The Social Security Works logo emphasizes the message inherent in the organization’s name. Through typography and punctuation, the words become not just a name, but an emphatic statement. In previous designs that were considered, other iconography was used: pillars (which you’ll see on your Social Security card), an eagle, elements of the American flag. We eventually decided that all of these things were superfluous; the name says it all. The final logo utilizes bold typography and color to amplify what’s already there.

The animation above features a series of graphic statements developed as assisting materials in the graphic identity. You can see another version of this concept in the background of the Social Security Works Twitter page.

This idea was inspired by a series of blog posts that the Social Security Works team had written. These posts are titled Social Security Works for People of Color and so forth. The articles are informative and persuasive. These phrases and statements proved to be quite persuasive as well. They expound on the meaning present in the logo.

Above is a screenshot of the website I built at socialsecurity-works.org. This site is a branded, customized WordPress content management system. The header features a Javascript photo slideshow portraying a range of societal demographics that benefit from Social Security. The ‘Social Security Works…’ articles have been given their own prominent area of the left sidebar. The right sidebar is devoted to social networking.

Many thanks to the fine folks at Social Security Works.

]]> http://www.magneticstate.com/blogdept/2010/brand-identity-web-design-social-security-works/feed/ 0 http://www.magneticstate.com/blogdept/2010/the-age-of-miniature-design/ http://www.magneticstate.com/blogdept/2010/the-age-of-miniature-design/#comments Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:19:12 +0000 Dan Redding http://www.magneticstate.com/blogdept/?p=595 “Basically the future of web design is gonna be on a little tiny screen.” -Google designer Ryan Germick

It’s no secret that images need to reproduce at very small sizes in order to be effective online. And when I say ‘very small,’ I mean ‘the size of a pencil eraser.’ That’s freaking small. It’s always said that logos should be scalable (i.e. they need to function at large and small sizes), but we have moved into an era where scale itself has a different calibration. Twenty years ago, the smallest canvas you’d be likely to design for was a business card. Never before have artists or designers had to consistently focus on scales so miniature. I recently designed an album cover which I frequently shrunk to iPod/iTunes sizes to check its readability and visual impact (it’s looks rad and it’s coming in mid-May).

From left to right, the favicons above belong to WordPress, Google, and this blog. You might say that favicon design – which is typically 16 pixels by 16 pixels – is an art of its own (I squished a Warhol into a favicon here. I think he’d approve and/or laugh). It has been said that designing with the favicon in mind is the contemporary equivalent to the fax: designers used to stress that a logo or brand identity had to reproduce well in a low-quality black and white reproduction.

Favicons aside, the age of miniature design appears to be around for awhile. Handheld web devices continue to be a dominant form of web browsing. Digital information is commonly consumed in condensed and aggregated forms like RSS feeds. Most brands are frequently represented by images smaller than a postage stamp: the app button on your iPhone, the icons in your Twitter feed, etc.

Owners' marks on pottery, circa sixth century BCE.

In this type of design, simplification reigns. ‘Less is more’ is truer now than ever before. In brand identity, one great place to look for inspiration are be the simple runes and symbols of early forms of writing. Great power can be derived from very simple symbols and letterforms.

It’s also important to take every opportunity to spaz out and make drawings and designs that subscribe to the ‘more is more’ philosophy. An entirely minimalist world would be a boring place. Working at both ends of the spectrum will increase your skill with both ‘less’ and ‘more.’

During the last few weeks, some logo design pros have made casual remarks about how logo design is “not that hard to do.” It started with comments made by Pentagram partner Michael Bierut in this widely-circulated interview (I wrote about it here). Other designers have commented on it in their own blog posts, often acquiescing to Bierut’s remark that “The truth about logos is that they are not that hard to do.” David Airey agreed in this article, elaborating on the point to discuss the importance of complete brand identity strategies as opposed to mere logo designs (which was great advice from David as usual).

