Super Logo Design, edited by Taki Ono, is a two-volume set of paperbacks published in 2001 and 2002 by Graphic-sha in Japan.

These spreads are from volume two, available to digitally borrow on archive.org. It gives an interesting look at video game logos (among others) designed in the 1990s and early 2000s, listing the designer, client, year of creation, and software used (mostly Illustrator and Photoshop, but also Strata Studio Pro, KPT Vector Effects, 3D Studio Max, and more).

Borrow Super Logo Design on archive.org.

Via Design Reviewed.

Video game logos in the archives: Game+Logo.

Rome–based designer and art director Davide Mascioli shared his latest project — SELA (Space Exploration Logo Archive).

Passionate about art, space exploration, and design, Davide envisioned the SELA book as a project he’d love to own. His dedication to creating something tangible that preserves and celebrates the rich visual history of space exploration is the heart of this project, and his Kickstarter funding drive has resulted in more than double the initial goal.

From the Kickstarter page, SELA explores 370+ logos across eight thematic chapters, divided into five mini-books, each distinguished by a unique colour palette. From iconic NASA emblems to lesser-known mission insignias, discover the full spectrum of space logos reimagined in crisp vector detail.

The book will be printed on recycled Fedrigoni paper by Oreri, a printing space and independent publisher in Cagliari.

When asked what sources Davide used to obtain the examples he said (on The Daily Heller), “The internet obviously played a crucial role, but unfortunately a simple Google search was not enough to get what I needed. I scoured thousands of pages for months, but the communities of enthusiasts played the key role. Without them, this project would not have been possible. They include spacefacts.de, collectspace.com, spacepatches.nl, space.com and africanews.space.”

Beyond aesthetics, SELA honours the designers who contributed to the visual identity of space exploration, celebrating their creativity and highlighting their role in shaping the fascination with space.

In addition to the book, an online archive is now up and running, where you’re free to download vector logos and learn more about the individual designs: spaceexplorationlogoarchive.webflow.io

Lovely work, Davide, and congratulations on your success with the backing.

View the SELA project on Kickstarter.
More from Davide Mascioli.

Each year, for more than 20 years, Bill Gardner of Gardner Design has been studying thousands of logos to select the strongest fit for the year’s Trend Report.

“Flat Box” logos (above) by Scorpion Rose Studio and Semi:Formal, Blue Blazes, Asterisk, and Creative Spark.

Speaking about the collection, Bill said, “As ever, this report is an observation of the logo design industry and isn’t meant as a guide for best practices. Trends are trajectories that evolve and modify over time, not a passing fad. Use these ideas to expand your design acumen while pushing your own design to the next level and keep the trajectory moving to the next iteration.”

“Radar Sweep” logos (above) by Mode, Vadim Carazan, Bram Naus, and Brandforma.

Bill points out that trendy and trends are not the same. “Trends are directions — the way in which something will most likely go. Trendy is more ephemeral. Renowned designer Tom Geismar said it best when he shared with me, ‘Nothing dulls so quickly as the cutting edge.’”

“Passages” logos (above) by Yorgo&Co, Stanislav, Khairul Islam, and Atlas Minor Design Studio.

“Bell Bottoms” logos (above) by For The People, Lantern, Avidity Creative, and John Dorcas.

One step ahead

Some years ago, Lucy Bourton, senior editor at It’s Nice That, discussed graphic design with Paula Scher. Paula let Lucy in on a secret for spotting trends and tastes that made me smile while reading: “If you look through design history and you see something that looks really radical, that’s what you’re going to be doing now. If you think it’s nice, that’s what you’ve already been doing. If you think it’s tired, that’s what you were doing five years ago. But if you think it’s ugly, that’s what you’re going to be doing in five years.”

More of the discussion here: One Step Ahead

Bill Gardner is the founder of LogoLounge.com, a repository site where members can post their logo design work and search the works of others by keyword, designer’s name, client type, and more.

