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.’

Two vintage title screens from Columbia Pictures

My first goal was a new logo that represented the ‘Blog Dept.’ as an entity that functions both as a component of Magnetic State as well as a standalone publication. In both the name of this blog and the design of the logo, I was inspired by film noir movies (you know, the black and white ones where Humphrey Bogart carries a flask and a revolver in his trenchcoat and says ‘dame’ a lot). I always admired the title screens and studio i.d.’s from these films from the thirties and forties, and I specifically emulated the three-dimensional block letter effects of Columbia Pictures (above). I used a somewhat wild color combination to give my design a modern flair.

Bogart pursues the facts and just the facts. Notice the bold 'Spade and Archer' label on the window.

In films like The Maltese Falcon (pictured), there’s always a business name on the detective’s window or an officer’s name and title on the frosted door window of a cop’s office. I liked the idea that this blog is a ‘department’ at Magnetic State and that the logo can serve as the title on the door, if you will.

As for the web design, I intended to prioritize the content. My previous layout placed blog posts under a distracting header, but now the blog content has plenty of room to breathe, is prioritized vertically, and is more readable. I am thankful for Small Potato’s tutorial on writing WordPress themes, which I have referred to many times over the last year or two. I consider myself an expert on custom WordPress themes now; I have one bare-bones theme that I wrote by hand (from SP’s instructions) which I’ve customized for each of my last four or five WP sites.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you’ll subscribe via RSS! I have some big things planned for this blog as well as a bunch of new design work to unveil in the next few weeks.

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.

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.

In New York City, a simple stroll down the street carries with it a barrage of dozens – even hundreds – of logos. They all seek our attention, remind us of products or experiences, and ultimately, plant seeds of brand meaning in our minds. Logo design can be a deceptive art – it often seeks to give us thoughts we didn’t know we had. Advertisers believe that repetition of a brand identity (a brand’s name, logo, and meaning) can create trust among consumers. In other words, if you simply see enough Pepsi commercials, you might be more likely to reach for a bottle of Pepsi during that split-second decision in the aisle at the store. Your experiences haven’t changed, but your beverage preference has been branded. Just like the hot iron a farmer uses on his cattle, an allegiance has been stamped into your brain. Sound creepy? I agree. Drink water. It’s free (not the bottled kind – Pepsi owns that).

So my question is this: how often are we aware of the impact a logo has had on us – or the brand essence it has instilled? Let’s look at one example.

This is not a banner ad.

I noticed a baseball game on television while I was in the gym (I’d never be watching baseball game under other circumstances). There was a huge Delta Airlines banner emblazoned on the wall right behind the batter.

I spent the next fifteen minutes of my workout critiquing the logo in my head. Yes, it’s true – nerd alert! – graphic designers like me spend much of our days walking around thinking about logos (a professor of mine once said, “There is no office for this job; this job is in your head”).

So I found myself scrutinizing the Delta logo, and I wondered, what does it mean? On first glance, without any fancy design jargon, it’s a triangle that says ‘Delta’ next to it, right? WTF is the purpose of that?

The Delta logo conveys meaning on a variety of levels – both conscious and subconscious.

Let’s start with some definitions. This logo is a combination mark, meaning that it is a logo consisting of text and an image. The image, in this case, is a triangle. More specifically, it’s a triangle that’s bisected (by a stripe of negative space) into two shapes: one, another triangle, the other, a sort of arrowhead shape. These two shapes appear to have a shadow on one side, which makes them appear three-dimensional. When considered as a three-dimensional object, the shape appears as a pyramid instead of a triangle. It can appear two-dimensional or three-dimensional, depending on how you want to look at it. Therefore, the dimensionality of the shape takes on the effect of an optical illusion, which is almost always a welcome effect in a logo.

Delta, the fourth letter in the Greek alphabet, is symbolized by a triangle

When considered on a figurative level, the triangle could represent the simplified shape of wings or a plane itself (if you imagine a plane from birds-eye view, facing vertically).

