Opinion, analysis and advice on life in the creative and digital industry, with a focus on insight, process and inspiration.
LA 2028 Logo
On track for winning, or maybe not. A looping logo meets a loopy design. It’s been more than a difficult year, and still no end in sight. The Covid19 Coronavirus has not just killed hundreds of thousands of human lives; it’s solely responsible for an…
Chicago Bulls Logo
No Bull About It! The True Story Behind The Chicago Bulls Legendary NBA Logo An Iconic Bull For The Ages As sports fans joyously relive Michael Jordan’s basketball legacy over the 10 hours of Netflix’s “The Last Dance” documentary, they’re re-immersed in the world of…
Cadbury’s and Bulletproof. That’s a wrap.
Everything changes but, purple. Deep Purple (Pantone 2685C to be precise). And no, I’m not talking about Hertford’s unrivalled, 70s Rock Legends. I am of course referring to the colour that put chocolate on the map. No other chocolatier in the world can lay claim…
Amazon Goes Electric
If anyone can, Amazon can. The company that now operate their own freighters and cargo planes. In 2016 they launched their Prime Air brand.
Rolling Stones Logo
Rolling Stones Logo (Updated 2021) What does the iconic Rolling Stones big mouth, lips and tongue logo have in common with band frontman Mick Jagger? I’ll let you think about it for a moment. It was back in April 1970 when Royal College of Art…
Pixar. New movie, different logo. Sometimes.
Pixar. New movie, different logo. Sometimes. Pixar. It just sounds like it’s meant to. Futuristic, professional, in a world of its own. And indeed, it is all of these things. After all, it released the world’s first ever computer generated (CGI) film, Toy Story. Once…
If in doubt, give Helvetica a shout.
The person who’s really responsible for Helvetica as it is today is the late, legendary typographer, type designer, type consultant and type historian – Mike Parker.
Pan Am. An American Dream That Never Really Took Off
But its beginnings were relatively humble, as was the first-ever Pan Am logo – a circular, cluttered black and white image that was headed by the company’s full name, ‘Pan American Airways’
The Ubiquitous Batman Logo
The original Batman logo was a simple bat. And as a superhero, he and his bat were well liked. So much so that in 1940 he was given his own series, which spawned a new, slightly more detailed symbol.
Sweet dreams. Made by Eames.
So what’s so great about the Eames Lounge Chair? Why does it deserve so much praise and adoration? Why does it remain in the upper echelons of zillions of pieces of furniture out there.
One of the world’s best loved logos. It’s magical.
Disney Logo Walt Disney, the man behind the logo. Not. Less is more when it comes to memorable brandmarks. Think Nike for instance – a simple swoosh that is instantly recognisable across the globe. But of course the Nike logo never began life like that….
Wood Type Letterpress Is Back. No Joke.
Joker. A movie with a simply beautiful beat-up logo. Wood type letterpress is back. No joke. A book can’t be judged by its cover, just in the same way that a movie can’t be judged by its logo. Or can it? Some of the best…
The Brilliant Light of An Iconic Shell
The Sunny Rise of Light & Energy Like the climbing sun it resembles, the shell logo casts a long light down the back corridor of fossil fuel commerce during the last eleven decades. The Shell logo emerges as a primary-coloured omnipresent icon out of the…
The Meatball, The Worm & The Birth of The NASA Logo
NASA Logo One Small Step Into The Space Frontier Sometimes brands have to jump back and forth before settling on the visual aesthetic that truly reflects their identity. For the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 1992, wasn’t too late to return to a beloved…
It All Began With Paul Rand
Master of design. Mastermind of the corporate logo. Logos come and go. If lucky, some hang around for a number of years, while others are continually updated and evolve with the times. Some are scrapped and revamped in the hope they’ll perform better next time…
Bringing AC Milan Back To Life Through A Beating Heart
A Rebrand To Reignite Brilliance Following a botched takeover bid, a huge financial loss, a team that’s playing well below what they’re capable of, and the absence of a big star, AC Milan is in a bad way. The 120 year old club that’s won…
Life And Saul Of The Party
Ad man. Graphics guru. Iconic logo creator. Title designer. Academy Award-winning filmmaker. Saul Bass was all of these things and more. Yet, although his most memorable movie posters for Vertigo (1958) and Psycho (1960) are instantly recognisable, his name may not be.
Bialetti Logo
By 1958, the Bialettis were looking for a trademark logo that could encapsulate their brand and unite the various Bialetti product lines under one iconic insignia. But what, or who, could this image be based around?