IVAN DROVE THROUGH the familiar territory of College Avenue on San Diego State’s campus before reaching University Boulevard. He was en route to make his Saturday meeting with the undergraduate web team of TheFreeWorldWizards.com. They had built a high-adrenaline website that loaded up fast and flashed a constantly changing scenery of graphic designs, photography, and artwork. Ivan had been tipped to check out their energizing site at his office months ago. But he’d had no reason to contact the guys who set it up until now.

He pulled up to the address off of University Boulevard and immediately spotted two college-age white guys sitting on the elevated patio of the apartment. They sat in white beach chairs in front of a plastic white table, awaiting his arrival. In the driveway below them was a light green Camaro emblazoned with superheroes and cartoon characters.

“Ivan David?” one of the college guys asked him as soon as Ivan climbed out of his car. The two partners were total opposites in appearance. One was a heavyset blond with long hair past his shoulders, while the other was slim, with short dark hair and glasses. However, they both wore casual T-shirts and shorts with their loafers.

“So, who is Paul and who is Jeff?” Ivan asked them as he approached the stairs to join them on the patio.

The heavy, long-haired blond answered first. “I’m Jeff and he’s Paul.”

Ivan nodded. “Okay. Well, I’m Ivan.”

They shared a chuckle as Ivan reached them on the patio and sat down in an extra white chair.

Paul told him immediately, “I love your company name. We can do a lot with I.D. Promotions.”

“Lots of things,” Jeff added. “But what are your ideas for it?”

They were hitting him upside the head fast.

Ivan responded, “Well…first of all…” He slowed things down a bit. “I want to create a logo where the ‘I.D.’ part is big and stands by itself. And the ‘Promotions’ part should almost seem like an afterthought. So in other words, when you’re looking at a flyer, as soon as you pick it up, you should be able to read ‘I.D.’ immediately, and then ‘Promotions.’ You know what I mean?”

Paul had a large sketch pad and a black pen right there on the plastic white table. He grabbed them both and said, “That’s easy.” He drew a large, extrathick “I” with a matching period and a large, extrathick “D” with another period. Once he finished that, he wrote the word “Promotions” across the center of the “I” and the “D.”

He said, “If you do something like that, all you have to do is change the background colors of the letters, and your brand will pop off of any flyer as soon as you look at it.”