When considered on a symbolic level, the triangle represents Delta, the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet. I was unaware of that fact until I researched the logo (check out this evolution of the Delta logo).

When considered on a poetic level, the abstract shapes in the triangle suggest ascendancy. All angles point upward, lifting the eye vertically through the simple shape. It is an arrow pointing up. The idea of ascendancy implies flight. It also implies superiority, greatness, the pinnacle.

The typography in ‘D E L T A’ is loosely kerned so that a lot of white space is opened up between the characters. This gives the word an airy feeling, like it’s floating. Flight, ascendancy, and the sky are implied.

Belushi at Delta House, Greek Delta, Delta Airlines

Despite all this theorizing on my part, my guess is that if you approached a random dude on the street and asked him what he saw in the Delta logo, he might say: it says ‘Delta’ next to a triangle. And he’d be right. Maybe he’d say “it looks like a pyramid” or “it looks like a plane,” or, if he were ever in a fraternity, “the triangle means Delta.” Most people aren’t design nerds like me and they don’t sit around philosophizing about this stuff – they’re not supposed to. Corporate logos are designed to communicate with everyone; in fact, many of them intend to breach broad cultural and geographic boundaries. But what’s the purpose if no one in the audience knows what they’ve seen?

The purpose is that those ideas of ascendancy and greatness and flight have been implied -  on a subconscious level – in the minds of millions of viewers who haven’t given it a moment’s thought. They don’t have to think about it, and it’s supposed to be that way. Sure, there’s a different impact of meaning from one person to the next – that’s the beauty of art.

We make judgments based on subconscious visual information all the time: you might meet someone who you feel that you can trust simply based on her smile, or you might click away from a website that’s poorly designed without knowing what repelled you.

The Delta logo conveys meaning on a variety of levels, which gives it depth and strength. It prefers implications over proclamations. It is subtle and austere. I’m not saying it’s the best logo in the world – it’s rather dull at first glance – but I do think it’s effective. Its meanings are all subjective and open to interpretation. This is a strength.

Director William Friedkin (left) used subliminal imagery in 'The Exorcist'

Subconscious communication is so effective because it’s inherent in our lives. We’re used to it. We communicate subconscious meaning with body language all day long. Movies manipulate our thoughts and emotions with music, cinematography, and all of the other tools in a filmmaker’s arsenal.

One of the best examples of emotional manipulation in movies is The Exorcist, a.k.a. the scariest film ever made. In his masterpiece, director William Friedkin utilized what is often referred to as ‘subliminal imagery.’ There are terrifying images of demon faces that appear onscreen for a fraction of a second several times during the film. They are only visible for a flash, and the result is that you feel almost as though you’ve seen an apparition, or something that only appeared in your mind. It’s part of the reason why this film continues to disturb and frighten audiences so thoroughly. The film works on conscious levels with its use of makeup, character, and dialogue. But its effects on the subconscious lend it further, deeper resonance: it almost feels as though the film’s evil powers intrude on parts of the mind that lesser films don’t have access to.

Logo designs don’t need to function on more levels than one. A cute logo of a cat is exactly that. But even a logo like that will derive meaning from your associations with the endearing qualities of animals.

Artistic meaning is an elusive critter. This is partly because art is capable of tapping into subconscious areas of the mind that can defy logic and reason. Beneath the surface, we all possess emotional reactions and associations with imagery. The best graphic design will take advantage of that.

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.

Here are ten animal logos from around the world, dating from probably as far back as fifty years ago. All of them come from my studio reference files (except for the Okocim logo, which comes from one of my favorite local Greenpoint beverages), so unfortunately some of them are unattributed. Enjoy!

Kesht & Sanat Arya (Iran)

Italrex Spa- Petrol Research & Extraction (Italy)

Love Teeth - Shinwa Corporation (Japan)

European Federation for Animal Protection (France)

Vaqueria Victoria (Mexico)

Okocim Beer (Poland)