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What should a logo for NeXT look like? (1986)

paulrand.design

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Re: What should a logo for NeXT look like? (1986)

#61

Post by pinkmuffinere »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #45
scrlk wrote: post #42

The logo got a second lease of life after NeXT was acquired by Apple. A bit of British political trivia: Dominic Cummings, the campaign director of the Vote Leave organisation in the 2016 Brexit referendum, nicked the NeXT logo and made a few tweaks for Vote Leave : > The logo was stolen from Steve Jobs. We couldn’t afford to hire a top agency and they wouldn’t have worked with us anyway. So I thought about Jobs’ adv…

Diabolical. I followed your link expecting to see some hack work, and I guess technically it is hack work, but that "ballot box" thing really works . ugh.

I think there’s probably a bit of survivorship bias here — we know if this anecdote because the ballot box concept is actually quite good. But of course there are other “rip offs” that are bad (blonic the hedgehog?). The idea to make a small change was clever imo, but doesn’t guarantee a great design. I think the ballot box design was either “lucky” or “inspired”, perhaps without the creator even realizing it.

Re: What should a logo for NeXT look like? (1986)

#62

Post by heavensteeth »

The logo presentation booklet's cover - with just the letters N E X T in white scattered across a black page - is simply beautiful to me. I can't put into words what about it appeals to me. I can only imagine the effort put into that cover was far greater than it may appear.

Re: What should a logo for NeXT look like? (1986)

#63

Post by hashtag-til »

dmd wrote: post #35
joezydeco wrote: post #9

I always go back to the Saul Bass presentation to AT&T over their 1970 logo redesign. He takes 30 minutes to explain the thought process and sell this design hard . By the end you're convinced it's the natural thing to do. I'm sure every executive in the room felt the same way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKu2de0yCJI (Bass would return a mere 13 years later to do the AT&T "Death Star" logo after the breakup)

And then there's Pepsi. https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell...

Right. What am I looking at? It seems clearly a case that it started with the final logo they wanted and finished with 27 pages of pure justification BS.

Re: What should a logo for NeXT look like? (1986)

#64

Post by eps »

Scene_Cast2 wrote: post #10

I might be in the minority, but the NeXT logo never looked good to me - there's something off with projection of the cube.

Yep and it's not just the cube projection. It was in not a very good contrast with the futuristic elegance of the machine. First time I saw a NeXT in person, the logo looked like a placeholder of some sort, glaringly out of place.

Re: What should a logo for NeXT look like? (1986)

#65

Post by Lammy »

hashtag-til wrote: post #63
dmd wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then there's Pepsi. https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell...

Right. What am I looking at? It seems clearly a case that it started with the final logo they wanted and finished with 27 pages of pure justification BS.

Seems wildly successful to me considering we're all still talking about it despite the fact that they don't even use the logo any more.

Re: What should a logo for NeXT look like? (1986)

#66

Post by vitaflo »

grahamj wrote: post #16

I find it interesting that the final logo choice is not like any of the sketches. You could imagine that someone came along and went "no, not like any of that" and came up with something different. It's also humorous to me that the designer was considering something that looks like an hour glass for the X. Imagine using a symbol for your powerful new computer that essentially means "wait".

They're sketches, it's part of the brainstorming process. As stated in the final presentation, Rand was trying to get away from the capital "EXT" in the name from reading like "EXIT". He ended up using a lowercase E for that, but it's obvious from the sketches he started first by stylizing the X instead, basing it on the Bifur typeface (as referenced in the presentation booklet).

Since the logo with the "hourglass" styling was never presented to NeXT, it was obvious that it wasn't considered a strong candidate to show as part of the design process for any number of reasons.

It's important to remember that brainstorming and sketching are just that. You're just trying to get all the ideas out there, you critique them afterwards. We usually do not see those sketches, so I wouldn't take them literally.

Re: What should a logo for NeXT look like? (1986)

#67

Post by _joel »

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #49
scrlk wrote: post #42

The logo got a second lease of life after NeXT was acquired by Apple. A bit of British political trivia: Dominic Cummings, the campaign director of the Vote Leave organisation in the 2016 Brexit referendum, nicked the NeXT logo and made a few tweaks for Vote Leave : > The logo was stolen from Steve Jobs. We couldn’t afford to hire a top agency and they wouldn’t have worked with us anyway. So I thought about Jobs’ adv…

For other reasons, I had come cross Cummings substack a couple of weeks ago - highly instructive, no wonder he was ejected from UK gov circles ...

Yea, maybe shouldn't have gone to Barnard Castle to get his eyes tested though.

Re: What should a logo for NeXT look like? (1986)

#68

Post by LightBug1 »

scrlk wrote: post #42

The logo got a second lease of life after NeXT was acquired by Apple. A bit of British political trivia: Dominic Cummings, the campaign director of the Vote Leave organisation in the 2016 Brexit referendum, nicked the NeXT logo and made a few tweaks for Vote Leave : > The logo was stolen from Steve Jobs. We couldn’t afford to hire a top agency and they wouldn’t have worked with us anyway. So I thought about Jobs’ adv…

Reverberations of the Nazi's stealing the Swastika ...
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