The most overused logos, at the moment • Hacker News Board

Re: The most overused logos, at the moment

#41

Post by Retric » Tue, Jul 22, 2014, 10:42 PM UTC

jwallaceparker wrote: post #35

When I was young my great-grandfather started a tanning business, in the sense that he was a tanner who produced leather goods. He had to buy a sign to put above his shop. The sign maker asked him if he wanted to put a logo on the sign, too. "Why?" asked my grandfather. "So people will recognize your business," said the sign maker. "That's what the name is for," answered grandfather. Even at the time I thought this w…

Logos seem more important in the physical realm than the digital one. Great for advertizing on Bilbords, shirts, TV etc but meaningless when the goal is to click the link not remember the company.

Re: The most overused logos, at the moment

#42

Post by thaumasiotes » Tue, Jul 22, 2014, 10:48 PM UTC

GFischer wrote: post #31

ChrisLTD wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the point of a logo is to convey what the company does, then just about every classic logo fails. Just to name a few, the logos for Apple, IBM, Coca-Cola, UPS, Nike, BMW, Shell, McDonalds, and GE give no clues as to what the company does.

When I was looking into this, I found two schools of thought, some people think the best thing is to have a unique name and logo, which gives no clue but is unique and rememberable. Others think it's better to have a descriptive name and logo. The first approach has the disadvantage of requiring more branding, while the second has the disadvantage of being less distinctive. I think that the first approach works best…

Descriptive names are not popular with existing businesses because they're hard to trademark.

Re: The most overused logos, at the moment

#43

Post by mojuba » Tue, Jul 22, 2014, 10:54 PM UTC

timthorn wrote: post #37

What's interesting to me (as an Englishman with family connections to the USA) is that all the logos feel very American. I can't put my finger on why, but there's something that marks them out as coming from that culture.

I think it is characteristic to the American entrepreneurship culture to "reuse" success stories. The public likes your blockbuster? Make a sequel or even a shameless copy. It will yield less profit than the original obviously, but may prove to be more profitable than some new untested experimental idea.

I don't think the logos in this article have anything specifically American in them, it's just the reuse culture. First time you see a logo of a real estate agnecy with a nice abstract roof you say "wow, this is cool". In the US it means it will be copied a thousand times until it starts annoying everyone. Then it's time for a new "wow" idea.

Re: The most overused logos, at the moment

#44

Post by WaxProlix » Tue, Jul 22, 2014, 10:58 PM UTC

So if these are instances of a bad logo, what makes a good one?

Re: The most overused logos, at the moment

#45

Post by Kluny » Tue, Jul 22, 2014, 10:59 PM UTC

timthorn wrote: post #37

What's interesting to me (as an Englishman with family connections to the USA) is that all the logos feel very American. I can't put my finger on why, but there's something that marks them out as coming from that culture.

They also invented the concept of national flags. Might have something to do with that.

Re: The most overused logos, at the moment

#46

Post by bhickey » Tue, Jul 22, 2014, 11:02 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #38

Can someone explain the first example? A name with an arc through the name. What's the design purpose? Because most of them look a bit like the name has been crossed out. I could understand it if the arcs were behind the name - that would mean the name is kind of hovering over a sphere. But lots of the examples show the name behind that arc. EDIT: one of the later categories is "Use of the font 'satisfaction'". I loo…

> Can someone explain the first example?

I think the arc is the Earth.

Re: The most overused logos, at the moment

#47

Post by awendt » Tue, Jul 22, 2014, 11:12 PM UTC

WaxProlix wrote: post #44

So if these are instances of a bad logo, what makes a good one?

See “What Makes A Great Logo”, http://www.code-interactive.com/thinker/a112.html

Re: The most overused logos, at the moment

#48

Post by jleader » Tue, Jul 22, 2014, 11:18 PM UTC

I liked "Midwest Dental Arts", in the group described as "The company's acronym cut in two colors by an arc (usually Trajan font)". All the other logos in the group have a downwards-concave arc; the dental logo is concave upwards, like a smile. It may be a little hokey, but it's the only one in the group that's playing with the cliche.

Re: The most overused logos, at the moment

#49

Post by jedberg » Tue, Jul 22, 2014, 11:21 PM UTC

The best advice I ever heard about logos was from Mat Groening, creator of Simpsons and Futurama. He said, "Whenever I make a main character, I try to make them recognizable as a simple black and white silhouette". Think about Bart, Homer, Marge, Lisa, Bender, Fry, Leela. All of them instantly recognizable with just a few solid lines.

If you do the same with your logo, it will be super memorable and recognizable. Think about all the best ones -- Nike, Apple, Mcdonalds. The reddit logo and HN's "Y" follow that rule too.

Re: The most overused logos, at the moment

#50

Post by notahacker » Tue, Jul 22, 2014, 11:23 PM UTC

incision wrote: post #19

As the article admits - 'Although, generally, the quality of work is high...' the general quality of these designs is interesting to me. Historically, low-quality art and design was a good (though certainly not conclusive) indicator of a low quality product. These days, every fly by night business can have a slick logo, every shovelware game can gleam in stills thanks to the underlying engine and every inane YouTuber…

Social networks and learning/recommendation features are a cause of rather than the solution to this problem.

These cookie-cutter logos are churned out in "design competitions" where designers have social proof of what people actually buy and/or their peers upvote to base their designs on. The conclusion is that using the last set of successful designs as a template is far more likely to be chosen than anything genuinely original (as well as quicker to knock out when you're not being paid by the hour and the tools you have at your disposal are very conducive to tweaking). See also the dominance of the "ten reasons why this Buzzfeed article will grab more attention than your thoroughly-researched article" school of churnalism. Ultimately, lowering the barriers to becoming a gatekeeper or influencer has a far worse effect on quality than lowering the barriers to producing something vaguely competent, and both flood the market with mediocrity.

On the flip-side, many well known companies spend millions on rebranding and get similarly generic logos, and ten years ago the people commissioning most of these would probably have wound up with something involving clipart.