Everything that glitters...

Everything that glitters is not gold…

Every logo doesn’t have a story untold!!

Let me tell you about some of the very famous stories associated with even more famous logos.

Nike: The ‘swoosh’ logo. Nike stands for the Greek goddess of victory and the swoosh is the representation of the wings of the goddess drawn for representing ‘movement’. An interesting fact… the designer of the logo got just $35 dollar for the design!!

Bacardi: Umpteen numbers of bats hanging under the roof of the distillery in Santiago Cuba never had the faintest idea that they were going to be the part of the brand forever. Also, fruit bats (god knows what this variety is) are a symbol of good luck in Cuba.

Lacoste: Rene Lacoste won a bet against the captain of French
davis cup team who promised him a crocodile-skin suitcase. Guess what… Lacoste won and got the name ‘The crocodile’ and hence the logo.

Apple: The biblical story of Adam and Eve in which the ‘Apple’ represented the fruit of the tree of knowledge. The repercussions of what happened after taking the bite is something we all know. This logo supposedly entices people to pursue their dreams.

Nice stories… aren’t they? But how many such stories are there and how many of them are genuine? And is it really necessary to have such kind of concept/story to create a good logo? How many of us knew that Nike is the name of the Greek goddess of victory? And of those who knew it actually knew it because of the popularity of the brand and not because of the popularity of the goddess. Adding to it… do you really feel that swoosh represent a wing?

If I am sounding like a human right activist trying to criticize Nike for the child labor in Sialkot Pakistan… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I just want to counter the tacit misconception that great brands have a great logo and a great concept behind that logo. We remember many of the brands & logos because of the performance of the company and product and not because of the ingenuity and creativeness of the logo. The logo just makes it easier for us to associate the product with the some intangible quality

So the question comes up that what makes a logo a ‘good’ logo. Well, generally accepted qualities of a good logo are:

Originality: It should be novel and unique.

Legibility: The idea should be lucid and easy to understand

Simplicity: It’s all about KISSing… Keeping is Sweet & Simple

Attractiveness: It should be eye catching and good enough to get registered in the mind.

Association: It should have a clear association with the product and service

Color combination: It should suit the way the brand is positioned

Representative: It should match with the characteristics of the company/brand name.

This list is obviously not exhaustive and does not represent any priority of the qualities. In the next few posts I’ll try to figure out how the perception of a similar logotype may vary from person to person.

LOGO's bLOG's proLOGue

The rime of Ancient Brander:

Logos, Logos, everywhere…

And all the BRANDS did shrink,

Logos, Logos, everywhere…

Nor anything else to think

Prologue:

There is a stark difference between an Excuse and an Explanation… though people seldom notice it***. Today… a long time after writing ‘CB Blog’ in my ‘Things to do’ list… I’m finally starting off with it. Now what follows can be termed as either of the two ‘E’ lettered words I mentioned earlier.

No.1: It takes time to actually create a LOGO

Especially once you’ve been introduced to the fundas of ‘Semiotics’ in your Consumer behavior (CB) class. As a member of the M@Dcom (Merchandising & DESIGN committee) I created two logos (which I’ll share with you in due course of time) keeping in mind the basics of CB to find out what goes in the psyche of person when he deliberately contemplates about a visual representation of a name.

No.2: It takes time to read a 500 odd page book

Especially when the author’s style is not as enchanting & mesmerizing as the one you are used to. I’m reading the book “No Logo” by Naomi Klein and will try to relate her ‘unorthodox’ points to make things interesting.

Now if even after reading these two points you feel I’m just making an excuse of being so late in writing the blog… refer to *** :D

Ahem!! Let me talk about LOGOs now. First and the foremost… Do you know that LOGO is the short for ‘Logotype’ which is a graphic or design that identifies a brand, a company or an organization!!

There are some very specific things that I would like to ‘discuss’ with the help of this blog. It’s going to be about the things that are very simple and commonplace but we don’t realize it until we give a serious thought to it. It’s going to be about the perception that we have about few of the most famous brands and their performance of the product playing a crucial role in the popularity of the logo. It’s going to be about common characteristics between some very popular logos. It’s going to be about the different ways people perceive a graphic symbol.

If you notice, in the above paragraph I've very smartly put an important word... 'discuss'. Because when I thought about the 'It's going to be about' list, it gave me this creepy feeling that it might get e bit boring. And hence I request you to be as interactive as possible. Please, please... pretty please, (this reminds me of someone) give me all sorts of feedback... Just try avoiding the expletives as this is an academic activity and will be evaluated.