More Logos

In this blog I'll be showing some of my favorite logos from a variety of different companies. These logos are selected for their effectiveness and aesthetic beauty, taking into account the Gasault theory of design, visual hierarchy, alignment, and repetition.

BMW M Series. This is a logo for a high performance line of cars from BMW. This is an effective logo for its symbolic use of imagery. The repeating forward slashes that align with the first part of the 'M' communicate the motion blur of a speeding auto. The 'M' itself is a metallic shiny texture that would resemble aluminum, the primary type of metal in these performance cars. The logo leans overall to the left, the direction it is read, to further communicate speed. The minimalism of the logo makes it all the more striking.

Ghastly (DJ/Producer). This logo is very basic but extremely effective. The main purpose this logo fulfill is recognition. The use of familiar 'net-speak' style emojis made from unicode symbols has an instant connection to the generation who is targeted by this music: young people who grew up with computers and no doubt stumbled across these crude emoticons. This also makes the logo spreadable, in an instant chat or SMS a user can easy reproduce this logo and spread it. It has a truly web-inspired viral quality. The tall sans serif font serves to draw further attention to the unicode face with its unassuming appearance, and is as clear as possible to draw the verbal connection of the name to the face.

This logo is great for its symbolism. This beloved movie rental chain had a ticket stub as its logo, with a font resembling the blocky letters that would be seen on a movie ticket. The torn edge draws the design closer to realism and is a clever touch to symbolize a movie ticket that has already been bought and used, getting the consumer thinking "ahead of the sale" subconsciously to fulfill a subliminal effect to rent movies at blockbuster.

Saul bass was a master of logo design, and this is my favorite from his work. The logo has a warped appearance that evokes wings in the shape of a 'U', with red representing the underside and blue the upside of the wing. This logo is also effective for its iconic design that set it apart from other airlines with its large kerning.

This logo is infamous for being the logo of an unethical fraudulent power company that made international news, but nevertheless is a striking design. The big 'E' for 'Enron' is connected in a kind of wire that represents the nature of its business (electricity). The big 'E' can also be interpreted as smokestacks, also associated with the power industry. The diagonal skew serves to differentiate the logo from other power companies to catch the eyes of an investor.

Good and Bad Poster Design

Nicely Designed Posters

GOOD: A concert poster for an electronic artist is often very heavy on visuals, but this minimalistic approach works well. The neon-themed design and purple/blue elements contrast well against the black brick background and white text. The elements are neatly and simply organized in a logical order, while the type size ensures easy reading.

GOOD: A movie poster for Mulholland Dr. This design does a good job at communicating the basic idea and mood of the movie. The viewer can derive this is a mystery story by the way the woman (Naomi Watts) is looking off-screen with an apprehensive facial expression. At the top, the darkened photo of the Hollywood sign communicates ominousness. The viewer knows, by the poster, that this is a dark mystery film has something to do with Hollywood and the woman on the phone, making the design effective in its goal.

 GOOD: This is a poster for a cookout for a church. This design is simple but also visually interesting, with the contrast of the colors of the abstract flames which overlap to create depth in the image. The date is large and in a place where the eye naturally wants to look, which makes the information memorable. The ample negative space puts emphasis on the few design elements present: the logo and organization name, the date, the name of the function, and the small text paragraph. The poster succeeds in not bombarding the viewer with too many elements/information. This poster captures the attention of the viewer and presents them with easily readable information.

Ugly and Ineffective 

BAD: This design is graphically bland and fails to command the attention of the viewer. The Cream/yellowish color gradient looks antiquated. The elements are organized in a centered format which makes it uninteresting. The poster looks like it was made in MS paint. The logo element seems jammed-in sitting in the lower left corner and should have been given more prominence. To improve this design, social media icons would have helped the poster establish credibility, accompanying the red Facebook link at the bottom.

BAD: This design has elements that are well organized, but suffers from poor color selection. The piercing neon yellow is difficult for the eye to look at and makes the viewer turn away before they can read the information in the small print. The icons at the bottom of the page are nearly indecipherable due to the lack of contrast between white and this shade of yellow. To improve, avoid using such a color that is painful to view.

BAD: Here is a poster with a very straight-forward design for an animal rights and environmental agenda. The poster works except for the bottom third. With already so much information in small text above, the map and its adjacent text is superfluous – there are too many websites listed, all in full “https://”. The YouTube link is especially bad as one would have to type the entire unique url into their browser, which almost nobody has ever done. Too improve: shorten URLs, include icons, get rid of google map.

Visuals are Powerful

Visual communication is most important of all, because sight is our most valuable sense.

One can surely get by, although with great difficulty, without the ability to hear - but the same can't be said about living without the ability to see. We as humans depend on our eyes to navigate through our world, communicate through body language, avoid dangers like open manholes and speeding cars, and whatever else you can imagine. Due to this, we naturally place a great emphasis on the use of images, gestures, and written language. For me, I respond to visual communication the most, and it's my belief that it's because of these reasons.

 I recall one time in my childhood aimlessly flipping through the pages of a magazine when I found myself transfixed by a full page ad with a dark background and a beautiful shade of green that almost seemed to glow from the page. This was, of course, an ad for Kool cigarettes (Not the exact ad, but a similar one:)

Though below the legal purchasing age, I immediately got one of the older kids from my neighborhood to buy me a pack of Kool cigarettes. When I got them in my hands, I chain-smoked the entire pack. Would I have done that without seeing the ad first? No. Aesthetically speaking, the ad was an absolute work of art. From then I realized the power of the visual advertisement, and of images in general. Images convey what we are supposed to buy, what we are supposed to desire, what we are supposed to respect, what we are supposed to hate, and basically any other communicative end.
Images, in my opinion, are the most authoritative tools of communication.

An image is a snapshot of a true or engineered reality, and communication doesn't get any more effective than that.

Besides the Kool ad, there are other very effective visual pieces that come to mind:

Redbull

I've always loved this logo and pack design for how it differentiates itself from other beverages. The checkerboard style 4-panel design evokes racing and speed, while the two bulls colliding in the logo give it a kinetic feeling. The type is bold and purposeful, putting the design more into the territory of “performance” than “enjoyment”, which I think accomplishes their branding goal.

Starbucks

This is the previous Starbucks logo. It communicates quality by organizing the elements into a seal, which gives it a kind of “royal” vibe. The color is an agreeable, smart shade of green that evokes nature (mountains, forest) and freshness. The woman at center of the seal has a goddess-like quality that gives a healthy sense of mystery and intrigue to the design.

The ultimate proof that visual communication is key is in our advertising. Simply check the prices of radio ad time versus television ad time, you probably won't not be surprised by which one is more expensive.