Do you think that design is all adhoc? I received some logos in email today. Take a look at these logos, and the philosophy behind them. You will find various aspects – font, size, graphics that have meaning.
The arrow serves a dual purpose – it indicates Amazon has A to Z of everything and represents the smile brought to the customer’s face.
Notice the font! Each letter is a minor adaptation of the number 8.
The logo represents 80-20 in a binary format. Consider the dark blue squares and 1 and the others as 0. You will come up with 10100000 (80) and 0010100 (20).
These are logos of two Readers Digest publications. Notice the use of alphabets to express the meaning.
I realized that these are many more logos are showcased at Denis Radenkovic’s LogoLog of clever logos.
To pursue it further, read about how IBM’s logo has evolved over time. Read Shombit Sengupta’s use of Emotional Surplus strategy to design Wipro’s Rainbow Flower.
I guess there can be many more cases. Graphics is a medium which transcends across the language boundaries, that is the reason it more importance than text. Not only can it be more expressive, but it can be multi-dimensional. The art is not only in visually pleasing design, but more in what is behind the logo.
January 17th, 2007 at 11:02 am
I really like the Marriage and Families logos. Im curious what the logo below Amizon says and is for, I can’t make it out, though it looks cool.
-Michael
January 18th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
Michael, I tried to dig around a bit, but could not find out about the eight logo.
January 19th, 2007 at 2:36 am
[...] He summarizes his post by using Amazon as an example (they focused on books first before expanding). Nowadays, they’re into everything. Even their logo says so… A – Z (explanation). [...]
January 19th, 2007 at 10:38 am
This is great. This is just the kind of inspiration I need, as we’re trying to come up with a solid brand for what we do. Thanks for posting this.
January 19th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
You are welcome Ryan. Yes, stuff like this really inspires.
January 21st, 2007 at 1:39 pm
My favorite is still Fedex… an arrow pointing to an X. It’s very subtle but perfect.
January 22nd, 2007 at 8:03 am
I had seen that logo on the Clever Logo blog. The subtleness makes it better.
September 20th, 2007 at 2:44 am
I like this site too. He has put together a good collection of logos and the story behind their design and history. Your page was pretty cool.