From ABB to Zurich, this little minimalist website details hundreds of logos, designs, typefaces, and colors of brand identities. Simply named “A Website about Corporate Identity“, it offers a very impressive list of companies, as well as some universities and (Netherlands’) ministries.

The logos themselves can be downloaded but they are protected by password, so if you want to study them you might as well get them from the usual sources. But what’s more interesting and useful is that the author compiled the font and Pantone colors used for each, as well as the firm who designed it, the year of creation, and a little bit of the background.

For example, Adobe’s logo was designed in 1993 by an internal designer and its red is Pantone 485; Landor’s version of BP uses the typefaces Univers and ITC Garamond; it was in 1904 that Thorvald Bindesbøll designed the logo for Carlsberg.

Somehow I missed the fact that the France Telecom logo was designed by Landor, and Orange by Wolff Olins.

Fot the typographic nerds, it’s also a good reference on what typefaces were used to design the proprietary ones of Ikea (Futura and New Century Schoolbook) or UBS (Walbaum), for example. Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz uses its proprietary typefaces Corporate A, Corporate S and Corporate E, designed from scratch, and the new Swisscom goes with vanilla typefaces TheSans and TheSerif.

Lastly, because the site is updated but not up-to-date, you can find little gems of the old time, like the classic Air France when it still had stripes and a space, Swissair when it still existed, and before the Tyler Brûlé semi-joke.

And if you read Dutch, there is also a booklet about the general concept of corporate identity.

Photo credit

An informal way of getting everyone to know each other: I thought it would be convenient to have a little questionnaire where readers could introduce themselves and tell a little bit more about what makes them tick. Answer as many or as few questions as you want in the comments below, with as much or little details as you want. And feel free to add your own questions too.

Also, you’re welcome to introduce copy and paste your comment in our logo design Facebook group as well.

1. Favorite logo design ever (all-time).
2. Favorite recent rebranding logo design.
3. Favorite graphic/logo designer.
4. Favorite non-logo design ever.
   (e.g., cartoon/comics character, car/bike, flag…)
5. Most disliked logo design (if any).
   (NOT the brand itself, just the logo)
6. Product or a brand that you buy mostly because of their logo/mark.
7. Are you in the graphic/logo design business yourself?
8. Do you own a logo?
   (add a link to it?)
9. Are you wearing/displaying a logo on you right now?
10. Where are you from?

Don’t be shy… :)

Thanks and welcome.

GREY is a unit of WPP Group and a global advertising and marketing agency, with 432 offices in 96 countries. They provide advertising, direct marketing, public relations, public affairs, brand development, customer relationship management, sales promotion, and interactive marketing services, for such clients as Procter & Gamble, GlaxoSmithKline, Nokia, BAT, Diageo, Volkswagen, Novartis, Wyeth, Canon, and 3M.

But they’re edgy, so when GREY’s Geneva office is refurbishing its website, they don’t do it the boring way, in the background, and then replace the old site with the new one when it’s ready. No way. Instead, they turn their homepage into an homage to one of those “under construction” pages we loved in the late 90’s.

No content, no info, just a link to their contact email. Some would call it useless and impractical, but we say old skool!

Dear GREY.ch webmaster, don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty and witty, but you really should have used an animated GIF, to make it even clearer. I found these for you in my old Zip disks, that I hope you will like. Let me know if you need some “email us” animated flying envelopes too, ok?

STA Travel, famous worldwide for offering cheap flights to students and teachers (and actually everyone else who’d rather spend less and get great service), is turning 30. To celebrate, they got NYC agency Electric Artists UK based Graphico to design them a new logo and website, which according to their blog, “reflects not only STA, but also their customers”. The new website and logo were released first in the UK site earlier this month, then the US one today.

I won’t critique the new identity because I’m sure Armin will do a much better job than me with it, and also because I don’t feel like writing something bad about a brand (and a business) I use and like.

According to the email we got, STA Travel VP of Marketing and Ecommerce Kristen Celko said of the rebranding initiative that “STA Travel focuses on students and young adults whose lives have been influenced tremendously by technology and collaboration trends in recent years. A primary goal of our branding efforts was to better understand our global consumers and refine our identity and services to support their travel interests and experiences.”

Well, ok then.

I was thinking about those iPhone owners who feel that a wallpaper is just not good enough, and/or want their personalised message to the world to be fully visible at all time, so I quickly designed these alphabet letters which can be used as customised icons on the Home Screen.

