Controversial topic but a sign of the times, Ironic Sans published a post a little while back on the logos of terrorist organizations, pointing out that they need brand identities, just like any other organization. Call them revolution armies or terrorist groups, if they want their message to get across they need to brand it somehow.
With so many groups claiming credit for terrorist acts, and so many videotapes being put out featuring men in ski masks, it’s hard to keep track of which group committed what violent act. So terrorist organizations have logos. It recently occurred to me that someone had to actually design those logos. But how did they decide who gets to do it? Did the job go to whichever terrorist had a copy of Adobe Illustrator?
He classified the elements composing these logos into 7 categories: Stars, One Gun, Two guns crossed, Other weapons crossed, Crossbones, Animals with multiple heads (which usually comes from the original flag of the place they come from, so it could be argued that it doesn’t count), and Other. I guess we can add one more being Map, as these groups often relate to a piece of land and what is more unique than the shape of that land in the logo? Many images in his article, go have a look.
In the end it goes back to the business of communicating your brand in the most efficient way to identify and memorize. Wasn’t it how the crests and flags who represent current nation-states were born originally anyway?
You see these logos almost every day, but how well do you remember them? If you’re into logo design, and you claim you have an eye for the tiniest detail, take the two tests at guessthelogo.com and find out if you really are such a logo expert.
The power of a strong brand usually means that the identity of this company or product stands apart from any other affiliation it has with (an)other brand(s). If you want your image to be successful, you should keep the focus on it and what it represents. One big no-no for a logo is to apply it on anything and everything, and recent examples of this rule can be found in Google and Yahoo! products getting/keeping their own logo, name, and overall branding, such as YouTube, Flickr, Gmail, Del.icio.us, etc. (I’ll get back to this in another post someday).
In broadcast media, from television to radio, movie studios to printed press, the same logic principles apply, and although the differences between each title would fool the consumer into thinking they all have their independent voice and that you have a real choice, it shows once again the power of the logo, and overall branding.
Neatorama made a richly illustrated list of who owns what on television, presenting the TV channels owned by six of the largest media companies. They used only their logo. Colorful and convincing.
Polaroid Corporation was founded in 1937, built a world famous name by making instant film cameras from 1948, and announced in 2008 that it would cease production in favor of digital photography products.
But if you’re interested in branding and logos, the period that you want to know about is 1958 to 1977, when graphic artist, illustrator, and cartoonist Paul Giambara worked on Polaroid’s corporate image development and product identity. He made a blog on his branding years at Polaroid, and how they “beat Eastman Kodak and its little yellow boxes at point of purchase despite a clunky product and an irrelevant corporate name”.
His innovative black packaging successfully subdued the dominance of Kodak yellow at point-of-purchase and spawned a vogue of black packaging within the industry. Creator of the ubiquitous Polaroid color stripes, one of the most widely imitated design devices of the last several decades, he designed and produced hundreds of Polaroid packages and collateral material.
Very entertaining, and with LOTS of photos to illustrate the evolution of the the branding and the logo, all the way from the very beginning when there was none.
Another blogger got inspired and went through his own stuff, and posted a few interesting photos of Polaroid related stuff. And if you’re into the cameras of Polaroid, have a look at this small but neat collection, or simply browse Flickr for more…
Got any other Polaroid packaging / branding / logo site to recommend? Post them in the comments please.
There are a few sites offering free downloads of big brand logos, for those who need it. I don’t know how legal it is (and I would assume somewhere near 0%), but I guess you should be happy if your logo is being sought after and distributed as just your logo. Basically, the success of a logo is when it is so strong by itself that your whole brand is represented by it. Again, I don’t really understand why you would want to download the logos of Chrysler, Chupa Chups, ESPN, Esso, Goodyear, Miramax, Mitsubishi, Orange, Puma, Tati, and Tropicana, but they are all there and all logos are in vector (Illustrator EPS) format, meaning it is scalable, editable, and printable.
So, if you are collecting brands, learning how to use Illustrator, or simply into anything illegal no matter what, have a look at www.logotypes.ru and www.brandsoftheworld.com. But these site prove us that having access to a lot of successful logos doesn’t necessarily help you get a good one for yourself.
Welcome to ZLOK logo design blog, thanks for visiting. The goal is simple: talk about logos and logo design, logotypes and icons, corporate identity and branding in general, with news, links, and whatever is relevant to people who are interested in this type of graphic design. Of course, it will often be biased, being a blog and all, but it also means you can talk back and be as biased as you want too. And if you are interested in writing guest posts, that’s welcome too of course.
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Photo by jem
