What is Good?: August 2010

Tuesday, 31 August 2010

Paul Rand

In Logo design, Paul Rand was the master. Rand took the modern Swiss approach of stern graphic simplicity and sans-serif fonts, and gave it a smile, Rand had a knack of giving faceless corporations a personality, often by reducing their existing logos to simple humanistic elements, and then carrying the clarity and personality through to packaging, annual reports and other material.

He added a package with a bow to the shield of United Parcels Service (UPS); he turned the antique 'W' of Westinghouse into what looked like a cartoon crown and he lightened and harmonized the logo of computer giant IMB by 'striping' the thick and heavy letter forms. Rand's model of making the simple memorable and timeless gave all future logo designers a yardstick with which to measure their efforts.

Westinghouse 1960

(United Parcel Service) UPS 1961

IBM (International Business Machines)
13-bar version 1967

IBM (International Business Machines)
8-bar version 1972

Ford Motor Companay
1966, not used

Connecticut Art Director's Club
1986

Eye Bee M poster designed by Rand in 1981 for IBM.

Where do logos come from?

They're as old as civilization itself.
It is said that branding ( identifying an object's ownership) came from marking cattle and temples in ancient Egypt and in development by Greek and Roman craftsmen of 'marker's mark', which allowed goods to be traded with confidence anywhere across an entire empire, regardless of their place of origin. This is continued in the role of trademarks today.
However, the Bible tells of an instance of branding that pre-dates just about everything. The old testament reports that God 'put a mark on Cain'. ( not as punishment but as protection ) The mark was God's 'keep off' sign, addressed ti potential Edenite vigilante groups.
Today, the world's omnipotent brands belong not to deities but to fast-food chains, drinks, banks, telecom giants an airlines.
19th century packaging of early mass-prodced goods were branded with company insignia to aid their distribution from factories and the differentiate them from locally produced competitor products.
Kellogg's and Cambell's emplyed founder's signature to gain trust
other longlasting logos originating from this time include those of Shell, Mercedez-Benz, Ford and Michilin.
But it was the german business that pioneered what is now called corporate identity. in 1906, the electrical goods group AEG hired an ' artistic advisor' , Peter Behrens. The logo he designed is still in used unchanged iin almost a cntury.
but the real age of logo arrived after WWII, when booming demand for goods in the USA, stoked by the new medium of television advertising, unleashed a new flood of new products and businesses. The growth in department stores and supermarkets meant that packaging had to work ten times as hard to catch the buyer's eye.
Logos and graphics that were visually simple and immediate won attention; applied consistently and repetitively acorss packaging and advertising, they wont loyalty.

Monday, 30 August 2010

A logo is not a brand unless it's on a cow

Logos are signs, marks of identity designed for easy recognition. they are used by every kind of organization in every part of the world, from international corporations to charities and from political parties to community groups and school. Logos also identify indinidual products and services.

Logos or 'brand identities' ( as created by these companies) are usually one small part of a far bigger identity package, which can include a new name and slogan the development of a 'brand architecture' and numerous applications of a corporate visual system and verbal 'tone of voice'.

However, the fact remains that the logo is the focal point of any identity system and the key to its acceptance.

from Logo, by Michael Evamy, Laurence King Publishing.

First and Second visit to England

I have many fond memories of my first visits to England. The one that stands out the most is somehow is the one where my parents took me to the Madame Tussuad's and we had to walk pass the 'torture' section and I couldn't stop crying. They took me there again on my second visit..I do not know why and I remembered to close my eyes but I still cried my hearts out anyway....

I remember being absolutely terrified of those wax models but thinking about it now, I find that that was one of my many fond memories....strange huh?

A visit to my old house

Sunday was the election day, I'm not entirely sure who or what we were voting for but I was just voting for the party I think I agree with....

Anyways, we had to go vote in the area of the house we were registered at and I was registered at our old house. So, after we were done voting, we paid a little visit to the old home where my 'nanny' now lives and house sit with her family. ( thats another story for another time )

Visiting the old house after so many year brought so many good memories back, they all came rushing back like it was just yesterday.

My mum's wardrobe has a top shelve ( on the left) and that was where my mum kept all the children exercise books...out of my reach. When I was little I was obsessed with books, more specifically children exercise books and children encyclopedias. I had so many animal books, then, it was obvious I was going to grow up to be some kinda of vet or biologist ( I don't know what happened between then and now...) Anyways, every time my mum bought me these exercise books ( they had simple logic problems, maths, thai and etc in them ) I would go through them so quick that my mum had to ration them out to me one at a time and keep the rest in her wardrobe, ou of my reach. I used to find a way to climb up and get those books anyway.

When I visited the old house,I went over to the wardrobe and now the shelve seems to be more out of reach for my mum than me.......

Everything in that house seemed smaller as well, and the street in front of our house.

The smell was the best. I went around the upstairs opening all the wardrobes, cupboards and draws and smelling them. The drawers where we kept all the videos still smells the same ( kinda damp, old and stale), to me it was the nicest smell. the smells didn't bring back a certain memory, it was more like, a feeling of being a kid living in that house again

Childhood memories...Nothing.

I have found nothing on Childhood memories. I need to find a library with lots and lots of books ....that aren't all about design!

The internet is just awful. I've typed in a million different words for 'childhood memories' and have found nothing apart form 'essays' written by...who knows!

There seem to be a few books written no this subject matter but I don't think I will find any here.

So, I guess the scientific stuff will just have to have to wait.

Chidhood Photographs

Fern, me and Fon at our old house. I don't actually remember them wearing those pajamas when they were little but I know that they used to love them and both of them slept with those silky things until recently... I think Fern still keeps hers in her bed...... They're 25 and 27.....