An image or a symbol is not hard to do. Sure, anyone can draw a rectangle, a square, or any abstract shape. By following this logic, anyone can do a logo then.

Logo design is more that just merely drawing though. Graphic design is about communicating effectively, and the same goes for logo design. It’s not about just putting a symbol on top of a name. A logo is often considered my many people the “brand identity”. A good logo designer spends only a fraction of the time “drawing”. The rest of the time is spent on research, conceptualizing, gathering ideas and information, discarding information, etc., all in favor of communicating effectively.

Visual identity, branding, and marketing are all tied up.

Personally I think the chase logo is a good logo. It’s works for it’s purpose.

I made a similar interpretation to Chris (about Bierut’s words) when Chris stated:

“What I think the gist of his argument was in regards to designing logos is that as far a designing an aesthetically pleasing logo design, for someone who calls [themselves] and works as a professional designer, this is ‘design 101′ it should be expected.”

Thanks very much, by the way, for the comments you’ve left on my blog.

I have utmost for respect Mr. Bierut’s views and I’m a big fan of Pentagram (I covered the studio’s history quite extensively in this article I wrote for Smashing Magazine). I hope I made my respect clear in my blog post. I did write aggressively here (especially the title) because I decided that I wanted to speak my mind without censoring myself. I tried to do so respectfully.

Defending the challenges of good logo design was a strange position to find myself in – imagine if you were an aspiring basketball player working on your slam dunk and Michael Jordan came out in the press and said, “A slam dunk is not that hard to do.” You’d probably have a WTF moment, at least briefly.

I realize that Mr. Bierut was being hyperbolic when he said “So why not have a class of third graders compete to design your logo?” Regardless, for those of us who are skeptical of the merits of crowdsourcing, that kind of remark can be troubling.

You said, “I think an ugly logo can be effective as a brand.” Sure, I suppose so, but that doesn’t make it something to aspire to. And personally, I don’t think the MTV logo is ugly. It’s got a lot of character and the way it was used as a vessel for a variety of imagery and styles was a revolution in brand identity.

You also said the Bierut interview “was transcribed pretty much verbatim.” Either it’s verbatim or it’s not! I would suggest that any writer or blogger that conducts a serious interview with a professional should take great care to ensure that the transcription is entirely accurate.

Anyways, thanks very much for stopping by and commenting. I appreciate your input into the discussion that has arisen from your thoughtful questions with Michael Bierut!