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Just Brand It
Once just pictures on paper, corporate logos today adapt to new
media — and heightened expectations
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Business New Haven
2/21/2000
By: BNH
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In days of yore, when literacy was as rare as a poor politician is today, tradesmen and merchants needed a way to communicate quickly to the great unread information about their goods and services. Hence the optician's outsized eyeglasses, the butcher's boar's head, the barber's striped pole, the cobbler's shoe - even the house of ill repute's red light.
These were society's first logos, those symbols that distinguish one provider's goods and services from all others.
“That legacy has continued on,” suggests Ron Nonken, professor of graphic design and dean of Paier College of Art in Hamden. “Now everyone feels they have to have a logo,” even though the original purpose of communicating without words has long passed.
Businesses today invest more energy and money than ever to develop graphic symbols or typographical treatments of their name that communicates something important and intangible about the company.
Logos Evoke Feelings
Nike's famous swoosh symbol perhaps is the best known logo in advertising. According to Chris Arinson, art director for Milford-based Barbeau-Hutchings Advertising, design legend has it that Nike founder Phil Knight paid a friend many years ago $35 to come up with the logo for his then-fledgling company.
“Now the swoosh is universally known,” Arinson says, “so much so that it doesn't even need the company's name to accompany it.”
“The Nike logo is fabulous,” agrees MaryLou Cadwell, owner of Cadwell Art Direction, a Madison design shop. “It's simple, different and distinctive. And it moves!”
Such implied action in the Nike swoosh is a much-sought but rarely achieved goal in logo design, graphics experts say. Businesses ask designers to come up with an identifier that, at a glance, conveys the company's culture and attitude. Too often, that's a tall order.
“Expectations are too high,” sighs Nonken. “We all are taught to think that logos should be corporate blue and use the letters of the company in a distinctive way. And 90 percent of logos do in fact look like that. The few that break out do something different.”
Like Nike. “The swoosh is pure attitude, the essence of that company,” Nonken says. “And the 'Just Do It' slogan is the verbal embodiment of the swoosh.”
Today's logos go beyond the simple barber's pole to attempt to communicate to an audience an image or a feeling about a business. Often, after months of discussions with executives, employees and customers, graphic designers will develop pictorial representations of a company that conveys a valued feeling to customers and prospects.
“A logo speaks volumes about a company,” explains Arinson, of Barbeau-Hutchings Advertising. “Whether the company is huge or just a mom-and-pop concern, it shows how they think and present themselves.”
He cites the “Good Hands” logo of Allstate Insurance as effective, if old-fashioned. Cadwell points to the Traveler's Corp.'s red umbrella. As insurers, it comes as no surprise that these companies hope to convey a sense of security and helpfulness.
Nonken suggests that the CBS eye logo works well in communicating that network's legacy of news excellence and vigilance.
Trendy Colors for Fickle Audiences
Cadwell says designers must tolerate a color theory that changes often. “Teal was clearly the color of the 1990s,” she laughs. Teal, especially, has been used to appeal to youthful audiences; it shows up on the New Haven Ravens logo, for example.
Cadwell herself uses softer greens and purples - “the feeling colors,” she says - to characterize businesses or enterprises involved in, for instance, health care.
Other logos use dramatic graphic elements to create an identity, instead of an attitude, for the company: the turned-up corner of Kodak's film-processing paper, the yellow rectangle symbol that has come to signify the National Geographic Society and its magazines and other media. These logos “mean nothing at first, but they begin to stand for the company,” says Nonken.
The professor especially favors Lucent Technologies' red circle. An advertising veteran, Nonken remembers that Lucent was, until the mid-1980s, the research and development arm of the Bell System. At that time Lucent was known as Bell Labs and was owned by AT&T. Now Lucent is a publicly held company that has created in a few short years a reputation as a superior innovator and marketer of sophisticated communications equipment.
The Lucent logo, Nonken says, “looks like you painted it on the side of a barn with a four-inch brush.” Its classic simplicity and rough-hewn edges suggest fast response, confidence and innovation - not bad attributes to have in technology-mad times.
“It's the opposite of their roots,” Nonken explains. “Corporate blue would be playing it safe. They're challenging the viewer” with the Lucent red circle.
Onto the Internet
Alhough logos historically were created for use on paper, buildings, motor vehicles, billboards, and even T-shirts, their portability into the interactive world of the Internet occasionally can misfire.
That shouldn't be the case, argues Cadwell. “You always start with a logo in black and white and build from there, from newspapers to the Yellow Pages, right on up to the Web. To work well on the Web, however, there ought to be some flexibility in the use of the logo - the ability to add dimension or movement.”
Nonken agrees, saying that businesses transferring their identities to the Web should “take full advantage of all the techniques they have available.” Since the Web is interactive, corporate identities that desire to stand out may use animation or motion to capture Web surfers' eyeballs.
And it is Internet companies themselves, not surprisingly, that are breaking the rules of corporate naming and design. Many Web-based companies, such as Yahoo! and Amazon.com have names and logo treatments that do nothing more than call attention to them. “Just the name of the company, Yahoo!, and its exclamation point, jumps out at you,” says Arinson. “How can you avoid noticing it?”
Which, after all, is the whole purpose.
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