Steve Shanabruch loves design and his home of Chicago. Bringing together these two passions, he’s launched The Chicago Neighbourhoods – One designers take on Chicago.

Steve plans to design a few logos a week until he has covered all  77 community areas of Chicago.

I’m looking forward to seeing how this project progresses. You can track The Chicago Neighbourhoods on both Twitter and Facebook.

If you dig this project, you may also be interested in checking out Branding 10,000 Lakes.

(Hat tip to Peter Kortleve)

Logobird, Branding & Identity Design

New York-based design firm, COLLINS, has developed a permanent mark to honour 10 years passing since the tragic events of 9/11, 2001.

From honoring911.com:

For us‚ this mark conveys the challenging but eternal lesson of that morning: we are as one. Just as we fall together‚ we can only rise together. Living with such empathy for one another is a steep mountain to climb. But we believe it is both the path out of 9-11 and the path we must trudge throughout life. This lesson is the permanent mark that day has left on us one decade later.

In conjunction with the mark, a series of posters and flags have been designed, which are now available for purchase here.

All proceeds go to the Fire Fighter Cancer Foundation. Please get behind this great cause.

(via @Issue)

Logobird, Branding & Identity Design

Brand guidelines don’t get much more geek-cool than this.

Via Blair Thomson.

Logobird, Branding & Identity Design

Just when I thought I’d seen every possible collection available on the web, I stumbled across this lovely Flickr set, featuring logos from a mid-70’s edition of the World Book of Logotypes.

Lovely.

Thanks Coudal.

Logobird, Branding & Identity Design

Congratulations Bill S Kenney, Keri Thornton, and Matt Yow — a copy of Symbol will be on its way to you shortly.

If you lucked out this time, don’t despair. We’ll be giving away a copy of the limited-run, Codex magazine next week.
Stay tuned!

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During our move from Australia to London, one unfortunate casualty was our collection of design books. Being heavy, and therefore too expensive to ship, they now sit in storage, gathering dust until we return sometime in the future.

Now that we have finally settled into our new studio in London, I have the pleasure of starting a new book collection.

To kick-start the collection, my first purchase was the new book, Symbol by Angus Hyland and Steven Bateman.

Please read on for a brief review of Symbol, and to find out how you can win yourself a copy.

From the preface: “The idea behind the book is to explore the visual language of symbols according to its most basic element: form.”

To achieve this, the authors have compiled 1300+ symbols from all over the world, from different times and purposes, and have categorised them simply by visual type — abstract and representational. Within those categories they have broken the symbols down into smaller subsets, for example; circles, polygons, trees, architecture, etc. The aim being to strip the symbols of their associated meanings, so that the viewer can assess the “effectiveness of their composition.”

The book starts with a 5 page introduction, giving some background on the meaning of different symbols, and also the role they play in branding and corporate identity. It’s very informative, but reads a little too much like a text book for my liking. It could just be that I have a short attention span, so don’t let that deter you too much.

The introduction does contain a brilliant quote by Alan Fletcher (Reuters and Victoria and Albert Museum identity designer):

Commercial symbols are like people. Some are reasonably put together  but lack personality, others are aggressive, or pompous, or merely unpleasant. Occasionally one encounters an interesting character. Whatever the case, to be effective, a trademark must meet a set of criteria: the utilitarian values of being relevant, appropriate and practical and the intangible qualities of being memorable and distinctive; and that something extra, the visual tweak which creates a unique personality.

Wise words, from a very wise man.

The layout of the book is excellent – it’s a visual delight actually. Simple, clean and straight to the point.

Punctuating each subsection of the book is a brief case study, which provides a more in-depth look at how a particular symbol came to be.

Case studies include: Transport for London (above), Deutsche Bank (above), Continental Airlines, Nike, Munich Olympics (below), Apple, Shell, and CBS, just to name a few.

As the symbols have been disassociated from their meaning, it challenges the reader to interpret each symbol for what it is. It makes you think, which is something that I particularly enjoyed.

