NY Times article: "Do-It-Yourself Logos for Proud Scion Owners"

[Gothamite]

Thought this was interesting:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/24/business...amp;oref=slogin

By LYNNLEY BROWNING

Published: March 24, 2008

TOYOTA likes to think of its quirky, boxy Scion as a 21st-century chariot of the soul ? not just an affordable car, but also a unique expression of the young, hip person who Toyota hopes is driving it.

Now Toyota?s Scion enthusiasts will have even more ?me time?: a marketing campaign with an underground vibe that is intended to show just how much their chosen transportation reflects their personality.

With an eye to the social networking ethos that has made Facebook and MySpace wildly popular, Toyota will let Scion owners design their own personal ?coat of arms? online, a piece of owner-generated art that is meant to reflect their job, hobbies and ? um, O.K. ? karma.

In making their personalized crests, Scion owners can choose from among hundreds of symbols, all designed by a professional graffiti artist. The symbols range from an eagle, a jester, a king?s crown and a worker?s fist to Japanese anime-style flowers, a three-person family and a yin-yang circle. Customers can download their designs and have them made into window decals or take them to an auto airbrushing shop to have them professionally painted onto their cars.

The Scion is an economy car aimed at younger, stylish drivers, and the design Web site, scionspeak.com, is free. But Scion enthusiasts must pay for the auto shop renderings of their design, an indulgence that can cost thousands of dollars.

The campaign, called Scion Speak, was created by StrawberryFrog, an advertising and marketing agency based in New York and Amsterdam that is known for its quirkiness and for representing new or hipster brands. The agency spent six months last year escorting a graffiti artist, Tristan Eaton, around New York, Los Angeles and other cities to talk to Scion owners about their lifestyles. Based on those conversations, Mr. Eaton designed the symbols.

?These guys love to personalize their cars, and we give them a tool to do that,? said Kevin McKeon, the executive creative director of StrawberryFrog in New York.

At the same time, Scion Speak is meant to be about more than the individual. ?We brought the people we?re communicating with into the process and had them build the idea with us,? Mr. McKeon said. ?That?s what we find particularly cool from our perspective.?

There's a couple screencaps of the process:

A new Web site for the Toyota brand Scion lets users design a coat of arms.

Scion drivers can have their coats of arms painted on their cars.

You can try it out here: http://scionspeak.com/

Fun, but I'm not sure that I'd want to put on a car, even if it didn't cost a couple grand....

[DG_ThenNowForever]

I read the article when I got my paper this morning, and it didn't quite make sense to me. You make a logo online, and then you can pay a few thousand or so to have it somehow airbrushed onto your Scion? I don't see why you skip scionspeak.com and just use Illustrator to do whatever you want.

[Gothamite]

I think this is for people who don't exactly have Illustrator skills.

Besides, this is all about expressing your individual personality by applying a few clip art icons onto a pre-selected series of templates.

You know, like most of the Adidas design team's work.

[BBTV]

Isn't the point of buying a Scion to not spend extra thousands of dollars?

[Shumway]

Isn't the point of buying a Scion to not spend extra thousands of dollars?

I thought it was for those who always wanted to drive a toaster.

[Drew22]

Isn't the point of buying a Scion to not spend extra thousands of dollars?

I thought it was for those who always wanted to drive a toaster.

My dad's friends want him to get toaster slots on the top of his xB, so when they look down at his car from their building at work, it looks like one.

[DelayedPenalty]

I've seen one somewhere in the Detroit area with the license plate "LNCHBOX"