One of the first projects I did for IBM I was called into a senior executive's office at Ogilvy. My offense? I changed the color of the register mark after IBM so that it matched the logo -- IBM blue.

My instincts were right by my application was wrong.

Register marks, copyright marks, and the rest… they are important and do serve a purpose. However, they don't need to take over your message.

Some good go-bys from font.com
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For ®s, TMs and SMs:

• At text sizes, these symbols should be little smaller than half the x-height (height of lowercase) of your text.
• As your text gets larger, the symbols should become proportionately smaller, especially in headlines

For ©s: 

• When it appears after text (such as a company name), the symbol should be a little smaller than half of the x-height (heigh of lowercase) of your text.
• When it appears before a year (as in ©2013), match the symbol size to the size of the first numeral. 

In "March of the Doohickeys" an article by Paul Rapp, a lawyer who specializes in intellectual property law, you can read about the purpose of all of these extra doodads.

Bottom line: the marks need to be legible but not overbearing and not a design element of your logo. So if you are designing a bill board, be sure to scale down the size of the register mark accordingly … it doesn't have to be the size of a stop sign. And if you are creating a logo for an LLC my recommendation is to make it look like a "mark" versus part of the name. And always always follow the brand guidelines.

I'm not a blogger. Let's just start there. 

However, I am a graphic designer, an art director and a creative director who has many years of experience working on brands of all sizes, big and small. Mostly big. The biggies — Amex, Microsoft, DHL to name a few. 

After years in the advertising industry and working for one of the biggest — Ogilvy — I decided to go back to school for interior design at New York School of Interior Design. I like to help people and I like to make things look good. And the idea of making a career out of helping people be happier in their homes appealed to me. —  But, I got frustrated. 

I didn't want my work to be disposable. And didn't love the idea criticizing someone else's designs for being "oh so last year". The Welsh and Danish in me insists on using things if they still look good, still work and can't be "renovated, updated, upgraded". Great design is timeless after all.

So, I made a conscious decision to combine my desire to help people, my compulsion to make things look good, and my experience of working with fortune 500s, to start my own business to help small and medium-sized businesses look good. 

"Scribbles" is a place where I will jot down tips and ideas that might help guide or inspire thoughts on branding or design in general. Now and then it will be used to offer kudos to my clients as it's their success that makes me happy. I am a designer with purpose after all.