I’ve been really chuffed with the responses The Post has been getting about the Michael Wolff interview and “brand Birmingham”.

Tomorrow (Monday) the paper is going to have quite a bit of reaction in it – both in the Agenda section and the Media & Marketing page. Much of it looks at whether our public bodies are up to the job of promoting the city’s cultural and creative offering.

I’m pleased because it’s a conversation I hope will continue to be high profile – especially considering some of the things taking place in the city at the moment.

It would be nice to think there are enough people agitating for change that we may be able to find a way to reflect Birmingham’s creativity in its image.

Finally, we’ve used the Michael Wolff interview in The Post today.

I liked Michael. We disappeared off to the pub together for half an hour before he did his Q&A session at the Plus International Design Festival.

He was very likeable, easy-going, perceptive and well-versed in giving a journalist something to chew on – hence the story hitting the front page!

I got the feeling that his criticism of Birmingham’s council was something he had been storing up. [Edit 17/11/07: I now have it on good authority - i.e. from Michael - that he had done no so thing. His comments were spontaneous and inspired by what he had seen at PLUS. I stand corrected!]

In reponse the questions posed here:

In answer to prem1um:

All my clients have been challenging. Do you know why? Because it is very hard to explain to the money man at the top of a big business that design is important. Most of them just do not get it, their brains work in a different way. It’s very rare you find a chief executive or director who can also think creatively.

In answer to Nick Sims:

I defend the 2012 logo because I think it is a very brave and very good piece of work. Do I think it’s the best example of design ever? Probably not. But, it does do what it was supposed to do. And it has come from an agency that doesn’t really make mistakes.

The logo moves away from the static emblemic style of past Olympic logos and adds movement and a flexibility to it. Unlike most people I’ve had the opportunity to see what it looks like in motion and, I have to say, I rather like it.

The negative reaction has come from the fact it is so different. When you are faced with something you haven’t seen before, most people struggle to find something to say. If they don’t know if they like it, then they say they don’t like it. Or, they look around at what other people are saying and if they hear someone else saying they don’t like it, they’ll adopt that opinion.

I don’t think Wolff Olins designed it to cause controversy – that would just be a nonsense. Brands are not supposed to be connected with negative ideas – they are supposed to inspire and evoke the positive aspects of the thing they represent.

I hope that’s answered your questions!

A rare picture of me from Freestyle New Media’s photobooth stand at the rather exciting Plus International Design Festival.

Hundreds of other people are captured in equally strange guises on Freestyle’s photobooth webpage.

[Answers are here]

Date: Friday, October 19.

Michael Wolff, co-founder of design and brand agency Wolff Olins will be speaking at the PLUS International Design Festival at the Wild Building in Birmingham.

The event is free, but if you can’t make it and have a burning question, let me know!

Mr Wolff is considered one of the creators of brand identity and has worked with a number of high-profile companies to help shape their public image.

Although he left Wolff Olins in 1983, he has also shown strong public support for the infamous Olympic 2012 logo, which the company reportedly created at a cost of £400,000.

At the moment I’m planning to ask him about the process of creating trust through a brand identity. He was responsible for the so-called “greening” of BP and the aligning of its brand with renewable energy production. Also, how easy is it to rebuild trust in a brand after a crisis (such as Northern Rock, perhaps)?

Of course, they’ll be the inevitable question about the 2012 logo too, I’m sure.