If you are interested in the logos that the presidential candidates have, now you can add your own 2 cents. The guys at logodesign.com have taken the logos and have had a panel of expert designers critique them but have also allowed anyone to go in and post there comments. There is even have an area to vote on them.
Just remember, it's about the logo and design, not about the candidates you love or hate.
Labels: Logo Design, logos, Presidential Logos
I was recently contacted by the Hartford Courant to critique the 2008 presidential Logos. The reason for doing this is to bring out the mysteries of as to why some logos succeed and others don't.
Here is my response.
Being that there are so many I will get specific about a few but might be general is some cases. Just at a quick glance you can tell what ones have more thought behind them and what ones stand out to be more professional, and in my opinion, get the message across as being the right candidate for the job. The things that I first look at are composition, typography, and color.
Composition:
Is the logo balanced? Are elements placed randomly or are they thought out?
Some the better ones are Hillary's, Richardson's, and Dodd's. The things that make these compositions better are the elements are working together. All the elements may not be aligned in the center but the way they are placed balances the logo out. Take Richardson’s logo. You have the Bill on the left top and the President on the bottom left. because you have these two elements on opposite ends the logo becomes balanced. The star and stripes also help the logo in balancing.
Some of the not so good ones are Edwards, Brownback, and Hunter. Let's take Edwards for example. His name is aligned left with a little star on the right with a green strip (which I’ll talk about in the color section). The left side is so heavy it looks like it will tip over. With Brownback, you have very little whitespace on the left and right side but a huge amount on the bottom. It looks like they were trying to slap his name on some generic template and get it out the door. This comes across as not being professional and someone not committed.
Typography:
This is one of the most important items that could make or break a good logo. If the typography is right then someone will look at it and probably think nothing of it but if it is wrong, then people will say it doesn’t look right and not be impressed with it. It’s not only the font they choose but it also is in the leading and kerning.
I think the ones that use a more tradition serif font put across the message that they are professional and have a commitment to the country.
I would have to say that Rudy's is the winner in this. He has chosen a traditional font and the kerning has been thought out. Compare Rudy's to Romney's. There is so much space between the letters and the spacing is different between each letter. This is a perfect example of looking at Rudy's and being okay with it and then looking at Romney's and noticing something it not right with it.
Color:
Being that our colors and red, white, and blue it would only make sense to stick with those colors. It seems that all of the incorporated those colors but some added other colors. I don’t think it is bad to add them but for some it just hurts the logo. Going back to Edwards. Why did he add the green strip. It doesn't make a lot of sense. It tells me that his logo wasn’t taken seriously and therefor his campaign isn’t serious. Also, with Huckabee. The yellow name is just a distraction and doesn't fit in with the other colors. It would have given his name more emphasis if he would have put it in white.
One the other hand, McCain used a different color but it is a small amount and well placed that it helps his logo and doesn't distract from what the message is.
There is one logo that stands out from the others and that would be Hunter's. All of the other logos are simple and to the point where Hunter's is too cluttered and says too much that it is distracting. There are too many elements competing for attention that it makes it cluttered.
It is also interesting the McCain and Rudy's signs just have there name. It's probably save to say that most people recognize there names and just by seeing the logo/sign know that they are running for president. To me these say a lot more than the others. It makes my feel like I know what is going on and that I don’t need to be told. Whether that will be successful in the end, I don’t know.
I also wanted to make mention of Obama's logo. The icon that he uses is very distracting. When I looked at it, I took more time trying to figure out what it was the his message gets lost. Is it an "O" with stipes? Is it a field with a sun?
To sum it up, the best logos to me are Hillary's, Richardson's, Dodd's, and Rudy's. These logo show me that there was some thought put into them and that they are committed and professional. It is interesting to note I probably would not vote for either one of these candidates. It was interesting to disconnect myself from personal feeling as I looked at these logos. There were those that I wished would be better because I liked the candidate but were not.
Labels: http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifCritique, logos, Presidential Logos
Do you want your chance to shine? Why not create a better London Olympic Logo? There have been a few websites set up to show how bad the new London logo is and better work could have been done for a lot less.
Here are a couple of websites.
Sitepoint - London redesign
Logoworks - Better London Logo
Labels: logos, London 2012 logo
I keep trying to tell everyone that McDonald's is heaven sent. Well, here's my proof. See more floating Logos
Labels: Floating Logos, logos, McDonald's
When I heard that the Ski Utah logo was redone I was a little worried about what it would look like but I am very impressed by it. I think it represents Utah and the ski industry very well. Here are some of the goals of the logo stated by Nathan Rafferty:
"We were looking for something fresh. We just felt we turned the corner with the 4 million record, and we decided to try for a new logo. We wanted something clean, cool and simple. The old logo simply didn't portray the message we wanted. ... It was a particularly tough job because we wanted a mountain in the logo. One of the designers rode TRAX into work one day and counted 37 different logos, all with mountains."
I think they hit the nail right on the head. The logo is clean, cool, and simple. They even were able to portray the mountains without making it look cluttered. The logo works very well with the icon above or even inline with the type like they have it on the website. The icon alone works just as good. It's nice to see that some people realize the effect of a well designed logo.
The website on the other hand could use some work. There is a lot of information that is not structured or organized very well. That can be another discussion altogether.
The Utah license plates will soon be getting a face lift. The design of the Ski Utah will be changing quit a bit. It now has a picture of a skier plus petroglyphs faded into the top red part on it. It seems like they are trying to put too much into it. At least the Ski Ytah version works with the new "life elevated" logo. Unfortunately, the arch plate doesn't look all the appealing with the new logo. I think this is a good attempt to update the Utah look, but there is a lot more that could be done. This is probably a classic case of having to many people involved which makes the end result not that great.
You can read more about the new license plates on the Salt Lake Tribune website.
Labels: License Plates, logos, Utah
Well, it's that time of year again where I get to look back on the year and realize that I don't have anything worth entering into the AIGA 100 Show. Maybe next year. But I wanted to comment on one thing, and that is the logo they chose to use for the show. It isn't all that great. My first thought is "what is it?" and "I don't get it". I don't want to go to much into it because all design work is subjective so someone might really like it. It may just be that I don't get it, but I'm sure there could be a lot better solution. Just take a look at the past few years of the 100 show. But, then again, I don't have anything worth entering into the show.
Let me know what you think of it.
Does a big "design firm" name do more for a brand then a lesser known design firm? I look at the new Saks Fifth Avenue logo and brand and think, could anyone have gotten away with this, or is it because Pentagram did it? The answer is, probably not. As a designer you hear "Pentagram" and for some reason it is automatically good. I don't think this is the case on this logo. 
It's not that it's bad and the cut up typographical elements are intriguing, but for a brand identity that probably cost thousands - it could have been better. As I read through the the article there were a few things that stuck out to me. The first being that they took the same logo that was created in 1973, "... one stood out, the logo drawn in 1973 by Tom Carnese, adapted from a signature introduced almost twenty years before." The second is that they got a font designer to make the same thing and put it on a black background, "... We took the cursive logo, redrew it with the help of font designer Joe Finocchiaro, and placed it in a black square." Again, could any design firm have gotten away with this?