For this year’s full selection: 2024 Logo Trend Report

Each year, the students of SVA’s Masters in Branding program spend 100 days documenting their process with a chosen creative endeavour.

This year, Print Mag has been showcasing each student. Here are a few 100 Days projects that stood out from a logo perspective.

Kaylin Ingram’s fun Brand Castles is a hint at the ephemeral nature of business, like castles in the sand. Follow on Instagram.

Marisa Goldberg takes a craft approach with The Brand Blanket, knitting 100 logos. Almost finished on Instagram.

Brand What Ifs is a series by Deane Cruz who wonders what well-known brands would look like if they branched into new markets. Also updating through Instagram.

More projects from the Masters in Branding students on Print Magazine’s SVA 100 Days page.

In December 2023, the Chengdu 2025 Organising Committee (OC) initiated a national contest to create the logo, mascot and slogan of The World Games 2025.

There were 3,562 logo entries, and in early April 2024 a meeting was convened in Chengdu to narrow the entries down to ten finalists. Following professional refinement, five candidate emblems emerged and were put to a public vote. More than 220,000 “likes” were cast. The logo designed by British designer John Fairley won with 55,679 votes, and on May 17th 2024, after joint review by the OC and the IWGA, The World Games 2025 logo was unveiled.

John Fairley kindly shared details on the variety of ideas within the mark — perhaps the most obvious being the stylised panda face that John replicated and rotated. I didn’t pick up on the panda at first glance, but once noticed it can’t be unseen.

“My logo design draws inspiration from the Chinese peony, the panda, a Chinese knot, arrows, and the world, seamlessly intertwining to represent The World Games in Chengdu’s essence.

“The panda bear, revered as a Chinese national treasure and adored worldwide, encapsulates the host country’s identity and cultural significance. Integrating the panda’s face into the logo establishes a strong connection to Chengdu whilst evoking a sense of familiarity and affection among audiences globally.

“The Chinese knot, symbolising unity, prosperity and luck adds depth and meaning to the design.

“The arrows, expressing internationality, convey the scale and convergence of diverse cultures. They symbolise the shared journey towards athletic excellence and camaraderie.

“This combination effectively represents the spirit of the Games, Chengdu and the rich traditions of China. I hope that it captures the values of unity, diversity, and cultural heritage while also being visually appealing and memorable, making it a fitting representation of the Chengdu World Games in 2025.”

While I’m no fan of open calls for design submissions, because as designers our ideas are our most valuable product, I can certainly appreciate the craft in individual entries. Sincere congratulations to John Fairley for his winning design. Having seen his presentation deck I doubt there were many submissions with same clarity and depth of thought.

As a side-note on the design contest approach, the contest terms are particularly harsh as they seemingly rule-out the ability for contributing designers to showcase their work. Pro bono would always be my preferred way for designers to freely offer their ideas (something I recently commented on in a piece for Readymag about free pitching).

About The World Games 2025

The twelfth edition of the multi-sport event will be held between 7–17 August 2025 in Chengdu and will feature no less than 35 sports, 61 disciplines and a total of 254 medal events. Among others, the sports include korfball, lacrosse, tug of war, billiards, and drone racing.

More from John Fairley.

The Zelman Meats logo, designed by Sam Lachlan of Red Dot Studio, identifies Misha Zelman’s steakhouse in Knightsbridge, London.

Speaks for itself.

Red Dot Studio elsewhere on Logo Design Love with their excellent work for Flipper Taps.

Shoop is the brainchild of Noam Oppenheimer, an Israeli architect with a burning passion to bring hot soup to the people of central London. Alongside chef Brem Gil, their mission is to serve up delicious soups (and sandwiches and salads) freshly made every day from seasonal ingredients.

With a site secured in Fitzrovia, the biggest challenge was to attract attention in an already saturated “casual dining” market, and attempt to lure office workers and tourists alike away from the multitude of tried and tested lunchtime chains.