I used Helvetica of course, because one can never have enough of that font, especially when it comes to showing off nerdiness on an iPhone. Also, they are all uppercase letters, except for the “i”, which also comes lowercase for all the Mac purists out there.

How to get a letter on your Home Screen:
Using your iPhone, simply click on the link that corresponds to the letter you want. When you are on the page of that letter, touch the “+” at the bottom of your screen, and choose “Add to Home Screen”. Repeat until you have all the letters you need. Then, arrange your letters to display in 4×4 shiny buttons. Yay!

A B C D E
F G H i I J
K L M N O
P Q R S T
U V W X Y Z
. ! - ( ) ?
(space) ?!

If you use them, or if you come up with your own version (different font, color, etc.), post links in the comments.

A few years ago, Matt Rodbard wrote an article on the invention of the Apple Logo in Sync Magazine. The magazine died, the articles got buried, and Matt was kind enough to let me re-publish it here, so that you can enjoy it and it doesn’t get lost.

- - -

In 1977, Rob Janoff was handed a lousy pro bono assignment … Working for steve jobs.

Name: Rob Janoff
Age: 57
Invention: The Apple Logo

“There were many people who said Apple would go bankrupt if they went ahead with the logo,” says Rob Janoff, the graphic designer credited with thinking up the world-famous emblem. Janoff, 57, first met Jobs while working at Palo Alto, Calif.-based public relations agency Regis McKenna. It was his task to help the sandal-wearing CEO-a good friend of Janoff’s boss-market a makeshift wooden box stuffed with wires, an early prototype of the Apple II. “For inspiration, the first thing I did was go to the supermarket, buy a bag of apples and slice them up. I just stared at the wedges for hours,” recalls Janoff. The fruit of his labor: a simple 2-D monochromatic apple, with a healthy bite taken from the right side. Jobs loved the conceit-only he suggested it be more colorful. Janoff’s boss disagreed, insisting the logo be made all black to save on printing costs. “But Jobs was resolute, arguing that color was the key to humanizing the company,” says Janoff. “So I just put colors where I thought they should be, not even thinking about a prism.” What thanks did Janoff, now the owner of his own Chicago-based graphic design firm, get for all his hard work? “Not even a holiday card.”

Forget Pepsi, what about this adidas Style shop in Paris?

Some will say it’s a little far fetched, I know. But come on Adidas, a little Obama envy perhaps?

☠

Everyone who reads the news — and especially you, who are interested in graphic design and logos — knows that the US government just released the new ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) logo, to be branded on projects associated with the economic stimulus package.

In Obama’s words:

“We’re making it easier for Americans to see what projects are being funded with their money as part of our recovery. So in the weeks to come, the signs denoting these projects are going to bear the new emblem of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, These emblems are symbols of our commitment to you, the American people — a commitment to investing your tax dollars wisely, to put Americans to work doing the work that needs to be done.”

Mode Project, the agency behind the design of the Obama ‘08 campaign logo, directed this one too. This time they enrolled designers Aaron Draplin and Chris Glass for the design of this new brand.

No political commentary on my part, as my opinion of Obama and his plan does not matter here. There are haters around, of which I am not, and this post is really just about the graphical aspect of the logo and the conceptual design behind it.

And graphically, I can’t help but notice that what raised the hopes of masses sixty years ago is still perfectly good today too.

A few stars, wheat ears, and a cogwheel or two, and you covered patriotism, industry, and agriculture. Organise them into a circular shape, and it’s easy to make it as a sticker, a badge, or a medal.

In the memorable words of David Brent:

“A good idea is a good idea forever.”

“Zhongguo Gongqingtuan” (中国共青团), the Chinese Communist Party’s Youth League

The national emblem of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam

People’s Republic of China’s coat of arms

Symbol of the Communist Party of Canada

Medal for 40th Anniversary of Mongolian People’s Revolution

Coat of arms of the former Socialist Republic of Serbia (part of former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia)

Coat of arms of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan between 1980 and 1987

Soviet Union’s Order of the Red Banner of Labour (Орден Трудового Красного Знамени)

North Korea’s Order of Labour (Loyok Hunchang)

Back in 2005, we designed the logo and overall brand identity for The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), a blog of the Weblogs, Inc. network, and one of the most successful sites about Apple. As AOL recently rebranded the site and replaced the logo, we thought it might be interesting for some to see how the original logo was actually born, and so we wrote a little case study on where it came from, and how it evolved to its final design. Enjoy its fruity goodness here.

When you’re done, we’d love to hear your feedback in the comments below. And don’t hesitate to digg it too of course. Thanks.