December 12, 2007

Logo-palooza

I love well-designed logos. Some of my favorites are not only clean and clear but also clever. There's an "Aha!" moment hidden in the design. Like a Gestalt effect, your mind fills in a gap or makes a connection and suddenly 1 + 1 = 3.

Here are a few of my favorites:


NBC's famous peacock. Love the white space and the use of color.
The Amazon logo says two things: We have everything from "A to Z" and the smiley face portrays shopping as fun.
The Big Ten conference is actually 11 teams now. Notice how they worked in an 11 in the negative space.
I've always liked this vintage logo from the Milwaukee Brewers. The glove is made from the letters M and B.
The rail transport company CSX recently added the brackets and dots which paint the familiar picture of CSX rail cars.
A beautifully designed logo for New York's effort to land the 2012 Olympic Games.
Nice use of lettering by the Arizona Diamondbacks to form a snake's head.
Another clever use of white space by F1 Racing.
This may be the most famous use of white space in a company logo. Once you see the arrow, you'll always see it.
Notice how the U's and N's in the word Sun are used to create the S.


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27 Comments:

Blogger mandrill said...

Nice,
I'll be looking for that more in future.

December 16, 2007 4:36 PM  
Blogger Loupismcw said...

Yes, I'll be seeing that freaking arrow forever now. Ahhh!

December 16, 2007 7:46 PM  
Blogger Jessica Cangiano said...

I've also always loved the NBC peacock logo, especially older retro versions, circa late 1950s and early 80s. (I'm all for the subtle sheen and panache of web 2.0 style logos and graphics, but sometimes I'm a total sucker for the classics, too.)

December 17, 2007 4:21 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't think these are great examples of logo design - besides the NBC one -

December 17, 2007 5:53 AM  
OpenID pizzabote2000 said...

I never knew there's a frickin' arrow in FedEx. But now it'll follow me in my dreams... damn you ;)

December 17, 2007 7:32 AM  
Anonymous digital_me said...

I think amazon's logo is really great work!

December 17, 2007 7:35 AM  
Blogger Mark said...

You realize that the Sun logo doesnt just use U and N to make S, They use U's and N's to make the S but if you continue to the right it also spells SUN. :)

December 17, 2007 1:36 PM  
Anonymous Alan said...

Mark - Yes, I saw that in the Sun logo. But you explained it better than I did. :-)

December 17, 2007 1:47 PM  
Anonymous Canadian Guy said...

Ever seen the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's 'exploding pizza' logo? It's a classic in Canadian design, with the letters forming what looks like the shape of a speaker (CBC does radio and television). Well, either a speaker or an exploding pizza, I guess.

December 17, 2007 10:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I like Fedex and Amazon...Best Buy has a pretty groovy logo as well. I've always liked the text that truckblog used on their site too, http://www.truckblog.com

December 17, 2007 11:20 PM  
Blogger Some Idiot said...

NBC and Amazon is great.

I really like the NBA logo, it's always been one of my favorites

December 18, 2007 4:04 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Northwest used to have a great logo, very efficient...

December 19, 2007 1:08 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

the Milwaukee Brewers logo is one of my favorite logos of all time... and I dont like the Brewers.

December 21, 2007 1:36 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks, this was very interesting and fun to see. Your logo is good too and I like the accompanying words.

December 23, 2007 11:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree with the previous comment about Northwest. The old logo used to be an N, a W, and a triangle pointing to the northwest--all in one!

December 24, 2007 11:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Don't like the Brewers either, but the m & b is a perfect logo. One of my favorites!

December 25, 2007 12:34 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You can add to this list the Metacafe's logo

Metacafe.com

December 26, 2007 4:03 AM  
Blogger Didier said...

Take a look at the french supermarket logo : carrefour ( http://carrefour.fr/ )
The white space is in fact a "C" inserted into a red/blue square.

December 29, 2007 10:25 AM  
Anonymous Seamonkey said...

I studied logos and logo design in my class and I saw the arrow before my teacher did. ha ha ha!

December 29, 2007 6:43 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

what about the WSU logo?

http://www.cougarsinseattle.com/pictures/WSU_logo.jpg

jeffrey@choicea.com

December 29, 2007 7:18 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

RE: Fedex..The arrow is between the E and x. Points to the right..

December 30, 2007 12:18 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

One more thing about the amazon logo is that it highlights "Amaz" or what your mind might read as "amaze".

The aesthetic representation of the "MB" in the brewers logo looks more like "BM", not to mention it's ugly as sin.

January 2, 2008 5:20 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't mean to be a wet blanket here, but I'm sure someone has mentioned the Fed Ex arrow to me before, and I can see it when I look for it, yet it simply fades away most of the time and at first glance I think, text-only logo, highly readable, that's it.

Furthermore, I was an early adopter of Amazon, I've always shopped there constantly, etc., but I've never noticed the a-to-z or the smile in their logo at all until you pointed them out. I just thought it was a typical, rather ugly "we're speedy" arrow.

Although I do graphic design myself, I think I see logos more as consumers do than as designers do. As designers we love to decode and catch subtleties -- but consumers just glance, and what they see in that glance is really all that counts.

January 3, 2008 10:21 PM  
Blogger Quick House Sales said...

thanks

January 14, 2008 5:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

A really cool one can be seen at http://www.escortsgroup.com/ this is for an engineering company & they make the 'E' out of a nut with a spanner within.

January 15, 2008 4:31 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I always thought the Sun logo was very clever.

January 23, 2008 2:34 PM  
Blogger Word Partners Ink said...

A really cool one is on http://www.shoplizards.com where the "s" is a lizard and the "h" is a shopping cart

Cheers,
Pam
http://www.smallbusinessonlinecollege.org

March 27, 2008 3:50 AM  

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