I would caution against the temptation to just start trying all kinds of ideas, you need formally trained designers well managed and well informed to make real progress. The challenge when rebranding is to keep the options and ideas fairly narrow in scope, you want to make a decision and a cluttered approach or sloppy design process can tend to bog down the entire project.

The biggest lesson I take away from branding, and from working with the best designers in the world around identity – is this: Your brand needs a refresh every few years. Consumers notice identities that never change, and ironically, they *really* notice brands that they don’t think are changing but behind the scenes are undergoing constant refreshes. They subconsciously gravitate towards brands that don’t seem to change – but these are the brands that in reality are actually being changed. That may seem counter intuitive, but it’s true.

For example, are you aware that Jack in the Box just went through a major rebranding? Check it out. See if you can see the smiling jack-in-box character in the new brand – he’s there. I love the jack-in-the-box rebrand, it’s such a perfect example of how modernizing a brand can both validate an existing mark yet bring it into relevance by generating a visual buzz. There is energy in the new brand that I would bet can be measured financially.

So when should you refresh your brand, and when should you go for a dramatic change? Generally speaking, established brands with significant previous investments in marketing initiatives should capitalize on the large surface area this has created. A clever refresh to modernize the look and feel of a brand that is already well recognized will generate a buzz in your industry. A refreshed brand with new marketing collateral and ideally a new web site will have your sales people dancing in the hallways, and closing more business. You can actually measure the success.

Opting for a complete identity change – which can even include new registration of trademarks or even a company name change – that’s a bigger decision. My advice here is that this kind of major change should be driven by a change in business plans or business approach. Entering a new market segment, expanding offices, etc. Sometimes these suggestions for a complete new identity come from the designers. When and if that happens, always keep in mind that a designer is looking purely at the aesthetic value of your brand, as they should – business acumen should always trump anything based purely on visual appeal. Still, if you have not invested in significant marketing, now might be the time to go for it.

You should always explore both options, looking at an identity change and deciding to do a refresh validates your decision – really for a nominal investment in the grand scheme of things. If you find yourself grappling with this issue, just remember: Jack is “in the box”.

I am not one to believe that good designers will ever be out of a job. I do however believe that the attitude of the designer needs an adjustment. I’ve met entrepreneurs that have built entire websites and built successful businesses without an ounce of design school and zero technical background. They’ve put together a website and self sustaining business by sheer will power, using Photoshop and a CMS. I am always impressed by this when I see it.

They have been able to do this, because the internet and its underlying technology continue to forge toward an ever ubiquitous environment. Certainly all of these solutions that I have come across need major improvements in design, and it is really remarkable to hear these business owners at times announce that they won’t ever need a designer.

But still, they do have somewhat of a point. Their solutions are not that far away from quality, I’ve even seen some of them that only need a little design help. Yes you can see the glaringly obvious lack of a grid system, bad typography, and broken color rules – but only because they are unaware of these things. In a few more years these things will be common knowledge, indeed they may already be.

This means that design is becoming ever more of a utility proposition each day, and I fear for the designer whom needs a sexy high end project to be motivated. As a technologist by background, I’ve had plenty of 14 hour stints troubleshooting a problem that is ever elusive, often in a chilly raised floor data center huddling around a much too small to be effective console. The designer will need to understand that there will be days of simply designing side bars and boxes with gradients. It’s par for the course in today’s CMS driven world.

I imagine the designer looks at something like Drupal 6 and self built sites with stock themes and winces in pain – but I promise you they are soon to be surprised.

If I could have two wishes granted, I’d ask that business owners and executives realize that the targeted use of formally trained designers is essential, and to trust companies like Zemelo to keep these costs contained – but secondly, and most importantly, I’d ask designers to join communities like Drupal and advocate for good design, embracing the future as opposed to trying to ignore it.

“Social Networking” is simply a buzzword for the reality of today’s internet experience, and Drupal has emerged as the clear leader. The Drupal Community baked in social networking from day one, it will take other CMS years to bolt on functionality that is already in Drupal and already mature and optimized.

Internet community enabled sites need to be able to handle all kinds of traffic, they need to scale, they need to support new web technology easily and they need to be updated constantly, this means the CMS requires backend management, from qualified IT professionals. We all know that simply launching a site is not enought these days, the site needs content updates, and the client wants to do this without another design engagement. The client needs a partner, not just a designer.

“Web Hosting” is not a decision to be made lightly. Putting your website on a server that has hundreds of other sites and dozens of other applications running is really asking for trouble. Putting your website on a server that only gets attention when your site goes down, just does not cut it in 2008.

In the coming weeks, Zemelo will make a series of announcements around Drupal and around a strategy to provide best in class hosting to our clients as part of our engagement process. We’ve come from the IT space, and we know how to provide our customers with rock solid IT related services. When Carbon ships, we will be one of the first companies to support this in a hosted environment, almost immediately.

Web 2.0 is not just about design – it’s about what happens when your community grows. Is your designer talking to you about everything? Do you know everything you need to know about launching your Web 2.0 site? Is your CMS fully supported? Stay Tuned.