Logo-rithms
May 23, 2008 2:21 PM Subscribe
Logólogos makes mathematical equations out of the 'creative' process of logo design.
also a good example of "you don't need to speak the same language" blogging
also a good example of "you don't need to speak the same language" blogging
Oh, these are great!
posted by OverlappingElvis at 2:37 PM on May 23, 2008
posted by OverlappingElvis at 2:37 PM on May 23, 2008
I was grousing but then I saw the little Mario 3 world 8 torch-thing standing in for oil in the Agip logo and I realized it would be against my sworn geek loyalty to complain.
posted by grobstein at 2:44 PM on May 23, 2008
posted by grobstein at 2:44 PM on May 23, 2008
Yeah, I'm not sure exactly what is up with all that division; it seems as though it's being used simply to squish more info into a narrower space, rather than signifying anything mathematical.
Still: Yay!
posted by Sys Rq at 2:47 PM on May 23, 2008
Still: Yay!
posted by Sys Rq at 2:47 PM on May 23, 2008
Damn it, I was told there would be no math.
They do get extra points for using a pot leaf to indicate a more relaxed final look and a guillotine to explain a vertical bisection.
posted by quin at 2:50 PM on May 23, 2008
They do get extra points for using a pot leaf to indicate a more relaxed final look and a guillotine to explain a vertical bisection.
posted by quin at 2:50 PM on May 23, 2008
Perhaps the division bar as symbolic of the casual verbal shorthand "x goes into y", though I have no idea if that's solely an idiomatic English expression or if it actually translates.
It could also be that they were just trying to convey "fuck it, look, this one is involved too but we're hurting for horizontal space already", which I can deal with.
posted by cortex at 2:55 PM on May 23, 2008
It could also be that they were just trying to convey "fuck it, look, this one is involved too but we're hurting for horizontal space already", which I can deal with.
posted by cortex at 2:55 PM on May 23, 2008
a pot leaf to indicate a more relaxed final look
I thought it was indicating the missing half of a head.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:55 PM on May 23, 2008
I thought it was indicating the missing half of a head.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:55 PM on May 23, 2008
...I don't get any of these. Help?
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 2:56 PM on May 23, 2008
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 2:56 PM on May 23, 2008
Oh I should have scrolled down further. I get those.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 2:57 PM on May 23, 2008
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 2:57 PM on May 23, 2008
What this is isn't so much as a study of logos, but more of a study about how designers think about shapes and logos in the form of additive and subtractive combinations, translations, skews and pitches of shape, color and texture.
If you read between the lines you can clearly see that most logo designers - and I tell you this as someone who occasionally resembles a logo designer - are fucking batshit crazy semi-autistic or possibly schizoidal artistic loons who really can't tell you how or why they're doing the things they're doing - it's really just a more complicated, refined form of "I don't know, but I know what I like when I see it."
Kind of. Sometimes. Maybe. Usually. There is a sort of black magic or arcane science to doing logos and graphical elements like this that is indeed difficult to communicate verbally. There are rules. Whitespace, negative space, color, form, and complexity all have various uses and effects - and all of these visual rules all utilize and sometimes even hack the science of vision - how do we actually see things? Why do certain patterns or shapes scintillate? How is the eye drawn into or lead around a given piece of art? Why does color theory work?
In doing a new or rebuilt logo for a company logo designers will do things like interview people in the company, delve into the history of the company, review and critique previous logo iterations, explore the structures and functions of the business and how they interoperate and consider, if possible, thousands of trivial details in order to essentially distill or "scry" some kind of message, concept or feeling into what usually amounts to a few simple curves and shapes that, if successful, becomes the primary visual recognition and identity tool for what can be a vast international organization.
And thankfully, the corporate identity and branding world is nearly the last to discover or truly benefit from these optical concepts. Humanity has been playing with optics and art probably since the dawn of language or tools. Ancient pictographs depict spirals, grids and crosshatches that play with the eyes. Later, the Celts have their knotwork, Persians do intricate tiles and brilliant, fractal-like mosaics and European Christians illuminated their manuscripts.
posted by loquacious at 3:51 PM on May 23, 2008 [5 favorites]
If you read between the lines you can clearly see that most logo designers - and I tell you this as someone who occasionally resembles a logo designer - are fucking batshit crazy semi-autistic or possibly schizoidal artistic loons who really can't tell you how or why they're doing the things they're doing - it's really just a more complicated, refined form of "I don't know, but I know what I like when I see it."
