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- 01.30.12
Neacademia
Florian Hardwig: Addendum: This review was not even published yet, when Rosetta already announced an update. This new version addresses my few… - 01.30.12
Sutturah
Marian Bantjes: I love this! My highest compliment: envy.… - 01.29.12
Chartwell
André Mora: I really like Chartwell and have used it for editorial design. I'm impressed by its ingenuity and excited by what it may insp… - 01.29.12
Nassim
Dave Foster: Titus, congratulations for completing this huge project with such care and attention and thank you to Thierry for shining suc… - 01.28.12
Ambicase Fatface
Stephen Coles: Celebrating its inclusion on this list, Ambicase Fatface is now 30% off at MyFonts.… - 01.27.12
Neue Haas Grotesk
Erik Spiekermann: That, Matthew, is why Helvetica was so successful: nobody except a few Swiss & German designers would have ever dared order t… - 01.27.12
Apple Color Emoji
Christoph: You can find a complete overview of all the Apple Color Emoji characters here. (Works only with Safari. Hover to see Unicode … - 01.26.12
Changing
André Mora: I would love to read a 5,000 word review by Paul Shaw on this typeface. Though something tells me he'd only need 5.… - 01.26.12
Our Favorite Typefaces of 2011
Stephen Coles: Jason Santa Maria just posted a nice summary of highlights from the list.…
Great find, Kai! The Peugeot lions are particularly amusing.
Interesting to see the instances of people remembering non-current logos, such as BP, Philips, and so on.
I was bewildered by the Toyota attempts. I noticed a Subaru and a Mazda logo in there – nice!
Tom,
that’s what struck me, too: the old BP logo, the old Philips logo, something that faintly resembled a *striped* Apple (which they have not been using for how long? five years?).
To be fair, the new BP logo has not long been introduced in Germany and probably Austria either.
Could this remembering the old logos be a sign that either the redesigns follow each other too fast (i think Philips, especially, had its look re-done almost constantly for the last ten years), or that old logos were better?
David,
not sure about Mazda, but there *is* a Mitsubishi Logo, the three diamonds.
People must be very afraid of saying “I don’t know”…
-kai
I especially liked the one Pepsi logo mixed in with the Coke attempts.
Maybe I’m an optimist, but I actually thought the results were fairly encouraging. Granted, there were a few really bad ones in each bunch, but generally speaking, it seems that most people were headed in the right direction. Let’s not forget that most people can’t draw. What I would take from this is that most people know the Lacoste logo is a ‘gator. Most people had some idea of the shape of the Apple logo. Most people know that Coke uses a script typeface. Most people know that Addiads uses three stripes…
That all seems pretty encouraging, to me — even if they can’t draw them correctly. :)
What a genial experiment! Now I’m shocked that this isn’t done routinely to avaluate the effects of branding. Hmmm, maybe because it would end up reducing the amount of redesigns…
hhp
I think what this shows is that people don’t usually pay attention to logo detail. We might as designers, but from this study it is safe to say ‘average’ people just don’t care. Honestly, how many people’s lives are affected by their memory of a particular logo?
This seems like a frivolous study to me, but I can see the merit.
I agree that people don’t remember the “details”, but memorability is only one factor. A well-detailed logo might have other (more temporary but still important) advantages, like leaving a good impression. So a badly-rendered logo might not stay in our memory as such, but the low quality would still leave a bad impression.
> frivolous
Certainly, it’s too informal and “unscientific” – but the idea of getting concrete feedback from the actual targets of branding is a gold mine. One thing that would need to be added though is color – very important in branding, I think.
hhp
This was a fine experiment to do on it’s face but the interpretation of the results I am reading here is particularly poor.
Look folks, what counts in branding is not if the consumer can reproduce a logo with a pen but if they can recognise a logo & if it means anything to them when it is recognised. Reproduction of a logo is a related issue but shouldn’t be confused with the main issue from a designer’s point of view.
What I am reading here is the equivalent of saying that if a mother or father can’t draw the face of their child well enough that that child’s face has not made much of an impression on them & probably doesn’t mean much to them either. Thats just silly.
That lot’s of people can’t draw all that well or make mistakes remembering things visual isn’t suprising. The details of what they do when they try are interesting but again, that’s a seprate issue.
One more example: Shall we all say that for those of you who cannot sing your favorite tunes are unmoved by music? Should your inability to reproduce the song on cue frighten song writers? I think not!
Fire up those grey cells folks!
I thought the results were better than I expected. I’m not a designer though I like to follow along. I’ve never heard of Maggi, Peugeot, eskimo or raiffeisen though the raiffeisen logo looks familiar. I can see the problem with car logos as I get them mixed up all the time, especially some of the abstract ones. I remember the toyota logo as just a stylized T, I’m not sure when they started using the modern looking one. The BP would have also been a problem as I haven’t seen that new logo very often. I still remember the old simple bp without the sun looking thing. I didn’t even know philips stopped using the shield logo they had.
