In the Pink

According to this page, the visiting team's locker room was painted pink:
Drunk Tank Pink

Posted by Jonathan

Colours!

Website references: colourlovers.com & kuler.adobe.com.

Corporate color usage... to emulate or innovate... that is the question....

[posted by neal]

Charting the Beatles

Info-graphics based on the beatles' music and recordings....

[posted by Neal]

Nothing beats the Olympics

I think we can all agree that there's not really any other international athletic event or competition quite on par with the Olympic games. The logos I found are from world championships for skiing, figure skating, and running, respectively.

Posted by Betsy

Logos

Found these logos while looking at different tree and tree foundation logos. Both have very different feels, but are both centered around the same theme, TREES!! They are completely different the one on the left feels like it was all done in a computer creative program, and the one on the right feels more free like an artist's brush strokes make up the logo, except for the type. For a logo I am much more drawn to the clean simple logos and care for the logo on the left more.

Posted by Jessica

Facebook vs. myspace

I'm not sure that the Facebook logo is all that more innovative than the Myspace logo currently on the Myspace home page because Myspace has dropped the .COM and the motto A Place For Friends--both suggestions discussed in class when we first were evaluating the logos.
In addition to logos, both these companies need to have easily recognizable buttons on the Web to that they can be posted by sites hosting links. I can see that buttons are necessary for several reasons:

• Logos, especially registered trademarks, are to be reproduced only by the owning organization. Contrary to that situation, both these social networking companies want to make it easy for others to post linking buttons.
• The textual nature of the official company logos don't lend themselves to the square key-cap analog commonly used to save space--and be hip.

Posted by Jonathan

Google Doodles & Maps

For anyone who loves Google as much as I do, I came across this article on my morning peruse of the news. Here's another link of what google has done for doodles over the years.

I talked about this fun map website a couple weeks ago -- it's one of my favorite blogs I follow.

Posted by Whitney

As I was looking for inspiration for Arbor Day I found images for its close cousin, Earth Day. Both days celebrate taking care of our planet whether it be about planting tree or recycling. I also chose the Starbuck's ad promoting Earth day as an example mutually beneficial advertising. Earth day is promoted and people who already celebrate Earth Day see Starbucks as an outlet to celebrate. Posted By Megan.

Psychedelic Trees

Many countries honor the role trees and nature play in their respective ecosystems and cultures. Arbor Day originated from a Nebraska journalist and politician's perspective that planting trees - specifically orchards - would enhance the land and economy. Today, Arbor Day continues to serve a dual purpose of educating the public on the value of trees and earth-friendly practices and creating the opportunity for the community to take action and plant trees themselves.

National Tree Day is Australia's equivalent to Arbor Day. I like how their logo and poster use clean lines and modern imagery to communicate the fun and evolving holiday.



These are a few other logos I found when researching similar tree/ag organizations. They all have somewhat similar missions, but communicate this in very distinct ways. The HarvestToHarvest logo for Tu B'shvat utilizes the more agricultural symbols, Save the Redwoods plays with a retro antique look, American Forests represents a more traditional form of conservation, and Ecology Revolution takes a groovy approach.

Logos from:
www.scenicrim.qld.gov.au/news/images/tree%20day.jpg
www.savetheredwoods.org
www.americanforests.org
www.birthrightisrael.com
www.ecologyrevolution.com

Posted by Sara.

Contemporary Competition

IKEA products are based on the “trinity of form, function and affordability.” During the 1950’s founder Ingvar Kamprad observed that “most nicely designed products were very expense”, yet he desired to manufacture well-designed practical products that the majority of people could afford. These days affordable furniture is easier to come by – giving IKEA its fair share of competitors. The companies I chose may not all have the same flat-pack, self-assembly furniture form as IKEA but they each offer customers the same stylish look and/or affordability.

International Competitors: Bolia Design House Stockholm

U.S. Based Competitors: CB2 Room & Board Blu Dot

Posted by Whitney

Interesting site/blog about logo design:

http://www.logodesignlove.com/

Specifically, a very interesting post about logo design:

http://www.logodesignlove.com/logos-are-dead

A free chapter from their book (including brainstorming, mind mapping, etc.):

http://www.logodesignlove.com/free-logo-design-love-book-chapter

[posted by neal]

What's written on the back of that truck?

I found Dart Transportation's new two color logo which is the one on top.

If you don't immediately see how the older logo on the bottom could be easily misread, just squint your eyes and imagine it on the back door of a semitrailer several hundred yards ahead...



Posted by Jonathan

Powerhouse logos

I was considering what makes a logo successful and I think that in part, we can measure a logo's success by how well it represents the spirit or mission of a particular company. However, I think another measure of success is how well the image, mark, or icon becomes a symbol of or for that company and how immediately recognizable it is for potential consumers.

Here's one we all know well:

This works in so many ways (no text needed, white against red as seen in the bus shelter ad, and incorporated into prints and patterns) and it's so simple. And it's amazingly successful as a logo.

Apple offers another example of an extremely versatile, hard-working, very recognizable logo:


It represents the brand, it doesn't need explanation or further identification, and it works in so many different ways, just as the Target logo does.

Posted by Betsy

Banana Logo

I was eating breakfast and I was reminded how apeeling this logo is for me. They even manage to advertise a new Wii game that works well with their product.