With this in mind, Lizzie Frost wanted to create a logo that felt as warm and inviting as Shoop’s signature dish, and reflected Noam’s irreverent sense of humour – without becoming too cheesy or childish.

In Lizzie’s words, “The winking spoon and bowl felt perfect. Just crazy enough – or maybe I mean just subtle enough – to work. I kept the logo grounded by pairing it with clean modern typography; a carefully balanced combination of sans (Circular Std) and serif (Kings Caslon Typo).”

A lovely example of how the logo can be the star of the show (after the soup of course), and that not every business needs an elaborate design system.

Unfortunately the design shown on the website (pictured below) doesn’t have the visual balance seen in Lizzie’s work.

Still, the original symbol’s great.

More from Madrid-based graphic designer Lizzie Frost.

A new book by Steven Skaggs dropped through the letterbox, titled The Hidden Factor: Mark and Gesture in Visual Design (2023). It’s by no means logo-focused, but that’s good, because logos are, after all, pieced together using the same marks that make up all our visual surroundings, and it’s useful to step back once in a while and recognise that.

From the preface, “Artists usually think of their work as the making of an image; graphic designers think of design as communication through image and type. This book suggests that there is a third, hidden, factor at play in every visual work and image: the mark. When they are isolated by themselves, independent of pictures or words, we notice them, but when the three ingredients are combined, marks have a funny way of disappearing from our awareness.”

Steven kindly let me share the first of the book’s nine sections with you (excerpted below).

There is no visual entity without an edge.

We begin to see two edges, and when we do we begin to perceive one black line.

Those of us in the West see this line as “moving” from left to right. In Eastern cultures, people may see this line travelling from right to left. (But then they may have started reading this book from the other direction too!) If we see it moving from left to right, we see it diminishing, but if we see it moving from right to left, it seems to get thicker.

As the line gets thinner it eventually disappears. This place is called the “threshold of resolution.” The threshold is not a place that can be objectively pinpointed. In each viewing situation, the threshold will depend on a convergence of particular conditions, such as the precision of the reproduction process, viewing distance from the page, level of illumination, and a viewer’s eyesight.

Our ability to see a line is also affected by the kind of edge it has. If the smooth bottom edge is replaced with this jagged edge it becomes difficult to see it as a single black line. Now we start to see white objects sitting atop a black surface.

When the edges of the black form are in harmony, they reinforce directionality. Just as our ears hear two tones being “in tune,” our eye senses this harmonic relationship, and we are more likely to see the shape as a segment of a single line. We also sense a midline, or backbone, of the directional pathway.

(The graphic devices on these pages suffer discontinuities that are unavoidable in the making of a book. While our vision compensates for the slight bend of the paper, the breaking of continuity at the spine, where the book’s pages are bound together, is more disrupting.)

Meanwhile, although we’ve added just one more edge, this page looks much more complex than the preceding page. And it remains ambiguous as we struggle to settle on a single holistic object. Is this a white page with a black diagonal wedge above a curved black shape below? Or is it a white shape on a black background with a little bit of a white area “left over” at the top left?

Cropping and scaling can introduce another kind of ambiguity. Cut out a tiny portion of a gently curved shape, and the cropped edge suddenly loses its sense of curving and appears to be straight. The cropping drastically changes a visual form’s character, but as long as we retain an edge, visual form itself never goes away.

So different from language, where even slight cropping (editing) may drastically change the character of what is said, while a severe level of contraction not only changes the content but eventually eradicates verbal communication itself.

When edges conform and a line has harmony, with negative space clearly apportioned, the resulting figure appears somehow natural and whole. Why should it be so? It has been more than a century since such habits of perception were identified by psychologists Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and Wolfgang Köhler, and this is still one of the mysteries of consciousness. Certain visual tendencies that lead to wholeness and harmony are known as gestalt principles of perception.

This is certainly seen as a rectangular shape. This is just as surely seen as a short line. But do we see a black rectangle containing a white line? Black rectangle with a gap and then a black line? Two black rectangular shapes?

