At first glance this comment feels more reddit than HN, but the amount of times the logos look real weird is staggering. (Just google for "inappropriate logos")
Cheap swipes like this article really bug me. It's fostering snide comments and continuing the negative connotation with the manji symbol which was a religious symbol predating its nazi appropriation. If a company were to have the angled swastika displayed prominently in their logo, then sure - but not only is this not the case, but it's also just white space that they're projecting their prejudices on. I don't think there's anything wrong with criticism, but sometimes I feel like instead of contributing anything valuable to the internet, the majority of writers on these media sites are paid to either shit on things or to advertise it.
Professional logo designers should be expected to screen their work for swastikas and penises, or at least offer a refund or discount if any (or several) of them accidentally sneak through into the final design.
Nitpicking but ..."Quality 3: The Founder Should Like It" is more about getting the logo approved (for a designer) and less about what makes great logo.
Then there's this "This means the designer is responsible for convincing the founder that their solution is the right one."
I found this funny because 25% of my job is usually convincing the client that my designs are good, despite their own (admittedly) bad taste/poor decisions.
I am always wondering to what extent logo and company name matter. Google has rather boring logo yet they are successful. I guess that many people who heard for the first time about mobile apps framework Xamarin thought "hmm, this must be some medicine for diarrhea" but still this tool got pretty popular.
Company success and logo "success" are not necessarily fully related. A bad company can have a good logo, and a good company can have a bad logo. A good logo just gives your org an edge. For Google it doesn't matter anymore because they are already a top dog and everybody recognizes their logo.
I suppose they could simplify it, such as putting a lower-case "g" inside a colored circle (not an outlined circle). It's close enough to the existing logo that the change would only trigger a brand recognition problem for a short period.
Logo and Branding are highly dependent on the success of the company than the other way around. Nike's logo is iconic because of the success of the company, it's not intrinsic to the shape itself. This is something I have to remind all my clients who send me a brief that essentially boils down to "Make me a billon-dollar logo."¹
I then have to remind them that the only way to do that is to actually build a company worth a billion dollars in revenue, then open Photoshop and draw a random squiggle.
¹Most common one is, "I need the logo to be world-class, like Apple or Microsoft."
Let's talk about what makes a great logo. Shows the exact classic examples everyone talks about. Now look at these logos! Shows two mediocre logos and calls them good. See what I mean?
The "faxable" criteria. This really means that it degrades well, down to single color, poor resolution, with noise, and yet still retains its recognition. Even if we intend the logo to only be used on screens, it helps distill the simplicity into something the brain easily remembers.
I'll disagree with the article about the ability of users to reproduce it. Logos are about branding, mental association and to some degree, identification between the person and the brand. Many popular logos have strong mind presence in people who are yet completely unable to reproduce it; "they know it when they see it".
The Windows 95 era Windows logo is a great example of your counterpoint. I couldn't draw it by hand, but most people would recognize it instantly. It was colorful, but it degraded on faxed/noisy/low-resolution media well.
There is also a practical advantage to this quality. Even if initially it's "only be used on screens" there are always going to be new places a company wants to put their logo, having it 'degrade' well means that the logo will maintain readability/recondition in many more situation. Business cards, letterhead, awards, shirts, all kinds of company 'swag'... if you can print it on a mini-kickball and it's still recognizable after it's half worn off... that's a winner.
Possibly they're not talked about because, other than the notion of cohesiveness, they're relatively unimportant compared with "fits perceived image of company", and sometimes entirely the wrong thing to prioritise.
Sure, Nike and adidas and McDonalds have logos which are easily hand drawn from memory, as does the average geometric shape stuck above the text in a half-assed 99designs submission. On the other hand, Coca Cola and KFC are really, really hard to draw properly and yet equally widely remembered and admired (an easy to draw shape also matters a lot less for a logo mostly printed on bottle labels and boxes and meant to convey fidelity to tradition than it does for one cut out of shoe leather and meant to look sleek in motion)
Being remarkable is nice to aspire to, and yet there's nothing remarkable about the Nike or Pepsi logos cited
(and whilst you could definitely make a case that the McDonalds "golden arches" logo is, most people familiar with the brand have never seen the architecture of the outlet that inspires it)
And of course, founder CEOs can be as self-aware about the relative unimportance of their own sense of aesthetics as manager CEOs
most great entrepreneurs, know how to select and trust talented people
Logos or not, this is the elusive character that I've been unconsciously seeking at companies. Whenever there is a significant mis-estimation or placement of talent/trust in upper management there are recurring issues that are hard to pinpoint. It is not enough to place an amount of trust commensurate with talent, both must be high for effectiveness.
Suggesting that "every product, restaurant, and company [having] the exact same label set in the same type with the same colours" is a "Marxist dream" is totally not how that works, though.