Both Bierut and Airey are excellent designers who make very valuable points about the importance of brand equity and the capital that a logo accrues during years of successful implementation in smart marketing campaigns. Fair enough. But the more I thought about it over a few days, the more I disagreed with Bierut’s dismissive comment that logos are “not that hard” to design.

It’s mediocre logos that are not that hard to design.

Great logos, on the other hand, require a trained hand, expertise in typography and symbolism, and a clever design mind. A great logo is one that not only embodies brand essence but one that creates a memorable impression that stands the test of time.

Here’s the problem. We live in a world that is utterly littered with logos and advertising. Our eyes are worn out from the repetition of the branded visual landscape. Many of us are jaded and cynical about the corporations whose representation is ubiquitous in our lives. And why shouldn’t we be? If you’ve ever seen the film The Corporation, there’s a montage where dozens of logos flash before your eyes. They seem utterly deflated when presented amongst a rapid slew of other similar symbols, all intending to do one thing: sell, sell, sell.

Our standards have been lowered. Logos are a dime a dozen in this digital landscape where the tools of design have shifted from the professional to the consumer. The playing field has been infiltrated by fledgling designers, students, and any kid with access to a Mac and a bootleg copy of CS2. As Bierut says, “So why not have a class of third graders compete to design your logo?” Trust me, the majority of logos that come from any of the aforementioned sources are mediocre at best, and the design quality will remain poor no matter how much marketing money you throw at the logo. Why fight an uphill battle trying to endow meaning in a shitty logo?

Spending a great deal of marketing and advertising money in order to inject brand equity into a poorly-designed logo is like putting very expensive lipstick on a pig.

The FedEx Logo

The FedEx logo, which I wrote about recently, is a great logo. It’s been a conversation piece for years and has provided the brand with a unique mark. (For the record – and the misuse of this word bothers me often – the word unique means “the only one of its kind,” or “unlike anything else.” It does not merely mean “somewhat different.”)

Chase Manhattan Bank Logo

The symbol used in the Chase Manhattan Bank logo is a mediocre design (although the sans-serif typeface designed for the combination mark is more appealing). This logo has provided a distinctive identifier for the brand, but beyond that, it has little representational meaning and it’s pretty boring to look at.

For examples of bad logos that look like they were designed by a class of third graders, take a look around you. They’re everywhere.

There’s a difference between a great design and a decent design. Making a shitty movie is not that hard to do (i.e. Robert DeNiro’s recent filmography). But making a masterpiece (i.e. Robert DeNiro’s early filmography) is fucking tough. Movies like that don’t come along every day, and that’s why you’d rather watch 1976′s Taxi Driver than his recent Everybody’s Fine (the title says it all: the movie is gonna be just, um, fine).

DeNiro goes off the deep end in 'Taxi Driver'; phones it in on the set of 'Everybody's Fine'

Personally, when I sit down to watch a movie, I want to see something exhilarating. If a movie is just okay, I’ll turn it off. Life’s too short for shit that is merely acceptable or passable.

The easy response to this article would be to say that Michael Bierut can afford to say that logo design’s no big deal. That’s true, but his statement isn’t.

Logo design and brand identity design are skills that take long years of hard work to become very good at. I have heroes in the field, I’m passionate about the art form, and I enjoy my work.

Ever see this one before?

Oh, and one last thing about Bierut’s interview. The Nike logo is a great logo. Bierut remarks, “The logo itself is really nothing, it’s just two curves, and it’s not hard to do.” As I stated before, this is like the tourist who stands in front of a Picasso and says, “My kid could paint that.”

Sure, most people could draw that simple shape, but few people can conceive of a logo that symbolically potent. Its simplicity is deceptive and it was designed by a college student for very little money. It’s simple, elemental, and representative of speed and motion on the level of pure visual symbolism. Yes, it gained much of its value through successful implementation in advertising and product association over time. But the logo has proved strong enough to support that. Nike has a reputation for sweatshop labor and I’ve never bought a pair of their sneakers – but I do think it’s a great logo.

