Every day consumers are confronted with countless logos, mostly
unaware of how these icons are constantly transmitting a slew of
messages aimed at the subconscious.
"A company's logo is its shorthand, a visual cue that tells a story of the brand's culture, behavior, and values," said
Su Mathews Hale,
a senior partner at the New York brand-strategy and design firm
Lippincott. Because a logo may only have a second to tell this story,
creating one "can sometimes be the most difficult aspect of branding,"
she said.
We had her guide us through some of her favorite projects
she's worked on, as well as some of the corporate logos she most
admires.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc
In 2005, Wal-Mart recruited Lippincott to reimagine its brand. It
wanted to shed its image as a big corporate outlet for cheap products
and become seen as a place where people could wisely save money and buy
premium groceries. Wal-Mart debuted its new logo in 2008.
Mathews and her team felt that the old logo's all-caps, dark
blue letters screamed "corporation" and had become inextricably linked
to the popular view among critics who saw Wal-Mart as a malevolent giant
crushing small businesses across the country. They deemed the star
serving as a hyphen generic and forgettable. They also believed that
businesses with hyphenated "mart" names conjured up images of corner
stores and cheap outlets.
They decided to keep the color blue, which Mathews said is the
world's favorite color, but go for a brighter hue they believed evoked
modernity and trustworthiness. They replaced the sharp angles of the
original letters with "a more humanistic font." Finally, they decided on
an asterisk-like symbol they wanted to look like "a lightbulb going off
in your head," a metaphor for Wal-Mart shoppers being smart for taking
advantage of affordable, quality products. They chose a hue of yellow
that appeared hopeful but didn't make it too bright because "bright
yellow is associated with low-cost items in retail," said Mathews. She
was happy to find that focus groups also interpreted the spark as a sun
or flower, both positive associations.
eBay
In 2012, eBay basically had the inverse problem from Wal-Mart: It
wanted to finally grow up, and its playful logo was getting in the way
of its ambition. Mathews said that when Internet companies have
electric, jumbled logos, they conjure up memories of the companies that
died when the dot-com bubble burst. So, for eBay, she and her team stuck
close to the original design but refined the typography, toned down the
colors, and put the letters on the same baseline. The resulting logo is
"more grounded" and better suited for a company that takes business
seriously.
Hyatt Place
Hyatt Hotels Corporation bought AmeriSuites in 2004, and Lippincott
was responsible for rebranding the chain as Hyatt Place, which launched
in 2006. Hyatt and the designers believed that AmeriSuite's affordable
business-suite market was beginning to be seen as boring, cheap
alternatives to upscale hotels, and that the way to turn it around would
be to turn it into the option for younger business travelers who may
not be very wealthy but still appreciate luxury.
A fundamental component of the relaunch was to give every Hyatt Place
an attractive, engaging lobby. The final logo combined two different
shapes: In design, said Mathews, "a circle tends to be seen as modern
and approachable" and "a square tends to be steadfast and disciplined."
The design team chose vibrant colors for seven of the circles and picked
black for two. When Hyatt Place signs are illuminated at night, the
colored circles create an "H" for "Hyatt," which Mathews finds to be a
fun, extra dimension of the logo.
Starbucks
Over the past several years,
Starbucks has grown into a global powerhouse
and has been heavily promoting its non-coffee products, like pastries,
sandwiches, and teas. In 2011, it decided it wanted a simpler logo not
tied to the word "coffee." Mathews was not involved in the project, but
her Lippincott colleagues were.
The redesign started with a basic premise. When focus groups were
asked what color Starbucks' logo was, explained Mathews, participants
almost universally said "green." But the thing is, only the ring around
the former logo was green -- the siren character was outlined in black.
Mathews said the designers freed the siren from her constraints and
imbued her with the color with which customers were already associating
the brand. They nixed the word "coffee" and brought the text outside of
the circle, since the siren had become iconic enough to stand on her
own.
"It's a great example of how a logo can evolve," said Mathews.
NBC
Lippincott has not worked with NBC, but Mathews said the NBC peacock
is one of her favorite logos. She thinks the logo has improved over time
as it's gotten simpler, and that even though the peacock's colors
originally celebrated the advent of color television, the array of
colors still transmits feelings of joy and energy.
FedEx
FedEx's logo is another one of Mathew's favorites. As shown by her
work with the Hyatt Place logo, she likes images that have surprises in
them, and the arrow formed by the "E" and "x" in FedEx is one of the
best-known hidden designs. She also appreciates the timeless nature of
the logo. "It could have be designed in 1970 or it could have been
designed yesterday," she said.
It was actually
created in 1994 by Lindon Leader, and it has won more than 40 design awards, partially for the reasons Mathews mentioned.
Apple
Mathews thinks that Apple's logo is a perfect example of how a logo
needs to adapt to the changing direction of the company it represents.
One of Apple's co-founders, Ronald Wayne,
designed the first Apple logo,
a weird, detailed etching of Sir Isaac Newton that was supposed to
represent the way Apple was an ambitious outsider. That same year, Steve
Jobs hired Rob Janoff to replace it with something more modern. Janoff
came up with the now iconic image of an apple with a bite out of it, and
Jobs decided Apple's unique approach to computers would be represented
by making it rainbow-colored.
It became monochrome in 1998 to fit into the clean, simplistic designs that the company decided to pursue.
Regarding trends and presentation
When tackling a branding project, Mathews differentiates between the
"true and new." She say a logo needs to be "true," in the sense that it
should not be fundamentally tied to a trend, the "new." The trendiness
is more appropriate in supporting elements of branding, like store
experiences or website interfaces. That said, a logo should be
fundamentally sound but also be adaptable to the ways it will be
presented.
"Logos used to have to be recognizable down to the size that they
would be represented on a business card. Now they have to work at much
smaller sizes, because they'll be seen on mobile screens," Mathews said.
That's actually the reason why so many logos have become "flatter," in
the sense that they've been stripped of techniques like shadowing that
add a dimension of depth or movement.
Here's an example of how Google went flat last year:
"I personally like more simple designs," said Mathews. "Gradients are my worst nightmare."
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