Logo Design Love

“This is what you need — a magic dot.”

David Airey — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 09:56:46 +0000

Saul Bass (1920-1996) described a particularly sticky moment when he presented his Minolta design at the company’s Osaka headquarters in 1980.

“Although his son, the President of the company, had initiated the corporate identity program, the Chairman and retired founder, Kazuo Tashima, remained skeptical of such fancy new ways.

“During the initial consultation process, he listened to my proposals in stony silence. At one point when I was speaking, Mr. Tashima plucked a miniaturized Minolta camera from its display stand, and said ‘Gentlemen, we have a very small product. There is hardly enough room on it for a name, let alone a symbol!’

“I paused a moment. ‘Mr. Tashima,’ I said, ‘your company has a perfectly symmetrical name — three letters on each side of a circle — and the circle is the perfect place for a symbol.’ I then reached over and took Herb Yager’s pipe out of his hand; it was a Dunhill pipe. I pointed to the traditional white Dunhill dot and said, ‘This is what you need — a magic dot.’ That did it. From then on the old lion was intrigued.”

Excerpted from page 348 of the superb book Saul Bass: A Life in Film & Design, published by Laurence King.

The trademark dot on Dunhill pipes, photo credit PipesMagazine

The Minolta corporate identity applied

Saul shared a little advice for design students in this video (embedded below).

From the LDL archives: Saul Bass logos: then and now.

Minolta logo (top) credit: I is someone else

Published on Logo Design Love

Madrid 2020 logo causes controversy

David Airey — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:52:56 +0000

Madrid launched its bid for the 2020 Olympics yesterday with a logo that left many Spaniards confused (as reported in The Telegraph).

“The design purportedly consists of the letter M for Madrid and the number 20 in front of the coloured rings of the Olympics stylised into arches inspired by the Madrid landmark, Puerta de Alcalá.

“But the lettering appears to show “20020,” an effect that has brought much derision in the Spanish press and on social networking sites.”

The design is a result of a national competition, won by 22-year-old Luis Peiret. Here’s the logo (shown below) that Luis designed.

Luis Peiret’s original logo design, via elmundo.es

Luis picked-up €6,000 for his winning entry, and intended the script to say M20, but according to this report, an agency called TAPSA significantly modified the design by including an incorrect accent on the ‘i’ of Madrid, removing the colour black, and making the logo look like it reads 20020.

Photo of Luis Peiret via ABC.es

“This is not my logo,” said Peiret.

In a fresh twist, a Madrid company that manufactures gay dolls has claimed the Madrid 2020 logo is a rip-off of its design.

Note the Puerta de Alcalá, and the colours on the heads.

But never mind that. Gays Kelly. Inspired.

Via @MatDolphin.

Published on Logo Design Love

How LO can you GO?

David Airey — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:20:03 +0000

The following guest post was written by Tom and Phil of London-based Mat Dolphin.

One of the services we offer as a design agency is logo design. No surprises then when we recently stumbled upon another agency offering the same service. So far, so average – the majority of graphic design agencies throughout the world do exactly the same. The difference with this one, however, was the costing of their work.

$42. That simple. For $42 you can get a logo designed with two rounds of amends and a number of different files formats sent to you. Sceptical of the quality of the work and a little surprised at the pricing structure and business model, we shared the find with our loyal Twitter following in our usual measured and level-headed style…

In short, the ever opinionated ‘design community’ weren’t too happy about the idea of logos being punted out like Happy Meals. The general consensus was that the time it takes to research, brainstorm, design, develop, artwork and subsequently amend a logo of a relatively decent standard could not be sufficiently covered by such a small cost. This got us thinking. We decided to conduct an experiment. Googling ‘cheap logos’ gave us plenty of options for ‘quality logo design services for a fixed low cost’ so we pulled on our fictional overalls and got in touch with a company offering said service to enquire on behalf of our newly-imagined company – ‘Dolphin Plumbing Services’.