Each symbol is also indexed by a number, referencing basic information such as: designer, country, year created and a brief description.

Overall, Symbol is an excellent book that I can highly recommend for anyone interested in brand identity design.

It’s comprehensive, informative, and is a book that you will go back to over the years for inspiration.

A worthy addtion to any designers library.

In conclusion, buy it.

Symbol Book Giveaway

I loved this book so much that I have decided to give away 3 copies to our readers.

To enter the giveaway, all you need to do is leave a comment below and retweet this post.

Also, if you haven’t already, please also sign up for free updates via email/RSS, and Like Logobird on Facebook.

Winners will be announced next Friday, 17th June 2011.

Good luck!

Logobird, Branding & Identity Design

These vintage Japanese logos really really caught my eye.

Expo ’70 Osaka Logo

Kokusai International Travel Logo

There are plenty more where they came from, so be sure to check out the complete Flickr set.

Also, if you are a fan of vintage logos, Retro Logo Goodness and Scandinavian Logos from the 60s and 70s may be of interest to you.

Logobird, Branding & Identity Design

Nothing like a bit of logo porn to cap off a busy week. Enjoy!

See the full Flickr set here.

Source: Coudal

Logobird, Branding & Identity Design

It’s always interesting to peruse the report for recent logo fads – if not at least to see whether oneself has been guilty of following any.

I found this comment from the report summary particularly interesting:

It feels like what people believe a logo to be is also becoming more transcendent. A logo is no longer a single piece of flat art. It can be a favicon, an icon, or an entire set of marks that work together to support the team. Its boundaries have become less strict as well. There was a time when most logos could be enclosed in a simple hand-drawn square, circle or similar geometric shape, but now many logos drag outside those outlines. They just don’t want to fit the old mold.

As a brand identity designer this makes complete sense. Increasingly clients are requiring a more complex approach to defining their brand than a traditional flat logo can offer. Dynamic identity systems are becoming much more prevalent, and as the demand for them grows, the notion of what a logo ‘should’ look like will continue to shift.

What do you think? Do you recognize any of the logo trends in the report?

Logobird, Branding & Identity Design

This is a guest post by Dennis Salvatier, blogger at Tanoshiboy and designer at Salvatier Studios, an award-wining design studio located in Southern California. You can reach Dennis through his website or on Twitter.

Crowdsourcing Won’t Help You

In the last few years crowdsourcing has become the single greatest enemy to design, more so when it comes to logo design. Let’s start off with an explanation about what crowdsourcing is.

This is when a company or an organization offers a fixed amount of money as a cash prize for a chosen design. They define this as a contest. The designers then submit their logo designs for review with the hopes of the potential cash prize. When a specific designer’s entry is chosen, that designer and only that designer, gets paid for their work; leaving the hundreds of other designers twiddling their thumbs.

From a layman’s point of view this contest might seem like a fair trade, but it’s not fair at all. Not to the company and not to the designer.

Why It’s Not Fair To The Company

The company is looking for a logo that will best define their brand and all that that will encompass. The problem is that the designers that participate in this method are usually creatives who have a careless engagement with the project. They know they’re working for free, so they skip what’s important about the process and churn out a piece of work they hope will win them instant fame. This careless engagement bypasses the craft of logo design and gives birth to mediocre work that is then declared the ‘winner”. The company is oblivious to the fact that their new logo lacks effectiveness and value. What is skipped in the process is the engagement between client and designer, and the design brief. Without those two elements you are essentially writing a biography without knowing anything about the subject.

Why It’s Not Fair To The Creative

You just won X amount of money and recognition throughout the web, but what you don’t know is that you’ve just had some discount sushi. What this means is that your choice seemed like a great idea at the time, but it will come back to hurt you. Why? Because you haven’t delivered good work and it’s now searchable on the web. When it’s found it will be recognized for what it is to those who see it. Disagree with me? Name one designer who has gone onto have a lucrative career due to crowdsourcing. There isn’t any. Designers who participate in crowdsourcing continue to crowdsource in hopes to make it big. Let me tell you right now, you cannot skip the starving-artist phase. It is a part of your growth process. You must go through the hurdles of being a young designer, finding your clients, serving them and doing great work every time. You must add value to your work and design as a whole (it’s all of our responsibility), and crowdsourcing cheapens what you and the rest of the design community does.

