What is a brand? How important is it for marketing strategy? The American Marketing Association defines brand as a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers. The legal term for brand is trademark. A brand may identify one item, a family of items, or all items of that seller. If used for the firm as a whole, the preferred term is trade name.

Branding is the main reason why I had a designer create a blog mascot for JaypeeOnline. With the help of the mascot, I wanted people/visitors to be able to identify and differentiate my blog from other blogs. To make it stand out, be unique and have its own identity.

WordPress is very particular with its own branding and trademark. That’s why they have a dedicated page for the official WordPress logos and graphics. One recent addition to this page is this particular line and the image below it:

Fight the Fake Logo

Friends don’t let friends use the wrong WordPress logo. If you see one of these in the wild, please gun it down.

Maybe some of you have already noticed this and some may take this lightly and think this isn’t important but personally I like this concept/idea. I’m sure there are still a lot of WordPress users out there who aren’t aware of this and can’t tell the difference between these two logos. As a user and advocate of WordPress, I want to help spread awareness about WordPress including the real WordPress logo.

To be honest, I think I might have been guilty of using these fake logos in the past. So in the next couple of days, I’m gonna go over my old posts, filter out and take down any fake WordPress logos that I will find.

You are my friends and as your friend, I won’t let you guys use the wrong WordPress logo. ;)

Good news for WordPress fans and users because now, when you need the WordPress logo or graphic you can get the official ones directly from the WordPress site itself. WordPress have made their official logos, buttons and desktop wallpapers available to the public. For logos, you can download PDF files for print and choose between PDF (vector) or PNG for using it on the web while the desktop wallpapers come in 10 different screen resolutions including one for the iPhone. Also provided are the official WordPress color codes or palette that you can use for reproducing any WordPress artwork.

All I can say is thank you to the WordPress team for making this available to us WordPress fans and users. It’s about time!

What are you waiting for? Get your official WordPress logos, buttons and graphics now.