A great logo is recognizable in any form

http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_l9rpqtzaDC1qz6flco1_1280.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=0RYTHV9YYQ4W5Q3HQMG2&Expires=1286966076&Signature=kS6kwiEiYz4w3Mm8E1D1TTjn1sk%3D

by vnchr • 16 years ago

232 72 16 years ago

s3.amazonaws.com

ZeroMinx• 16 years ago

There's a lot of truth in that.

This reminds me of an old interview with Linus saying that while he thought the Windows logo was ok (he might have said good, I don't remember), you can't really do anything with it, while you can do put Tux is all sort of situations. It was quite common to see him playing ice hockey or reading a book or whatever -- if you knew the logo (Tux) you knew it was Linux-related.

jtbigwoo2• 16 years ago

I disagree. The Windows logo is just a cross in a box with multi-colored panels. You can twist, turn, bend, or re-color it considerably before it's unrecognizable. When they've wanted to make their images more dynamic, they've curved the lines. When they've wanted to look more professional they've muted the colors and outlines. It's still clearly a divided four-panel window.

In contrast, Tux seems a bit stuck. It's going to be hard to make him anything but cute and cuddly. A more stylized penguin would look cold and sinister.

stuhacking• 16 years ago

Since Windows 95, I've always looked at is as a flag. Even the Windows Logo screensaver had it waving like a flag.

I can honestly say, I've never looked at the logo and thought "Hey! That's a window." But that's just me.

I did a google image search for 'Tux' - I think it demonstrates the versatility of having a living character as a logo. You can put him in lots of different situations and it's still clear that he's the 'Linux Penguin'.

DougBTX• 16 years ago

http://www.vistawallpaper.org/vista-wallpapers/windows-glass...

Tyrannosaurs6• 16 years ago

How the Windows logo has evolved:

http://people.mozilla.com/~faaborg/files/20090515-evolvingPr...

Ironically from a good article on mozilla.com, talking about how they're evolving the Firefox icon:

http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2009/05/14/evolving-a-produc...

Of the examples they give Windows is notable as being the logo which has undergone the most significant changes (while still remaining recognisable).

SeanLuke• 16 years ago

> In contrast, Tux seems a bit stuck. It's going to be hard to make him anything but cute and cuddly.

I smell a photoshop contest.

silentbicycle• 16 years ago

Unlike the Windows logo, Tux is also a mascot.

I can't picture the Windows logo playing hockey. It doesn't even have legs. (I can picture Clippy, though. Argh.)

jonhohle• 16 years ago

Surprisingly, this doesn't include the original Tim Burton logo (which is one of my favorite): http://blogs.theage.com.au/schembri/batman.jpg

No "shoulders", and "feet" on the tail.

Gormo• 16 years ago

The first time I saw that logo, on a text-free movie poster, I thought someone badly needed to see a dentist.

senki• 16 years ago

They say, it depends on personality. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_test

Tyrannosaurs6• 16 years ago

It's an interesting point but I can't think of too many more examples. Anyone else come up with other similarly flexible logos?

Samuel_Michon2• 16 years ago

Just a few off the top of my head: Apple, Android, Windows, Nike, WNF, Playboy, NBC.

EDIT: I didn't realize that all of these variations of Batman logos were actually used at one time, so I just thought of logos that could be stretched and skewed while still being recognizable.

Tyrannosaurs6• 16 years ago

Wasn't the point that all the Batman logos were different but all still recognisably Batman?

I'm not sure how that's true with Nike - the swoosh is very specific. Change it even slightly and it stops being a Nike swoosh and just becomes a curve or a tick.

Similarly Apple has been black and white or colour but the basic design is the same. Playboy I'll bow to your greater knowledge ;-). Android hasn't been around long enough for any significant variation that I'm aware of. Change it and you just end up with another cartoony robot.

Windows has flexed a fair amount - the same but different - so that one is fair, but I'm not sure the others have.

jtbigwoo2• 16 years ago

The Batman logo is something rare, I think. Most of the logos you list are bound by either color (NBC's peacock looks funny in monotone) or shape (Apple would have a hard time reshaping the apple, Nike can only make minor changes to the outline of the swoosh.) A bright orange batman logo would still evoke the same character. I'm not a graphic designer so I can't speak to why this works, but it's pretty neat.

Ogre• 16 years ago

I didn't even realize Android had a logo. I mean, I read this and other tech sites all the time, and I'm sure I've seen it a hundred times. I know there has to be one. But I couldn't for the life of me tell you what it is.

Is that a logo fail or a me fail?

uptown• 16 years ago

I suppose you could make a case for Google. They change the look of their logo on their homepage very frequently, but you still know what it's supposed to be. And they also add extra "o's" to the logo for the pagination.

ssharp2• 16 years ago

They're changing their on-page logo. I don't think they could get away with major logo changes, let alone doodles, off their pages. When you type in www.google.com, you realize you're on Google. Their blue-red-yellow-green logo is their recognized one.

sz• 16 years ago

Tux!

tomerico• 16 years ago

Try to guess which company is using this: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2601554/logo.jpg

aw3c2• 16 years ago

404

thisisblurry• 16 years ago

At a glance, Dropbox :p

But more seriously, you should put that in your Public folder.

antidaily• 16 years ago

Mastercard's logo has gone through a number of iterations. But the red and orange spheres remain and are easily recognizable.

icegreentea• 16 years ago

Perhaps AT&T? Sphere with blue stripes?

