Comment to Allison's Post

Allison,

Great Post! I enjoyed looking through the blogs you listed to see how people create various logos. I also loved the Coke vs. Pepsi example. I agree that a company logo should have at least part of the logo be a timeless element. This helps people recognize the company even if there is a shift in the items they are trying to market.

I also think that it is interesting how memorable logos can be. The image only showing one letter of a logo was amazing at how many I thought I knew! I also found this picture (from: amsterbrand-emilio1982.blogspot.com) when looking through other logo examples:




What do you notice when you see the image? When one looks closely they will start to see why the logos seem a bit off. I had to look closely at this image to notice that the logos were not with the correct label. Do you think that logos can represent multiple companies even thought they were created with one specific company in mind?

Designing an Effective Logo

A successful logo can be recognized in a split second. In fact, some people argue that you don't even need to see the whole logo for it to be recognizable. The image below shows how easily most Americans can recognize logos when given only one letter. How many logos can you identify?

I recently read a blog post from Just Creative Design about designing effective logos. The blog states that there are five principles of effective logo design:

1. Simple
2. Memorable
3. Timeless
4. Versatile
5. Appropriate

I am curious to hear which design principle you feel is the most important, if you had to choose just one. Personally, I think the principle of "Timeless" is the most important. A logo that is constantly changing tends to lose its effectiveness in my opinion. The image below is a timeline of Coke vs. Pepsi logos. It shows that Coca-Cola did a great job of designing a timeless logo, even back in 1885.

I recently found an instructional document on "How to Design a Logo of Letters". I found this document to be extremely helpful. I thought it might be helpful for our logo design projects.

What do you think about the logo design principles? Are they sound? Which one is the most important? Are there any that you would add to the list? And finally, CocaCola is a great example of a logo. What are some other effective logos?

Poster Design

We have recently looked at the different kinds of images used in instruction, as well as the principles, actions, and tools used by graphic designers to focus the viewer's attention. As you are creating your projects for this class, you may find design work challenging unless you spend time looking at the work of others. Therefore, I am posting some good examples of posters here to help you with your poster design project. These posters were "borrowed" from Designm.ag, Illustration Design Blog, and Grain Edit.

In this class, you will need to spend at least 30 minutes per day LOOKING at page layout, composition, color, and image choice on websites, magazines, posters, cereal boxes, junk mail, newspapers, books calendars... whatever you encounter. As you examine new visuals, consider:

1. Composition - What did the designer do to make the page layout interesting to look at? How is negative or white space used to focus attention?
2. Shape - What shapes are used? How do they relate to each other? What message do they convey?
3. Type font - How does the type communicate the message to the intended audience?
4. Color - What kind of mood does the choice of color convey? What effect would a different color have on the mood?
5. Contrast - What impact does contrast have on the design?
6. Repetition - Is repetition used in the design? How so? Is it successful?
7. Alignment - How is alignment used to organize the page and communicate the message?
8. Proximity - How is proximity used to to show relationships between visual information?

Finally, what do you think about the poster examples provided above? Do they help you come up with a unified design concept that you will carry through all of your design projects this semester?