Sorry, but in my opinion the "Ind Luck" logo is no good. First, I don't even know what it says: is the second word "Luck" or "Buck" or "Cluck" or what? Second, it's too busy; it's what I see when I've had too many beers and can't focus my eyes. Third, reels of film are obsolete. Use a camera profile if you want a visual of a tool that's still being used.
It says "mindfuck." I thought it was an accidental "fuck" at first, then saw the "m" in "mind," then found the confirmation in the text. Agreed it's very busy and hard to parse visually. And ugly. An unfortunate example to end with.
I still can't see the M or F even after reading what it's supposed to say. It's also extremely sensitive to scaling. Zoom out to a low-res/business-card size: The faded parts of the movie reels aren't really visible, all the white text becomes unreadable, and the small upper black part becomes dis-joint... leading to a single word in black that's either "Yuck", "Cuck" or "Tuck".
The most important feature of your logo is that it have the name of your company in easily readable text.
A HUGE percentage of even the largest companies in the world have their name as part of their corporate logo.
Is your company bigger and better known than Disney, Microsoft, Verizon, Ford, Amazon, or Facebook? If not, you should probably think twice about whether your arcane little graphic will be enough for your customers (and even more importantly your prospective customers) to confidently ID and recall your brand. All those companies incorporate their name in their logo to this day.
Even the companies who can get away with just the graphic now--like Nike, Apple, McDonalds, etc.--started out with a logo that incorporated their name, in some cases for decades.
Here's the truth: text-free logos are the rare exception, and can't be confidently predicted. Your logo's job is to help people remember your brand name. Focus on that, and then, maybe, if the stars align, you can one day take off the text. But that should be an aspiration, not a design constraint on day one.
21 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 52.0 ms ] threadhttps://boingboing.net/2019/01/16/slacks-new-logo-is-a-playd...
Then there's this "This means the designer is responsible for convincing the founder that their solution is the right one."
I found this funny because 25% of my job is usually convincing the client that my designs are good, despite their own (admittedly) bad taste/poor decisions.
I suppose they could simplify it, such as putting a lower-case "g" inside a colored circle (not an outlined circle). It's close enough to the existing logo that the change would only trigger a brand recognition problem for a short period.
I then have to remind them that the only way to do that is to actually build a company worth a billion dollars in revenue, then open Photoshop and draw a random squiggle.
¹Most common one is, "I need the logo to be world-class, like Apple or Microsoft."
The "faxable" criteria. This really means that it degrades well, down to single color, poor resolution, with noise, and yet still retains its recognition. Even if we intend the logo to only be used on screens, it helps distill the simplicity into something the brain easily remembers.
I'll disagree with the article about the ability of users to reproduce it. Logos are about branding, mental association and to some degree, identification between the person and the brand. Many popular logos have strong mind presence in people who are yet completely unable to reproduce it; "they know it when they see it".
Sure, Nike and adidas and McDonalds have logos which are easily hand drawn from memory, as does the average geometric shape stuck above the text in a half-assed 99designs submission. On the other hand, Coca Cola and KFC are really, really hard to draw properly and yet equally widely remembered and admired (an easy to draw shape also matters a lot less for a logo mostly printed on bottle labels and boxes and meant to convey fidelity to tradition than it does for one cut out of shoe leather and meant to look sleek in motion)
Being remarkable is nice to aspire to, and yet there's nothing remarkable about the Nike or Pepsi logos cited (and whilst you could definitely make a case that the McDonalds "golden arches" logo is, most people familiar with the brand have never seen the architecture of the outlet that inspires it)
And of course, founder CEOs can be as self-aware about the relative unimportance of their own sense of aesthetics as manager CEOs
Logos or not, this is the elusive character that I've been unconsciously seeking at companies. Whenever there is a significant mis-estimation or placement of talent/trust in upper management there are recurring issues that are hard to pinpoint. It is not enough to place an amount of trust commensurate with talent, both must be high for effectiveness.
A HUGE percentage of even the largest companies in the world have their name as part of their corporate logo.
Is your company bigger and better known than Disney, Microsoft, Verizon, Ford, Amazon, or Facebook? If not, you should probably think twice about whether your arcane little graphic will be enough for your customers (and even more importantly your prospective customers) to confidently ID and recall your brand. All those companies incorporate their name in their logo to this day.
Even the companies who can get away with just the graphic now--like Nike, Apple, McDonalds, etc.--started out with a logo that incorporated their name, in some cases for decades.
Here's the truth: text-free logos are the rare exception, and can't be confidently predicted. Your logo's job is to help people remember your brand name. Focus on that, and then, maybe, if the stars align, you can one day take off the text. But that should be an aspiration, not a design constraint on day one.