Commissioning a cheap logo simply to sneer about how we reckon we could have done a better job would be too easy and not achieve a huge amount. Instead, we wanted to approach the company as if we had no experience or interest in graphic design and see what the process is like for the ‘average punter’. Also, how the experience differs from the service we offer. We made a point of letting them lead us and not getting all ‘designer-y’ with them. This wasn’t an opportunity to lecture them about kerning, for this experiment we didn’t care about the quality of design, we simply wanted to explore the process of purchasing a logo to stick on the side of our non-existent van.

The first company we contacted offered, among plenty of other things, bespoke logo designs and unlimited revisions (which we thought was rather excessive) for only £8.99+VAT. Bargain! It seemed too good to be true and, drum roll… it was – they are yet to return our emails. Not a good start.

Undeterred, we found another company offering a similar service. Yet again, they offered unlimited revisions, so we thought we’d give them a fair amount of feedback to deal with, nothing too unreasonable, just enough to get our money’s worth. They also promised a 1-3 day turnaround for all artwork and amends, so we decided to hold them to that and chase them if they were late. Dolphin Plumbing Services – firm but fair. They were slightly more pricey at £25 but we thought it was worth it in the name of investigative journalism, so we sent the email.

The very same day, we received a response asking for payment! If nothing else, they were quick, and at least they’d replied. We eagerly handed-over our bank details (without any guarantees, to the random internet company we’d never heard of two hours previously) and waited to see what happened next.

Less than an hour later, we received an email granting us access to our own personal account. We were told to wait for 48 hours before receiving the initial designs. So far the process hadn’t been too painful, we’d done our bit and the real work was now down to their designers. All that was left to do was wait…

Two days later, an email with the subject ‘Your first design samples’ was sitting our inbox – the experiment had started to get interesting. We logged into the account and saw these six designs (below) awaiting our feedback.

The quality of the logos is something we’re going to comment on later, but regardless of how good the initial designs are, we have a starting point. Regarding the first of our unlimited revisions, we wanted to ensure what we were requesting was reasonable and similar to the kind of feedback the company would usually get. We weren’t interested in testing their patience for the sake of it. Our first round of feedback was as follows:

Once again, we sat tight, staring at our inbox waiting for what could potentially become the brand new Dolphin Plumbing Services logo. Can you feel the tension building? This time we only had to wait one day! Another email arrived letting us know that all we had to do was log into our account and we would find the latest logo designs waiting for us — we did, and they were!

This time around our feedback was pretty simple:

This didn’t prove too much of a test for our new design slaves, who responded with the changes, yet again, in just one day. Here’s what they came back with.

We were getting to the point where the discussions had gone far enough to get a reasonable idea of the process and it was time for us to wrap this baby up. We issued one final round of feedback, for good measure:

Which resulted in the following. Ladies and gentlemen, allow us to proudly present, the logo for the finest fictitious plumbing outfit since Super Mario Brothers – Dolphin Plumbing Services:

—

Job done.

The feedback about the colour of the circle had been completely ignored but we pretended not to notice and responded with a grateful approval and requested the logo as high resolution JPGs, PDFs and vector EPS / AI files. These were promptly sent the next day. One techy point to make – the vector logos hadn’t been outlined and there were no fonts accompanying the files. This means that if we did in fact have a van or signage in need of vinyl lettering, we’d be a bit stuck. We would guess the vast majority of customers using these services wouldn’t have the knowledge or inclination to specifically request fonts, let alone own the software to discover they were missing. It seems like the company we used fell at the last hurdle somewhat but perhaps the rush to complete the job and move onto the next artwork carried out at light-speed is to blame for the oversight.

Anyway, the experiment had concluded, now for the analysis.

The easiest thing here would be to tear the design work apart and criticise how it simply wasn’t very good. It wasn’t. But it seems as if that would be over simplifying the point. We paid an incredibly small amount for what must’ve taken somebody, somewhere, a reasonable amount of time to do. Even a competent designer bashing out the work as quickly as possible would’ve had to spend a while producing six logos with three sets of revisions. There’s also the time it takes to read our emails, save the amended files, upload them to our account and let us know they’re there. It’s impossible to say how long that would’ve taken (and we’re under no illusion that the lovely emails we received were personally written to us) but was this time and labour all covered by our measly £25?