Conclusion

When a moth emerges from its cocoon it can spin silk, something that the more popular butterfly cannot do. They’re also faster, stronger, but struggle twice as much when breaking through their cocoons. Without that struggle they would be too weak to survive. The struggle is nature’s way of strengthening it. As designers, we’ll go through some rough times and take on less than exciting projects at the beginning of our careers. I promise you that no matter how small the project may be, it is incrementally moving you closer to where you want to be. Crowdsourcing is not the answer. It won’t strengthen you as a designer whether you win or lose. Embrace the struggle and become exceptional.

Logobird, Branding & Identity Design

Every now and then I like to throw an opinion out there on Facebook or Twitter, and gauge the reaction from my followers.

Sometimes they agree, sometimes they disagree, but it always helps me to achieve some perspective on a particular issue.

A few weeks ago, I sent out this Facebook post:

While I admit the post was a tad melodramatic, I stand by it. In my opinion, Google AdSense has no place on a design blog. It’s spammy, kills the user experience, and just plain annoying, especially when placed smack bang in the middle of a blog post.

The response to my Facebook post above was overwhelmingly positive – 13 Facebook likes is quite high for my humble following. When I tweeted the same message, for the most part the feedback was very positive as well.

Great, so at least I am not alone on this one.

But here’s the thing.

Some of the most followed and trafficked design blogs out there monetise their blogs with AdSense, and it doesn’t seem to effect their readership one bit. They still have thousands, in some cases tens of thousands of subscribers consuming their content.

So while AdSense isn’t really something I approve of, perhaps it doesn’t bother everyone. Fair enough.

There is another aspect of design blog monetisation that I do take particular issue with however. And truthfully, I think you should too.

Text Link Advertising Must Die

Before continuing, let me clearly state that I have nothing against making money from a blog. In fact, given the amount of time and effort it takes to run a successful design blog, I think site owners are damn right entitled to make money off them.

If you are going to monetise a blog however, I think you should choose your methods with some consideration for ethics in mind. Without taking too much of the moral high ground, I think you owe that to your subscribers, and the very industry that pays your bills.

Text link advertising is something  I see too many design bloggers abusing, and in my opinion damaging our industry in the process.

If you are not familiar with text link advertising, it is a SEO-optimised link that a blog owner agrees to place somewhere on their site (usually in the sidebar under a heading like ‘recommended’) in return for payment. The fee can vary from anywhere between $20 to $100 per month, depending on how much traffic the site gets.

For some blogs, text link ads are a very nice little earner, bringing in hundreds, and often thousands of dollars of easy revenue per month. From a purely financial perspective, I understand the temptation to do it.

The main problem with text link advertising however, is that it typically attracts all sorts of spammers from dark corners of the internet pushing low quality products and services. A lot of the links you will find on design blogs are promoting anything from shady design firms to online casinos.

Taking a really quick survey of some very popular design blogs, here are some text link ads that I found; ‘Logo Design Firm’ –> pointing to a cheap logo warehouse, ‘Free Logo Design’ –> linking to a repository of free logos for download, and ‘Online Logo Design’ –> Yet again, pointing to a logo warehouse.

What becomes obvious is that there is little vetting going on here. Some sites see it fit to link out to anyone, as long as they are getting paid. And that’s just plain wrong.

Final Words

If you run a successful design blog and are accepting text link advertisers, I implore you to look at the bigger picture. Every time you link out to another site, you are vouching the content on the other side of that link.

Do you really want to associate that with your brand?

Somebody had to say it. Now it’s time to move forward. Your thoughts?

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Image by Freezelight

Logobird, Branding & Identity Design