"Out of the Box Empowerment"

One of the things that probably stick out in this blog would probably be the new logo. I'm going to spend a little bit of time talking about it now.

As you might know, "ObeCorp" is the name of my company. Believe it or not, the actual inspiration behind the name "ObeCorp" was initially from watching the old Yu-Gi-Oh! cartoon. One of the rivals of the protagonist, who is also the "anti-hero" of that series, Seto Kaiba, is a teenager who is a CEO of a multi-billion dollar company. I thought the name of his company (KaibaCorp) sounded kinda cool, and if I ever founded a company one day, I'll probably name it something similar. So, when the time came, I just incorporated my nickname that a lot of people seemed to call me "Obe" in that manner. Thus, ObeCorp Enterprises was born.

But, it wasn't until this past February, that I actually got an idea. After coming from a speakers' conference/bootcamp in Vegas, and after being around and interacting with a lot of successful speakers and business people, my creative juices started flowing. I thought that "OBE" can actually be an acronym of something. I figured that those 3 letters can stand for "Out-of-the-Box Empowerment". That's what my company was about anyway, because a lot of the empowering motivational stuff that I was already doing, and that I had already published (whether it be my books, CD, videos, etc), was different, and was doing stuff that nobody else in the world of self-help was doing. From then on, I've always held that idea of "out-of-the-box empowerment" in my head until I can figure out what I can do with it, and the best way I can run with it.

It was actually a couple of weeks ago in the APCA conference in New York City when I thought of the brilliant logo that you see in this blog. The president and director of APCA, Eric Lambert, suggested that a lot of us create a logo or a "meme" that clearly identifies our company, brand, and message just by simply looking at the logo. A perfect example of a "meme" would be the crucifix as it relates to Christianity (as it is not only a symbol, but for those who believe in the religion, you know that it's also the basis of the whole belief system behind the religion).

I already had a logo, but it seemed very generic, and it didn't really say what I was about...

This was supposed to be an "infinity-like" logo that had an "O" "C" and a (backwards) "E", which stands for "ObeCorp Enterprises. With the "infinity-like" shape, it was supposed to symbolize that you can do anything you set your mind to. Still, I felt it was still lacked a lot of identity and meaning. Besides, the more I looked at it, it didn't look like an "O, C, and E" (especially the E), and it didn't really look like an infinity sign (more like a venn-diagram). Therefore, a re-design was in order.

That's when I came up with the following logo...


Most of it is pretty self-explanatory. The main concept is a strong tan (Filipino) arm breaking out of a box, and then flexing it's muscles to symbolize "out-of-the-box empowerment". As far as the outline of the Capitol dome is concerned, with that building being a well-recognized powerful symbol of where decisions and choices are made, and with me being known as the "DC" (Destiny Choosing) motivator (as well as having roots in the Washington, DC metro area), I felt it was always an appropriate symbol to represent "ObeCorp". I also managed to creatively unite in the letters "O" "B" (both on the Capitol outline) and "E" (on the balled-up fist) strategically in the logo to raise "brand awareness" of my company, and will further separate me from anyone else. I also had the original color scheme of red and black kept in my logo, to stay loyal to my personality (as red is a color to symbolize passion and energy, and black is a color to symbolize mysterious, undiscovered, and "groundbreaking").

I hired a designer from Pakistan (via elance.com) to design the logo, and was extremely impressed with the result. I feel this is the perfect logo to use to represent everything I'm doing.

As of today, you will only find this logo in this blog. The old ObeCorp Enterprises logo is still in most of my other sites, but you should start seeing it in all of the other websites affiliated with me in the next couple of weeks or so.

But yeah, that's the story behind my new logo, and pretty much the gist of what the new acronym concept of OBECorp (Out-of-the-Box Empowerment Inc.) is all about. To further expand though, a big part of "out-of-the-box empowerment" is also empowering yourself through creativity. And I felt the creation and concept of this logo also perfectly illustrates this concept (pun intended). :-)

So don't be afraid to stand out, bust out of your box, and be empowered! That is what "OBECorp" is about. ;-)

D4P...PD!!!
John

(I know I said in the first post, that I wouldn't do a lot of long posts... but to the contrary, my first two entries in this blog are as long as it gets, LOL. I promise that my next entry won't be nearly as long.)