Posted by Megan

SXSW 3-in-1 logos

http://blog.musicadium.com/wp-content/uploads/sxsw2010_logo_square-300x300.jpg

South by Southwest (or SXSW) is an annual festival in my hometown featuring music, film and now interactive components. I came across their logo as I was doing research for my current work - we have a similar issue that we are trying to address visually. We have a center for arts that hosts a gallery, theatre, film fest and lecture series. The question is: how do we create a cohesive brand for the overall center while still allowing individuality and promotion of the individual components? I think SXSW does a good job of uniting their 3 areas under one roof. They also have separate logos (or really variations on their main logo) that call attention to the particular area they are promoting (see below for 2010 music call-out). I especially like the aesthetics of this year's logo - I would call it 'robot whimsy' because it feels playful.

Here's the 2010 music logo, plus some previous years' iterations.


http://cdn.imposemagazine.com/__data/south-by-southwest-sxsw-2010-logo.1.jpg


http://www.intuitive.com/blog/images/sxsw-logo.png


http://uptownandreabrown.wordpress.com/.../21/sxsw-09


http://img7.custompublish.com/getfile.php/313860.817.cwaxaxyaae/SXSW%20logo%2007_180x159.gif?return=www.musicexportnorway.no

Posted by Sara.

Animals

While watching the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show tonight, I remembered how much I loved the Humane Society's new logos.





I especially like their strategic placement of animals to make Texas and Florida look so distinct. While it's clear these logos are communicating 2 key things - animals and location - it does help to have the name associated because there are several other major animal-related organizations.
(Both logos courtesy of www.humanesociety.org).

Posted by Sara.

Kraft Foods Innovation

I chose the Kraft Foods new corporate logo as my favorite because it shows a large corporation taking a chance. Kraft Foods, Inc. is the largest confectionary, food, and beverage company headquartered in the United States and the second-largest in the world (after Nestlé SA). Considering how large of a company it is, changing their identity was a huge risk. It is important to note that they only changed their corporate identity, not their marketing identity (which is unique). Mac and Cheese boxes bear the same red and blue logo from as early as the 1960's -- which in a way deterred a "culture shock" with the customer by keeping the familiar logo on their products.

I also chose this logo because it shows not every new logo is a winner, after they unveiled the new logo, Kraft went back and tweaked it after negative responses.

Post by Whitney.

More Logos

The Chanel logo is probably the most influential one for me because I think Coco Chanel is one of the most amazing designers of all time. She was an amazing women and she succeeded when everyone was sure she would fail. She stood behind every design she ever did and fought for all of them. I love that she designed her own logo and it is has not changed a bit, nor do I think it ever will. It is a true classic.

I forget where I found the Adam Duncan logo but I really like it. I love that the part that makes this an A is a light blue

matching ADAM, and the part that makes the d is white like DUNCAN...so great!

posted by Jessica

Logos

The next set of the logos I choose are from this Graphic Design blog. They are all just simple and fun, but have great concepts behind them.

I think the Brewer's logo is so creative and cool. I am not really a sports fan, but I love this logo.

Posted by Jessica

Conceptual Logos: evolved differentiation

Minnesota Public Radio is one of my favorite organizations, and their--now series of--logos are beautifully conceptual.

My reading of the logo(s) is multi-layerd and multi-dimensional; The randomly colored clustered circles simultaneously represent community and diversity, the organization and the audience, physical and ideological dispersion.

• Both Community and Diversity - The clustering of the various colored circles represent classes of individual listeners who can be simultaneously differentiated while comprising parts of various listening communities.
  
• Both the Organization and the Audience - One can look at the logo's circles as a map of the radio stations, and in fact MPR publishes a geographic map of their transmitter locations using the same colors of the logo to represent the content: News, Classical Music, Current Music. One can also look at the same set of circles as listeners or listening groups who are located in different communities and have different listening profiles.
  
• Both Physical and Ideological Dispersion - Related to the two previous notions, physical and ideological dispersion looks at the organization from a marketer's perspective. As a program underwriter, this logo implies that I can reach my target listening (and browsing) group because MPR and APM will help me channel my message to them.

When the logos were originally introduced, both MPR and APM used the same design with the following two differences:

1. The Text - The MPR logo had the text Minnesota Public Radio below the cluster of circles, and APM had the text American Public Media below the cluster of circles.
2. Circle Colors - The top-most circle for the MPR logo is Classical Music green, and the top-most circle for APM was Current Music red; also, the color orange was introduced.

Recently, however, APM has dropped the MPR look-alike logo for the more distinctive one on the right above. Looking suspiciously like the Target Corporation logo, this new, simplified and differentiated logo seems to imply to me that here is a single conduit through which one can deliver a message to the desired target audience.

Posted by Jonathan

Here's a link to a (mostly) wonderful collection of infographics

This folder contains all types of mind maps, clever, funny, and even profound displays.
Although I think the aesthetics are a mixed bag, most of them are quite innovative in their attempt to make experiential concepts that are complex or difficult to apprehend. There are so many entries there, please feel free to add your favorites as links in comments to this post. Sorry for the low-brow nature of some items, but I feel there's enough worthwhile there for a look.

Posted by Jonathan