.

Which one did you pick?
We picked #3. (#1 was the popular vote.) Normally, we work with our client to decide the best direction, but CBS asked us to make our own choice for the purposes of the show.

Did you make all those logos they showed on the program?
Yes. Some of the past work that was briefly shown on the CBS program was done by the partners of our firm when they were Principals at Chermayeff & Geismar Inc. (now closed).