As designers, our time, creativity, experience and technical skills are the only things we’re actually selling. And we’re not surprised that how anyone with the right software can do what we do and sell it for a fraction of the cost proves irritating and perhaps even insulting to the majority of designers. But does the plumber who simply wants something to stick on a business card really care when he can get the job done for such a small amount of money? The process we went through was quick, easy and required very little hassle on our part. Once we found a company who actually responded to us, all we had to do was pay, look at designs and tell them what we wanted them to change. Assuming the role of someone with limited knowledge and opinions on typography, layout and colour, the service offered to us was more than agreeable for what we paid.

However, there is still the angry mob of designers to deal with. First off, it’s worth thinking about what they’re actually angry about. We don’t think it’s because their cover’s been blown and they can no longer charge huge amounts of cash for knocking up a quick logo. The issue, in our opinion, is more the fact that taking shortcuts that allow the work to be produced for a sum as small as £25 both creates work of a lower quality and lowers the value of what we do in the eyes of those outside of the design industry.

Like many other products and services, it’s never going to be too hard to find a cheaper option. But, as the painfully obvious saying goes, you get what you pay for. Buy a cheap car, it’ll break down more often. Buy a cheap meal, it won’t taste very nice. Buy a cheap haircut… you get the idea. If Phil the plumber decides to go for the £25 logo purely based on cost, his service simply won’t look premium. Maybe this won’t be a problem as many of his customers aren’t going to care too much about the typography when their kitchen is flooding, but design matters, and we’re sure we’ve all instantly disregarded companies based solely on the look of their logo, website or shop-frontage. It’s similar to pizza menus on your doormat – you’re not going to pay much but you know it won’t be fine-dining.

Maybe he doesn’t want his service to look premium. He’s a down-to-earth guy making an honest living for a fair price and he wants his logo to reflect that. Fair enough. But at no point throughout the process were we asked any questions about this. It was far too easy to let the designers get on with designing what they thought was right for a company they knew next-to-nothing about. Without this knowledge, can you really create something of any value, or are you simply choosing random fonts and adding clichéd clipart images based on the name of the company?

So, the design is never to going be considered at any great length – because there simply isn’t the time to do so – and there’s a good chance the final design may not be appropriate for its purpose.

The end result? Cheap design that looks cheap and is less effective.

But is there a place in the industry for logo design being sold in this way? Unfortunately, we think the answer is yes. People or companies who aren’t particularly interested in the way they present themselves can’t be blamed for spending as little money as possible on a service they don’t see value in. Is it damaging to the industry as a whole? Again, I’m afraid the answer is yes. Poor design can never be a good thing, for obvious reasons.

So what happens now? Do we rise up and fight back against these companies? Do we boycott? Do we drop our prices to £20 a logo, no questions asked? Feel free, but we won’t be joining you. A far better defence is to produce well-considered, fairly-priced design that includes the client in the process, asks the right questions, challenges the brief, considers the problem from the clients perspective and provides an effective solution. This, done well, is the only thing that can differentiate what we do from the ‘lowest price gets the job’ outfits.

The conclusion of our experiment? You get what you pay for. The important thing to remember is to make your service good value, regardless of how much it costs.

Tom and Phil
Mat Dolphin
@MatDolphin

Published on Logo Design Love

Green T

David Airey — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:48:58 +0000

Cutting the grass is about as far as my green fingers stretch, but I like this logo-growing project by Judy Kameon for the New York Times.

Kameon created a T from 130 plants

“Together with her husband, photographer Erik Otsea, Kameon created a T from 130 plants. And in a postscript sure to warm the hearts of environmentalists, no flora were harmed in the making of this artwork. In fact, they’re all bound for a new demonstration garden in Kameon’s office and showroom.”

Her husband, the photographer Erik Otsea, captured the T

The finished product

Click for full-size chart of flowers and plants used

Kameon’s sketch for the Fall Travel Issue

Reminiscent of Colors project where Mu Chen used soil to recreate classic logos.

Design-related is this interior signage at the New York Times, created by Pentagram, as well as a write-up about the exterior signage.

—

Update:
I love this New York Times ~~logo~~ LEGO.

—

Via BOOOOOOOM!.