Kind of. Sometimes. Maybe. Usually. There is a sort of black magic or arcane science to doing logos and graphical elements like this that is indeed difficult to communicate verbally. There are rules. Whitespace, negative space, color, form, and complexity all have various uses and effects - and all of these visual rules all utilize and sometimes even hack the science of vision - how do we actually see things? Why do certain patterns or shapes scintillate? How is the eye drawn into or lead around a given piece of art? Why does color theory work?
In doing a new or rebuilt logo for a company logo designers will do things like interview people in the company, delve into the history of the company, review and critique previous logo iterations, explore the structures and functions of the business and how they interoperate and consider, if possible, thousands of trivial details in order to essentially distill or "scry" some kind of message, concept or feeling into what usually amounts to a few simple curves and shapes that, if successful, becomes the primary visual recognition and identity tool for what can be a vast international organization.
And thankfully, the corporate identity and branding world is nearly the last to discover or truly benefit from these optical concepts. Humanity has been playing with optics and art probably since the dawn of language or tools. Ancient pictographs depict spirals, grids and crosshatches that play with the eyes. Later, the Celts have their knotwork, Persians do intricate tiles and brilliant, fractal-like mosaics and European Christians illuminated their manuscripts.
posted by loquacious at 3:51 PM on May 23, 2008 [5 favorites]
You do have to speak another language to get at least one of his neologistic puns.
posted by BrotherCaine at 4:17 PM on May 23, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by BrotherCaine at 4:17 PM on May 23, 2008 [1 favorite]
If a designer can't tell you why they're doing the things they're doing then they probably aren't very good. Logo design, as you say, has rules. The rules are flexible, but they're there. I've got a couple of logo jobs right now, and I know exactly what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. Every element I place has a purpose. The shapes used are there because they add a visual element since Western design sensibilities have assigned attributes to them. A square is solid. A circle is fluid. A squiggle is dynamic. A horizontal rectangle is stable. Etc. Same goes with colors.
If a designer is just throwing ideas against a wall to see what sticks, they're just wasting everybody's time.
posted by lekvar at 4:32 PM on May 23, 2008
If a designer is just throwing ideas against a wall to see what sticks, they're just wasting everybody's time.
posted by lekvar at 4:32 PM on May 23, 2008
(I see I'm a bit late with that division thing, glad I'm not the only one who noticed)
If a designer can't tell you why they're doing the things they're doing then they probably aren't very good. Logo design, as you say, has rules. The rules are flexible, but they're there
I agree. Anyone who says that artistic inspiration is some god-given "autistic" flash of insight is being a little ridiculous. That would be like saying music doesn't have any structure, you just 'play'. Obviously some people can improvise really well, but other people can approach it in a very methodical way (or even program a computer to make music)
posted by delmoi at 4:35 PM on May 23, 2008
If a designer can't tell you why they're doing the things they're doing then they probably aren't very good. Logo design, as you say, has rules. The rules are flexible, but they're there
I agree. Anyone who says that artistic inspiration is some god-given "autistic" flash of insight is being a little ridiculous. That would be like saying music doesn't have any structure, you just 'play'. Obviously some people can improvise really well, but other people can approach it in a very methodical way (or even program a computer to make music)
posted by delmoi at 4:35 PM on May 23, 2008
How much of modern logo design consists of the command to "take our 50-100 year-old logo and make it look more modern"? Sometimes it works (NBC's 'new peacock' after the Big N bombed), and sometimes it doesn't (UPS turning its package-shaped logo into a shield-like thingy). And is the two-tailed mermaid Starbucks recently introduced just the Worst. Logo. Ever.?
posted by wendell at 4:39 PM on May 23, 2008
posted by wendell at 4:39 PM on May 23, 2008
delmoi writes "He's not using division in a way that makes sense."
Agreed. Like delmoi, I'm just too literal-minded to enjoy this.
posted by orthogonality at 4:48 PM on May 23, 2008
Agreed. Like delmoi, I'm just too literal-minded to enjoy this.
posted by orthogonality at 4:48 PM on May 23, 2008
Electroculox is obviously a pun without knowing what culo means? I guess the visual could clue you in, and it's a funny entry regardless.
posted by BrotherCaine at 4:48 PM on May 23, 2008
posted by BrotherCaine at 4:48 PM on May 23, 2008
wendell writes "And is the two-tailed mermaid Starbucks recently introduced just the Worst. Logo. Ever.?"