Mr. Sorkin,
although your translations are slightly exaggerated, i cannot but say you’re all too right. Our interpretations were indeed a bit sheepish..
But still, it is very telling that most people remember the old versions of a brand’s outfit or sometimes confuse it with a different brand’s signet.
on a slightly different note, i find it more than horrifying that also many people can’t spell out brand names (Lacoste becoming La Coze &c.)– especially in the “internet age”, this is most probably a point to keep in mind when thinking of a brand name.
Eben, you’re right. But getting people to draw out what’s in their heads is one nice tangible way of “reading” them.
hhp
So I got thinking about this whole car logo thing. It’s outstanding how all the car companies seem to be using the same formula lately.
As for the Mazda badge – they seem to have been changing them on the sly for the last decade Check this out.
I thought it looked Familia.
I found it interesting that many of the logos were flipped from right to left (or the other way around?). That must mean something, though, unfortunately, I know not what. I’m sure if I hang around long enough someone will tell me.
…and, I was actually pretty impressed at the accuracy of many (most?) of the remembered logos. My lines might be smoother, but I don’t know if my renditions would be much closer. Of course, I have trouble remembering what my own car looks like in a parking lot.
People flip things horizontally much more often than vertically because humans (especially in their vision) are horizontal: our retina is much wider than tall, our necks turn sideways better, etc. And remember, a dog facing left or right is still a dog, but a dog that’s upside down is dead.
hhp
It’s not really fair to ask people to draw: it’s a skill which schools abandon teaching at around age 10 (in most countries?)
I wonder what the results would have been like if the subjects had been graphic designers… most designers can’t draw, but would they have shown a better awareness?
But the fact that people can’t draw very well simply means that has to be factored into the evaluation – it’s even a necessary evil because asking only graphic designers (or even just people who can draw well) would skew the results towards a minority.
hhp
There was a guy in architecture school with me who had a mild obsession with logos. Logos and sports. For his thesis he designed a basketball arena for our campus and he kept bogging himself down by arranging logos on the scoreboard. He would have aced this test. He didn’t do that well in the subject at hand, though.
The main purposes of a brand I.D. is to slip
under the observational radar of the viewer
/consumer just enough to subcontiously
persuade them into buying the idea/product
that the logo is selling.
Now, if a logo is ageing and becoming too
farmiliar, it looses it’s strength and it’s
power to persuade. This probably leads
Joe-public into remembering the old one
where the new logo is doing a better job
of selling him the MP3 Player or the
S***bucks Coffee that he doesn’t need.
>I wonder what the results would have been like if the subjects had been graphic designers…
Nick, I don’t know if you recall Stephen Banham, but in an issue of his Ampersand publication he did a similar experiment with kids and young boys/girls from Melbourne schools.
And Hrant, this experiment is “a gold mine” for what? Most people can’t draw but they have visual memory, and they’ll surely remind brands they have an interest about. Also, drawing from memory is not connected to actual drawing abilities (which largely depend on actual interest, as most of things). I draw, but I draw badly from memory, while a friend of mine which thinks all typefaces are the same as Times and Helvetica, draws anything from memory in an excellent way. So, as you say, this kind of “experiment” seems not to have a real criteria, and many associations come just out of specific people’s interests. The one Stephen did with the kids was more focused and very interesting (you should see all the Play Station interpretations).
my name is johannes. i’m part of “monochrom”. we are an art/philosophy group from vienna/austria. we did the “brandmarker” project in summer of 2003.
i really enjoy your discussion about the project.
here is some additional information for you:
1) the new bp logo is now around for about 3 years in austria.
2) maggi is a local nestlé brand (it is, besides knorr, one of the top-brands for instant food)
3) raiffeisen is one of the major banks in austria and germany
4) eskimo and iglo are local unilever brands (eskimo, e.g. is langnese in germany or walls in the uk; the logo is the same, just the name is different; the safe for iglo)
because colin points out the single pepsi logo in the coca-cola section.
after drawing the pepsi logo i asked the person if this was some kind of “statement”. i just wanted to be sure if he really didn’t know the “coca-cola” logo. then he realized his fault and was totally upset: “goddamn! i don’t know the most important logo in the world! that’s so embarrassing!”
ps: i especially enjoyed “coKa-cola” and “pilips”.
pps: because the webtraffic is about 8 gigs a day now (because of “brandmarker”) we decided to slow down connections if the traffics exceeds 8 gigs a day.
> this experiment is “a gold mine” for what?
Gauging the true effect of branding, obviously. Sure it’s not empirical, but how else could you do it?
hhp
To shift the subject to “no typeface” (after all, this is a type forum):
I’ve noticed that 3 out of the 4 major banks in Canada now have the same corporate typeface (Frutiger/Myriad).
It used to be the philosophy that every aspect of a corporate ID had to position the brand against its competitors with a “point of difference”. But that seems to have changed. Cadillac and Toyota both use News Gothic Bold Condensed in their ad campaigns here. And so on.