Published on Logo Design Love

DC Entertainment

David Airey — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 16:08:33 +0000

Earlier this week DC Entertainment revealed a new brand identity.

Some of you remarked about this on the LDL Facebook page, so for those who aren’t Facebookers, here are a few images showing Landor‘s redesign (also reported on Brand New, with a ton of comments).

“DC Entertainment, a Warner Bros. Entertainment company and home to iconic brands DC Comics, Vertigo and MAD, revealed today a new brand identity. The new identity is reflective of the company’s mission to fully realize the value of a rich portfolio of brands, stories and characters, distinguished by incredible breadth and depth across publishing, media and merchandise. A new logo for DC Comics was also introduced, closely aligning with DC Entertainment’s new mark.”

“The design of the new DC Entertainment identity uses a “peel” effect – the D is strategically placed over the C with the upper right-hand portion of the D peeling back to unveil the hidden C – symbolizing the duality of the iconic characters that are present within DC Entertainment’s portfolio.”

More info and images on the DC Comics blog.

The initials “DC” came from the company’s popular series Detective Comics, leaving the title suffering from RAS syndrome. As Daniel Gray pointed out, it should be Detective Comics, or DC, but DC Comics just looks stupid.

You might be interested in this 2005 post by Khoi Vinh on when Milton Glaser’s DC logo was ditched.

Designs by Milton Glaser, 1976 (left) & Brainchild Studios, 2005 (right)

Thanks to Paul Stretch and Derek Graham for the tip.

Reported elsewhere:
Silas Amos of jkr offers his thoughts: DC comics quick costume change

Published on Logo Design Love

Kodak logo evolution

David Airey — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:57:02 +0000

Sad news today that 131-year-old Kodak has filed for bankruptcy.

As good a time as any to take a quick look at the Kodak logo evolution.

Image (above) and text (below) via Kodak website

Early 1900′s
Kodak is the first company to integrate its name and look into a symbol.

1930′s
Focus moved to the Kodak name and the red and yellow “trade dress” color.

1960′s
The corner curl was introduced.

1970′s
The mark retained the red and yellow colors and the Kodak name, but a box and graphic “K” element were added.

1980′s
A more contemporary type font streamlined the Kodak name within the existing logo.

Today
The box is gone, simplifying the logo. The rounded type font and distinctive “a” give the name a more contemporary look.

Kodak logo designed by Brand Integration Group, 2006

“The type-only successor to the brand’s 1971 vintage yellow-and-red K/arrow symbol is intended to offer a ‘more international and universal impact’, and to distance the company from its film and processing past.”

Quoted from Michael Evamy’s Logo.

Kodak was born in April 1880, when George Eastman leased the third floor of a building on State Street in Rochester. He began to manufacture dry plates for sale, and one of his first purchases was a second-hand engine priced at $125.

“I really needed only a one horse-power. This was a two horse-power, but I thought perhaps business would grow up to it. It was worth a chance, so I took it.”
— GEORGE EASTMAN

15 years ago Kodak’s market value was $31 billion (via Reuters).

The word “Kodak” was first registered as a trademark in 1888.

“I devised the name myself. The letter ‘K’ had been a favorite with me — it seems a strong, incisive sort of letter. It became a question of trying out a great number of combinations of letters that made words starting and ending with ‘K.’ The word ‘Kodak’ is the result.”
— GEORGE EASTMAN

More Kodak history here.

Kodak signage via Techweek

Related:
Kodak: a fond farewell, on The Guardian
Don Draper pitching “The Carousel” to Kodak, on YouTube

Kodak signage via Below Stairs

—

A few previous logo evolution features:
BMW
NASA
Paramount
Penguin
Waterstones

Published on Logo Design Love

2012 Olympic non-events

David Airey — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:28:54 +0000

Speaking of Olympics…

“Throughout the course of the 2012 Olympic fortnight, an alternative programme of events will be taking place in offices and homes across London.

“While these events enjoy no official status, they represent some of the most popular participation sports in the UK.

“This blog is an attempt to recognise and honour these under-appreciated events through a system of practical iconography.”