Dynamism also plays a part, and whether something exits a frame such as a page of a book, or contains something else (like this text) within.

Ultimately, there is no clear distinction between line and shape — the terms simply serve as rough descriptions of the appearance of visual objects. Calling something shape or line is merely a way of pointing to features of its form. Formalism is at the heart of the traditional “principles of art.”

“Skaggs explains the quotidian process of creating letters and images in the most enticing and inspiring ways. It is a must read primer for neophyte and veteran mark makers.”
— Steven Heller

“Steven Skaggs unearths the tactile joy buried in the formalizations of design. Bodies in motion make tangible marks on materials. Typefaces, logos, images, and patterns freeze gestures into crisp, coherent signifiers. Use this book to experience the haptic origins of communication.”
— Ellen Lupton

Quick mention for the minimal cover design that’s hidden behind the dust jacket (below).

Published by MIT Press, The Hidden Factor can also be picked up on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk.

Previously featured is one of Steven’s earlier books, FireSigns.

Logo Rhythm: Band Logos that Rocked the World (on Kickstarter) features more than 90 design stories behind iconic band logos from the 1960s to present day.

“Many of the band logo design trailblazers are no longer with us. Some of their stories have been lost in the mists of time. Logo Rhythm does its damnedest to put this right. To give credit where it’s due. To sing the praises of the unsung designer or guitarist or drummer’s girlfriend who came up with the idea.”

Written and edited by Jim K Davies of totalcontent, designed and co-written by Jamie Ellul of Supple Studio, the book includes contributions from luminaries of the design and music industries. There are two forewords, one by broadcaster and songwriter Tom Robinson, the other by graphics guru Malcolm Garrett.

It was a real pleasure to be asked to contribute, sharing a few thoughts on the Prodigy logo and the nostalgia it conjures.

“The Prodigy logo continues to resonate not because of its imposing, outline type loosely based on the Peignot display typeface, with its quirky ‘multi-case’ letters. But because of what was happening in my life at that particular time. In some ways, the wordmark could have been something entirely different, but still evoke the same personal meaning and memories.”

Other contributing designers include the likes of Jonathan Barnbrook, Julia Woollams, Kosh, John Pache, Michael Johnson, Mark Porter, Chris Bigg, Matt Baxter, and Craig Ward.

Contributing musicians include Mick Avory of The Kinks, Horace Panter of The Specials, Jim McCarty of The Yardbirds, Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand, Alan Gorrie of Average White Band, and more.

A lavish 440 pages will be printed in five colours on uncoated stock. The case-bound, foil-blocked cover has a split run of four different designs, due for delivery in August 2024.

Looks fantastic. Back the Kickstarter.

How did the Wonka logo project come about, and what were you responsible for?

I was approached for the work mid-2022 by an old design director of mine, Stephen Goalby. He had since moved on and was heading up the animation department at Framestore. I’d demonstrated a lot of calligraphy and crafted type skills at the agency where we worked together so I reckon that’s why he wanted me for the project. My responsibility was purely from a typographic and graphic perspective. The team at Framework then beautifully animated and placed it throughout the film.

Were any design details essential?

The key part of the brief was that the studio wanted me to explore a Wonka logo with an elaborate W in a scripted style that eluded to Wonka’s mum’s handwriting in one of the beginning scenes.

How much back and forth was there with the client, and what did you find most challenging about the work?

There were a fair few rounds of iterations and tweaks; which comes with the territory of logo and typography work. I did lots of exploration with the W and then the challenge was incorporating that with the rest of the type ensuring a perfect balance between the flourished W ascender with the descender of the k.

How long did it take from start to finish, and where does this project sit alongside the others you’ve worked on?

It’s a unique project, as it was my first time working for graphics for film. Having your work on a cinema screen has such immediate gratification, so from that sense it’s hard to compare. People have really connected with it, and the feedback I’ve had has been incredible. From that perspective alone it’s hands down my most prestigious job.

More from Alexandria Vernon. Catch her on Instagram, too.