Does this just mean Canadian ad agencies have totally lost it, or has the choice of corporate typeface ceased to be relevant to branding elsewhere?
Back in 1999, we did a project called assembly where you got 600 school children to draw the first logotype that came into their head. Our intention was not to observe brand loyalty but rather to gauge the visual memory of children in relation to coirporate identity. You can see it at http://www.the-letterbox.com.au/lab/books/amp4ass.html. Not that I can claim the idea as specifically my own but the speed of ‘cross-polination’ in graphic design is extraordinary.
Thanks Claudio for picking it up.
I don’t think anyone pointed out an obvious influence on people’s ability to remember a logo: exposure. How often, for how long and in how many places has a particular logo appeared. Another factor is how much status is attached to a brand – people will be more likely to remember it if it has a generally accepted level of status – the higher, the more likely people will recall it.
Being a sign designer, I found this study pretty interesting. In some ways it does underscore the value of proper logo design versus the wrong approach of throwing in trash like phone numbers and other garbage that really no longer make a design a “logotype” anymore.
The Toyota drawings made me chuckle (particularly the one’s reproducing the Mitsubishi diamond and a couple others that looked oddly phallic).
Regarding signage and logos, I would have liked to see some other trademarks added to the mix, such as the McDonald’s “golden arches” symbol. You don’t need much drawing skill to duplicate that very simple symbol. McDonald’s signs are pieces of junk (trust me, our company installs and services the things so we know), but they are quite arguably the most effective signs in the world simply because you can recognize the pylon sign more than a mile or two away. Very few signs in the world can make a similar claim. Simplicity increases legibility, and it also makes the brand easier to establish and remember.
I agree with those who stress the points about all sorts of fine details and other embellishments being meaningless in a logo. Some of this gets down to simple function. A truly successful logotype should be able to be reproduced in one single ink color at a very small size and still be recognizeable. Such a logo would be easily readable on signs at long distances. In truth, very few logos out there meet that challenge.
…and they are becoming more scarce every day. The current trend is to redesign sturdy old logos with new gradient-filled, fruit-flavored, 3-D, swoosh-junk. See UPS and Japan Airlines.
>the current trend
Stephen, from your vantage point in Europe, would you say this emphasis on the superficial, the cosmetic, and instant gratification is particularly American?
Things are still superficial and cosmetic here. I’d just say that what Europeans, or at least Swedes, find attractive is usually more effective graphically and closer to what good designers find attractive. What that makes is a clearer, smarter environment and that cycle compounds.
Americans generally have poor taste and that cycle compounds as designers cater to the public.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3398115.stm
“It will now highlight rescue workers who died and will house artefacts such as a crushed fire engine.”
Dude, now we’re talkin’ some good memorial action, dude…
hhp
relating to stephen’s comment.
i was in sweden this week, and as i walked round the shops and markets i was amazed by the quality of (most of) the signage/product/labelling graphics.
there was so much good, simple, really classic design just on the shelves, i just couldn’t stop looking. i had to be dragged out..
for example, a large variety of unusual modern (produced during the last 10 years) typefaces were evident, even on cheap and ‘unbranded’ products. as opposed to the uk, where maybe 10 mid-C20 faces predominate on the shelves.
i couldn’t help thinking ‘there must be such a rich design culture here’.
Exactly my experience as an ex-pat American in Stockholm. Why didn’t you come say hello, Geraint?
next time i’m in stockholm, i will look you up, stephen. and bring a camera to take pictures of ‘product’.
this time i was working, in Trollhattan (not too far from Göteborg). have you been there- its very pretty. more slush than snow this time of year, tho ..
Sorry for the lag on responding to this thread. My friend, Jennifer is married to a guy from Sweden and they visit his parents there every summer. She never paid much attention to signs even though I’m involved in that for my day job. She did take notice after her first trip to Sweden. She said all the signs there were nice looking, even the cheap ones. Same thing goes for most storefronts too. She returned back to the US and had a new reaction for many of our streetscapes: “Ugh!” Finally, she understood why I rant and rave about things like “font murder.”
Business owners here in America are caught in a bad situation. The sign industry is polluted with lots of people who have no qualifications, formal training (or even talent) to have any rights of being in the business. So many just figure it is an easy way to make a living. With little to no talent, all they can do is just proclaim, “my signs are cheaper than anyone else” and fantasize about driving competitors out of business.
Few businesses take the subject of signage very seriously at all. Most just take the cheapest offer. In that business climate, many good sign companies go out of business. Wage scales get driven down further and force many talented designers to find something else to do for a living. In most cities all you have left is a bunch of amateur companies making garbage signs and giving us lots of disgusting examples of how to distort (or “murder”) Arial.
You would think that since most sign companies at least have a copy of CorelDRAW and FlexiSign they would at least load a condensed or extended weight of “Swiss721″ when they needed it.