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?

Update: A few more nice images on the US National Counterterrorism Center website. Collect ‘em all!