That's (mostly) their original logo; the one it replaced is the remake.
posted by orthogonality at 4:50 PM on May 23, 2008
That's (mostly) their original logo; the one it replaced is the remake.
posted by orthogonality at 4:50 PM on May 23, 2008
wendell, a lot of the new logo designs you're seeing for established companies reflect a change in the technologies used to reproduce them. Prior to the past decade those smooth color gradations you're seeing in the UPS, Exxon, and AT&T logos would have been prohibitively expensive to print.
It drive me up the goddamned wall, 'cause now every client wants a photographic logo with shine, gradation and swooshes and whatnot, but you know what? That fine and fancy logo isn't going to fax worth a damn unless it's designed to scale smoothly and reproduce in black & white; printing the bloody thing is just the first step. After that it has to be able to convey a message at various sizes and in various conditions, such as semi-darkness or a crappy photocopy.
Now all of this is easily worked around if the client is willing to pay for a six-spot color logo for the brochure, plus the black-and-white second-sheet/fax logo and a web version and a 2-spot business card, ad nauseam, but then try to explain that they're going to have to pay for the design time on top of it all...
Grrr...
posted by lekvar at 4:57 PM on May 23, 2008
It drive me up the goddamned wall, 'cause now every client wants a photographic logo with shine, gradation and swooshes and whatnot, but you know what? That fine and fancy logo isn't going to fax worth a damn unless it's designed to scale smoothly and reproduce in black & white; printing the bloody thing is just the first step. After that it has to be able to convey a message at various sizes and in various conditions, such as semi-darkness or a crappy photocopy.
Now all of this is easily worked around if the client is willing to pay for a six-spot color logo for the brochure, plus the black-and-white second-sheet/fax logo and a web version and a 2-spot business card, ad nauseam, but then try to explain that they're going to have to pay for the design time on top of it all...
Grrr...
posted by lekvar at 4:57 PM on May 23, 2008
The shapes used are there because they add a visual element since Western design sensibilities have assigned attributes to them.
What I know about design could fill a thimble, but aren't there (a few) occassions where a logo is made up entirely new without prior associations? The Nike swoosh comes to mind, even though it ostensibly represents the wing of the goddess Nike. On second thought, the early incarnations surrounded it with an oval which is probably fraught with meaning.
As for the Starbucks mermaid, bring back the boobs!
posted by BrotherCaine at 5:05 PM on May 23, 2008
What I know about design could fill a thimble, but aren't there (a few) occassions where a logo is made up entirely new without prior associations? The Nike swoosh comes to mind, even though it ostensibly represents the wing of the goddess Nike. On second thought, the early incarnations surrounded it with an oval which is probably fraught with meaning.
As for the Starbucks mermaid, bring back the boobs!
posted by BrotherCaine at 5:05 PM on May 23, 2008
The Nike Swoosh falls under the "dynamic squiggle" category.
posted by lekvar at 5:07 PM on May 23, 2008
posted by lekvar at 5:07 PM on May 23, 2008
So what is the originator of the "dynamic squiggle" category?
posted by BrotherCaine at 5:36 PM on May 23, 2008
posted by BrotherCaine at 5:36 PM on May 23, 2008
Well there's no single source, really. The shape of it, moving in all directions simultaneously, conveys motion, like the motion lines behind a moving character in a comic. The shape itself communicates in our shared* symbolic language, much as a silhouette of a kneeling figure conveys supplication. Your mind has an innate reaction to symbols because you are an animal that uses sight as its primary sense. Think about how your mind impresses a face on this:
:)
Or an electrical outlet. The mind fills in the blanks to give meaning to something that doesn't, objectively, have one. Marketing, advertising and design make use of this built-in cultural framework to make little pictograms, called logos, that can communicate a message.
*for various values of "shared." Different cultures have different visual languages to lesser of greater extent.
posted by lekvar at 5:53 PM on May 23, 2008 [1 favorite]
:)
Or an electrical outlet. The mind fills in the blanks to give meaning to something that doesn't, objectively, have one. Marketing, advertising and design make use of this built-in cultural framework to make little pictograms, called logos, that can communicate a message.
*for various values of "shared." Different cultures have different visual languages to lesser of greater extent.
posted by lekvar at 5:53 PM on May 23, 2008 [1 favorite]
Also note that barcode on the right side about halfway down the page. The number on the bottom counts as the bars change. Awesome.
posted by !Jim at 1:56 AM on May 24, 2008
posted by !Jim at 1:56 AM on May 24, 2008
That is a really cool date time widget.
posted by BrotherCaine at 2:24 AM on May 24, 2008
posted by BrotherCaine at 2:24 AM on May 24, 2008
If I was looking for logo designers, might this be a good place to come?
downside: it's for a small political party with no money, and other designers are already looking at it despite a fee of $0.
upside: we're the good guys, we're represented in Parliament and the final result will be on ballot papers for a decade.
