weighing the competition...

Ahh, competition... whether it's the other baseball player who can hit farther than you can, or the bake sale lady who has 'secret ingredient' muffins, everyone has competition. I haven't decided who to choose for my logo yet-- so I looked at the competitors of IKEA and the London Olympics 2012 to see if it raised the competitive hackles in me and made my choice for me...

IKEA - is kind of rare in how one-off it can be to try to group with like stores. Not quite a department store, not quite a warehouse department.



Not quite the same, but discount and some items require contstruction on your part. But very "mainstream"









CB2.com - online only store, part of the Crate&Barrel family. A little more intricate/unique like IKEA.

London 2012 Olympics -- looked at other international and (mostly) national sports championships.

1948 London Olympics - Second time London hosted the Olympics. First time in 12 years because of World War II.

1908 London Olympics - First time London hosted the Olympics. Hurriedly put together because original host city was deemed to not be on schedule to be ready in time. London's infrastructure was there and the took over as host city.

























I like this one. FIFA '10! Might get a little muddy if it goes B&W, but in color it looks awesome.

Posted by Amanda Nerud

b LOG o

logos i like:

(my fave bar in chicago)

topic for conversation:

vs

posted by erin e. gerrits

Colours!

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

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

[posted by neal]

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

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

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

Logo Post (just for fun)

Here's another logo that I found and I thought I should share:



• posted by Greg

Logo Post 2

This is the logo for Surly Brewing Co. The Brooklyn Center based brewery has been around since 2005 and has recently had a surge in popularity. Their beers are good, but I think some of that success can be attributed to their overall brand identity, which includes this logo. The firm Bidwell ID is responsible for the branding and design.

In class we talked about the "bad" logos and how some of them don't showcase what the product actually is. I think this Surly logo does the exact opposite. You can definitely tell that it's for a beverage company, specifically brewery is stated in the logo. I like the play of the logo being able to be flipped in either direction (upside down/downside up). It's very balanced and the thick black lines help to create the man's head and beer class in an almost negative space where it's stylized but not abstracted being recognition.

• posted by Greg

Logo

I thought this was a great logo showing closure. It is for Tall Tales a restaurant in Gander Mountain. Within the antlers there is a fish and a duck.

posted by Scott F.

Housing Works Logo by Number 17

Great logo design by Number 17 for the Housing Works Bookstore & Cafe. The logo curves like an open book, reading instantly (no pun intended) that it is related to literature. In addition, for the Housing Works name they use a sans serif typeface, which reads quickly while the smaller "bookstore" and "cafe" with the serif typeface give a feel of older/traditional printed work.

(Post by E. Noelle)

Type Logos

The above type logos are for Eight, Corporate Communications Company, USA Network, and Sandhurst Shrubs respectively.

-Erik

Logos that work?

If you follow the following (20 "weird" logos...), you will find interesting logo designs, many of which use typography in innovative ways. The logo above, is one of my favorites from the list.

- Erik