Bierut elaborates by echoing a sentiment that I’ve heard Paul Rand discuss in the past: the belief that a logo design is far less important than the ‘brand equity’ achieved by successful implementation of the logo over time. In other words, the Nike swoosh was worth very little ($30 in its original sale, according to Bierut) before it was granted meaning in effective advertising for a few decades. “I actually don’t think that brand new logos are worth that much or mean that much in and of themselves,” says Bierut. “The way identity firms earn their money is in guiding a company into making a decision about one of these things and giving them a plan for actually using it so they can start to create value around it.”

The FedEx logo (designed by Lindon Leader at Landor Associates) is famous for the arrow cleverly embedded in the negative space of the design. Can you see it?

Personally, I never noticed it until I was told about it. Even then, I looked for it on the side of a passing FedEx truck, still didn’t see it, and forgot about it. One day it clicked in my mind and I saw it. It’s almost and optical illusion. We’re not used to looking for shapes in the negative space: at first glance, this logo appears to be only text. And it is.

I recently wrote about subconscious meaning versus conscious meaning in logo design. So my question is this: does the FedEx logo have some sort of subliminal or subconscious impact on viewers who haven’t explicitly noticed the arrow?

Personally, I believe the answer is no. This logo carries with it all sorts of qualities expressed in color and the bold, unique shapes of the letterforms. But I do not think the arrow had any impact on my mind until the day that I visibly saw it.

I’m not saying that’s a bad thing – quite the opposite. The FedEx arrow functions as a clever visual secret. It’s a fun element that has probably been the subject of casual conversation among FedEx employees and customers for decades. We’re discussing it now, aren’t we? It’s a distinctive logo with a lot of personality.

You may disagree and say that this logo plants an unseen, subliminal arrow in the mind of unsuspecting viewers, implying forward motion or progress. Logo design is subjective and open to interpretation. That is perhaps the art form’s greatest power and deepest beauty.

I just read a quote from graphic designer hero Paul Rand that really made me think. Rand is quoted in this Smashing Magazine article about logo design as defining a logo thusly: “a logo is a flag, a signature, an escutcheon, a street sign. A logo does not sell (directly), it identifies. A logo is rarely a description of a business. A logo derives meaning from the quality of the thing it symbolizes, not the other way around. A logo is less important than the product it signifies; what it represents is more important than what it looks like. The subject matter of a logo can be almost anything.”

This view on the meaning of a logo is no longer true. In fact, it has been reversed.

Again, Rand is my hero and I look to his work for inspiration regularly, but his most well-known designs were created during the 60′s, 70′s, and 80′s. Corporate branding has evolved drastically in the decades since.

According to Naomi Klein’s No Logo (published in 2000, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in branding or corporate identity), “The astronomical growth in the wealth and cultural influence of multinational corporations over the last fifteen years can arguably be traced back to a single, seemingly innocuous idea developed by management theorists in the mid-1980′s: that successful corporations must primarily produce brands, as opposed to products.”

In other words, Nike’s corporate identity – including, but not limited to, its ubiquitous ‘Swoosh’ logo – carries much more value and meaning than any pair of sneakers. In fact, that pair of Nikes will wear out in a few months (and you might purchase whatever new model they happen to be hawking at the time), but the Swoosh will remain untarnished as an image emblazoned on the side of billions of products and ads – and more importantly, as an idea in the minds of countless consumers.

Mr.Rand says that a logo derives meaning from the qualities of the thing it represents. But what about the generic package of cheaply-produced shoelaces that bear the Nike logo on the label? Surely consumers pay more for these shoelaces because the product is deriving meaning from the logo, and therefore, the brand.

During Mr.Rand’s career, the logo existed to support the product. For many of today’s megabrands, the product has become secondary to the idea of the brand and the logo’s symbolization of that idea.

The challenge for us graphic designers is to use this powerful tool for good and not evil! If you have skill and talent as a logo designer, use it to strengthen those brands and companies whose goals and motives you trust and admire (a.k.a. not Nike).

If Mr.Rand were still with us today, I’m sure he’d be at the forefront of developments like these. Here’s a classic interview with the endearing, no-nonsense designer for old-time’s sake.