MeMail me if so.
posted by imperium at 2:49 AM on May 24, 2008
downside: it's for a small political party with no money, and other designers are already looking at it despite a fee of $0.
upside: we're the good guys, we're represented in Parliament and the final result will be on ballot papers for a decade.
MeMail me if so.
posted by imperium at 2:49 AM on May 24, 2008
Henceforth I will only refer to Wikipedia as "death-star-alphabet-soup-puzzle".
posted by rokusan at 3:55 AM on May 24, 2008 [2 favorites]
posted by rokusan at 3:55 AM on May 24, 2008 [2 favorites]
Lekvar wrote: If a designer can't tell you why they're doing the things they're doing then they probably aren't very good. Logo design, as you say, has rules.
I was trying to imply that without being overly critical, yes. But many good designs are based on total accidents. The famous FedEx embedded arrow, for example, wasn't intentional but accidental.
Delmoi wrote: Anyone who says that artistic inspiration is some god-given "autistic" flash of insight is being a little ridiculous. That would be like saying music doesn't have any structure, you just 'play'.
Look, I've been reading along with you for a while now and you're not exactly the first person I would go to for insight on creative inspiration - particularly with what I feel is your tendency to pull random shit out of your ass and claim it as truth.
As an artist, as someone who has experienced something akin to an autistic flash of inspiration more than a few times while working on art and design it actually works like that sometimes. For me. 99% of my design work happens entirely in my head as I play with shapes and concepts. I rarely 'thumbnail' on paper anymore, it'll all happens as pure thought. No computer. Eventually when I have something ready, I sit down and it just pours out in a very brief, intense session. I don't "play around" on the computer, really. By the time I'm ready to sit down and work on something, I've already mapped it out down to the placement of bezier node points.
Anyway, I find it more than a little offensive for you to try to tell me what happens in my own head, so get the fuck out.
Also, not all music has structure or pattern. Or even meaning. Maybe all the music you listen to is pattern-based, but there's much, much more to music and art than structure or rules.
As for your choice of the words "god-given"? Those are your words, not mine. I implied nothing of the sort. That you would choose those words - as well as attempting to insinuate that I was implying such a thing - speaks volumes to me about how you think about creativity.
posted by loquacious at 7:22 PM on May 25, 2008
I was trying to imply that without being overly critical, yes. But many good designs are based on total accidents. The famous FedEx embedded arrow, for example, wasn't intentional but accidental.
Delmoi wrote: Anyone who says that artistic inspiration is some god-given "autistic" flash of insight is being a little ridiculous. That would be like saying music doesn't have any structure, you just 'play'.
Look, I've been reading along with you for a while now and you're not exactly the first person I would go to for insight on creative inspiration - particularly with what I feel is your tendency to pull random shit out of your ass and claim it as truth.
As an artist, as someone who has experienced something akin to an autistic flash of inspiration more than a few times while working on art and design it actually works like that sometimes. For me. 99% of my design work happens entirely in my head as I play with shapes and concepts. I rarely 'thumbnail' on paper anymore, it'll all happens as pure thought. No computer. Eventually when I have something ready, I sit down and it just pours out in a very brief, intense session. I don't "play around" on the computer, really. By the time I'm ready to sit down and work on something, I've already mapped it out down to the placement of bezier node points.
Anyway, I find it more than a little offensive for you to try to tell me what happens in my own head, so get the fuck out.
Also, not all music has structure or pattern. Or even meaning. Maybe all the music you listen to is pattern-based, but there's much, much more to music and art than structure or rules.
As for your choice of the words "god-given"? Those are your words, not mine. I implied nothing of the sort. That you would choose those words - as well as attempting to insinuate that I was implying such a thing - speaks volumes to me about how you think about creativity.
posted by loquacious at 7:22 PM on May 25, 2008
Ah, I see what you were saying now, loq. Sorry if I got a little ranty.
posted by lekvar at 3:45 PM on May 27, 2008
posted by lekvar at 3:45 PM on May 27, 2008
God gave me a message to deliver unto thee: yea, verily, maketh ye His logo bigger.
posted by cortex at 3:47 PM on May 27, 2008
posted by cortex at 3:47 PM on May 27, 2008
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posted by cortex at 2:29 PM on May 23, 2008