Jumping to conclusions

Wrestling with your conscience

Throwing a wobbly

Shooting yourself in the foot

Fencing stolen goods

Kicking yourself

Lifting a finger

Hat-trick worked with Nick Asbury, David Black, Steve Charker and Andrew Glazier on the project. More on the Olympic non-events 2012 blog.

Via Design Week

Related:
Evolution of Olympic Pictograms: 1964-2012, on Creative Repository
Olympic pictograms through the ages (video), on davidairey.com

Published on Logo Design Love

Rio 2016 Paralympic Games logo

David Airey — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:45:02 +0000

In 2016, the Olympic and Paralympic Games will take place for the first time in South America, in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The Olympic emblem was launched more than a year ago, but I just watched the “brand video” for the Paralympic Games that gives an interesting glimpse of the work involved.

Official video about the creative process of the first multisensory brand in the history of the Paralympic Games, created by Tátil Design for the Rio 2016 event.

“The goal was to create a brand that could inspire people as much as a Paralympic athlete does through determination and ability to overcome. It is a symbol that reflects not what sets us apart, but what makes us equal, a beating heart with endless energy.”

Quote via PSFK

The Paralympic emblem is launched at Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas

Sir Philip Craven, IPC President, with the Paralympic Games emblem

You can see how the emblem might animate in this short video.

Relevant links:
Tátil Design website
Rio 2016 website
Rio 2016 Olympic Games logo launched

Via @TheLogoFactory

Published on Logo Design Love

Waterstones reveals new (old) logo

David Airey — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:22:33 +0000

Signage mockup showing the apostrophe-free wordmark

In May 2010, the UK’s largest high street bookseller Waterstones launched a new brand identity. The design work was created by London-based venturethree.

venturethree’s 2010 design

The following was added to the Waterstones press office yesterday (11th January):

—

Waterstones, the UK’s largest high street bookseller, has today revealed a new logo for the company. It reinstates the much-loved Baskerville serif font with a capital W and no longer features an apostrophe.

James Daunt, managing director of Waterstones said: “Waterstones is an iconic brand deserving a capital W, and a font that reflects authority and confidence — Baskerville does just that.”

“Waterstones without an apostrophe is, in a digital world of URLs and email addresses, a more versatile and practical spelling. It also reflects an altogether truer picture of our business today which, while created by one, is now built on the continued contribution of thousands of individual booksellers.”

The new design and spelling of the Waterstones logo will gradually be implemented in all written communication, display material, online and shop fits and refurbishments.

—

Waterstones logo evolution

The move “sparked outrage” (Daily Mail) among those who insist the apostrophe should remain. John Richards, chairman of the Apostrophe Protection Society said, “It’s just plain wrong. It’s grammatically incorrect. If Sainsbury’s and McDonald’s can get it right, then why can’t Waterstone’s? You would really hope that a bookshop is the last place to be so slapdash with English.”

Tim Waterstone launched the company in 1982 using £6,000 of redundancy money from WH Smith, before selling to his former employer for £47M 11 years later.

According to The Bookseller, the lower case FS Albert Pro logo by venturethree had only been transferred onto 25 of the company’s 310 stores. If correct, it’ll be less expensive to revert to the old design than to continue with the lower-case roll-out.

I can only guess at what the 2009/10? design brief was, but if Waterstones asked for a fresh, more dynamic identity, venturethree certainly delivered. Saying that, and from an outsider’s viewpoint, I was never convinced of the need to change.

Reported elsewhere:
Waterstones ditches apostrophe, on The Telegraph
Waterstones gives up on its apostrophe, on Mail Online
The Waterstone’s apostrophe. Who care’s? on Plain Text
Apostrophcalypse now, on Asbury & Asbury
Out with the old and in with the old, on CR Blog

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Update:
An employee at Waterstones Oxford Street spotted the abandoned apostrophe while walking to work.

—

Published on Logo Design Love

Combined logos

David Airey — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 09:08:41 +0000

Via Ray Vellest.

Reminiscent of johnson banks’ logo mash-ups.

(Please let me know if you created the image so I can give you credit.)

Logo Design Love

“This is what you need — a magic dot.”

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Madrid 2020 logo causes controversy

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Green T

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Jumping to conclusions

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Kicking yourself

Lifting a finger

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