And perhaps this is cheating, but since this started with comic books, Spider-Man. Similarly, the "branding" of the United States is pretty distinctive. You see a star and stripe in any form, and it's pretty much "oh US" (forget about Liberia).

hxa7241• 16 years ago

Perhaps the most interesting or important is: all of heraldry. One might initially think that is rather remote from logos, but it is really a principal root of them. Heraldic devices -- 'armorial bearings' (particularly) -- are defined abstractly, in clear conceptual forms, leaving the rendering details unspecified. (Heraldry also developed a graphical serialisation standard long before, and in a way more elegant than, SVG-XML etc.) It might be 500 years old, but it still has something to learn from.

ugh• 16 years ago

… but you should really stick to one form.

It’s nice to have a logo everyone can draw from memory and that is then still recognizable. I don’t think it’s advisable for organizations to change the ductus of their logo all that often, though.

danielnicollet3• 16 years ago

A question though: Is this a logo I am recognizing or just a black bat ; which if filled with black and projected at this angle can rarely be anything else than the Batman logo?

jfager2• 16 years ago

Um, isn't that the point?

danielnicollet3• 16 years ago

I mean that in this logo example, there is little semantic noise in the recognition process:

Not many other logos using bats (because bats typically scare people maybe). Now, imagine your logo was a cow, or a bicycle, do you think the logo would be recognizable in any form? regardless of how well it was designed? I guess this statement is just not true in every case. It's just like Apple's design philosophy: There is just room for one Apple in every industry (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1762682). Maybe there is also just room enough for one black bat logo in the world...

Unfortunately, the freedom enjoyed by entertainment logo designers with regards the choice of their iconographies is nothing like the constraints of say, designing a logo for one more enterprise software startup for for one more ISP.

f1gm3nt• 16 years ago

If no one has read or heard of "The Brand Gap" I would recommend it. There is a part of the book that covers this and another example of a good logo is the MTV logo.

novas• 16 years ago

Not to be confused with "the Gap brand".

wr1472• 16 years ago

It seems that the logos with the most mileage (ie. you can bend, squeeze, stretch or distort in many ways before it becoming unrecognisable) are the ones that have a simple silhouette outline or are made up of a few geometric shapes and colours.

* Batman logo

* Windows logo

* Pepsi logo

* Coke curve

* Addidas stripes

Are just a few that come to immediate mind.

[EDIT: Formatting]

udfalkso• 16 years ago

Nike Swoosh

davidedicillo• 16 years ago

I think this is a very extreme case, but it’s interesting how the logo in this case becomes more of a concept than an actual design. Indeed if I asked you to draw the batman logo most people would probably design a different one because there isn’t only one.

klochner• 16 years ago

Some of those would not be recognizable as the batman logo if presented alone.

tripngroove2• 16 years ago

At least give credit where credit is due.

Source: http://designersgotoheaven.com/post/1242437663/changes-of-th...

vnchr• 16 years ago

No, thanks for this! I just found this image while poking around and I reposted it because I thought people would find it meaningful (every startup has to figure out its branding).

I had no idea it would go to the top of HN... Its only my second post.

tripngroove2• 16 years ago

No worries :) Saw this on Reddit yesterday and spent an hour looking through the rest of the posts on the blog; some interesting graphic work curated there.

piramida• 16 years ago

Wait, no one else thought that these are variations of the Bacardi logo first? I must be drinking too much...

scoot2006• 16 years ago

Or...

It's recognizable because it's a bat.

mcantor• 16 years ago

Yeah... it's kind of like putting two dozen pictures of human faces next to each other and saying, "Look! They're different, but they're all clearly human faces!"

I mean--that is kind of amazing, but I think it has more to do with faces--and bats--being symbols than well-designed logos.

sahillavingia• 16 years ago

Similar: I would recognize a variation of the Reddit alien anywhere.

templaedhel• 16 years ago

I don't have the source off the top of my head, but the original coke bottles were designed to be reconizable even after they broke.

jdeeny• 16 years ago

I found it referenced on wikipedia[1], but the source given[2] in the article does not mention broken bottles. The documents in the collection may.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola#Contour_bottle_design [2] http://www.vigo.lib.in.us/vcplarchive/inventories/business/d...

MichaelApproved• 16 years ago

When the logo becomes this generic and in this many styles, you're probably going to have a hard time maintaining a trademark on it.

liad• 16 years ago

not sure i agree.

its not the logo which makes it instantly recognizable - it's the hundreds of millions of dollars of branding and advertising

jedberg• 16 years ago

Matt Groening figured this out a long time ago. He says that whenever he creates a new character, it has to be recognizable in silhouette. Look at all his characters. Bart, Homer, Leela, Bender, Fry. None of them need color.

A great logo is recognizable in any form

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