What makes brand identity design the most challenging is the fact that the icon you’ve designed is usually the first and last thing a person sees during their experience with the brand. There are many things that factor into making a successful, everlasting icon that can (and hopefully will) be used for decades to come. One of my favorite designers, David Airey, summarizes it best:

Keep it simple. The simplest solution is often the most effective. Why? Because a simple logo helps meet most of the other requirements of iconic design.

Make it relevant. Any logo you design must be appropriate for the business it identifies. For example, as much as you might want to use a fun design that makes everyone smile, its approach is not ideal for businesses like the local crematorium.

Incorporate tradition. Trends come and go like the wind. With brand identity, the last thing you want is to invest a significant amount of your time and your client’s money in a design direction that looks dated almost overnight.

Aim for distinction. Begin by focusing on a design that is recognizable. So recognizable, in fact, that just its shape or outline gives it away.

Commit to memory. Quite often, one quick glance is all the time you get to make an impression. You want your viewers’ experience to be such that your logo is remembered the instant they see it the next time.

Think small. Your design should ideally work at a minimum of around one inch in size without loss of detail so that it can be put to use for many different applications.

Focus on one thing. Incorporate just one feature to help your designs stand out. That’s it. Just one. Not two, three or four.

David Airey also goes on to explain that, sometimes, rules are made to be broken. This might seem contradictory, but when appropriate, yes—by all means—break the rules…as long as the rule you are breaking is for a damn good reason.

Some of the most successful logos have been around for nearly 100 years. The one I speak of, and arguably the most identifiable, is the Coca-Cola logo. Since 1887, the Coca-Cola logo has relatively stayed the same with exception of a slight hitch from 1890–1891. The logo was changed drastically and met poor response from consumers, so was then reverted back to its original from years past. Over the years, with its first revision in 1941, the Coca-Cola logo has only undergone minor changes to its lettering, keeping its traditional, simple, narrow-focused style intact and well-recognized.

Below is a video that was released by PBS as part of a web series called Off Book that explores cutting-edge art, internet culture and the people that create it. This video, The Art of Logo Design | Off Book | PBS, features some of my favorite designers and their take on logo design.

Featuring:

• Stephen Heller, http://www.hellerbooks.com/
• Sagi Haviv, http://sagihaviv.com/
• Kelli Anderson, http://kellianderson.com/
• Gerard Huerta, http://www.gerardhuerta.com/

Photo credit: 1890 version of Coca-Cola logo courtesy www.Coca-Cola.co.uk

Airey, David. Logo Design Love: a Guide to Creating Iconic Brand Identities. Berkeley, CA: New Riders an imprint of Peachpit, 2010. Print.

I would love to start making it a mandatory process of showing these kinds of videos to clients before a creative brief is even written. This would help in reminding the client that their company’s logo shouldn’t represent every facet of the company (I cannot stress this enough.) It is meant to intrigue and penetrate someone’s mind to get their attention and make them remember you. It should represent your company’s persona; How you look, how you act, how you speak.

Logos surround us in digital and physical space, but we rarely examine the thought and artistic thinking that goes into the design of these symbols. Utilizing a silent vocabulary of colors, shapes, and typography, logo designers give a visual identity to companies and organizations of all types. From cave painters to modern designers, artists throughout history have been reducing the complex down to simple ideas that communicate with the world.

Featuring:

• Stephen Heller, http://www.hellerbooks.com/
• Sagi Haviv, http://sagihaviv.com/
• Kelli Anderson, http://kellianderson.com/
• Gerard Huerta, http://www.gerardhuerta.com/

Music:

• Mindthings: http://www.mindthings.net/
• Hogan Grip: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Hogan_Grip/
• Diamos Roll: http://soundcloud.com/diamos-roll/
• Junior85: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/junior85/
• Statue of Diveo: http://www.jamendo.com/en/artist/352814/statueofdiveo

Update: Updates completed. Thanks for your patience. Stay tuned for more projects to be added soon from my work at re:group.

Their new identity… Designed by JAY-Z. Say what?!?!?!

That was my first reaction when I read the headlines. But I actually like the new identity. I think it fits well with the attitude the New York borough exudes.

Coach Avery Johnson addresses media

The new primary logo – created by Brooklyn’s own JAY Z – retains the shield from its previous iteration, and adds that iconic Brooklyn ‘B’ to the basketball that has been part of every logo since the franchise’s 1967 inception as the Americans. The Dodgers had their lettermark, and the Nets have added another model for the borough to bear. “Brooklyn,” of course, is spelled out below. Nets CEO Brett Yormark called this “the new badge for Brooklyn,” and JAY Z believes the design’s boldness demonstrates confidence in the new direction.

The secondary logo, of the ‘B’ inside a basketball, surrounded by the words “Brooklyn New York” immediately popped an image into my head: “Planet Brooklyn.” It’s hard to explain the pride native Brooklynites feel for their home (“BK,” “Bucktown,” the “Brooklyn Zoo”), how outsiders don’t get it and never really will; one measure might be trying to think if you’ve ever met someone from Brooklyn who said they were from “New York.” Another could be the lines I once wrote in a spoken word poem:

I like to sport attitudes like
I’m better than you
because I’m from Brooklyn
… and that’s just how we do.

Ben Couch, NBA.com

As back seat graphic designer, I am questioning his reasoning for the type choices and his restricted use of JUST black and white. Overall, I do like the variety of t-shirt designs and other Nets’ swag. I wonder if Jay-Z had a “ghost graphic designer?” Did Beyoncé help him out? Hmmm….