DESIGN INSIGHT

We deliver fresh insights for today’s global brands on topics of brand strategy, design and customer experience

Dec

Simplicity is Championed in Logo Design

KISS is an acronym for “Keep it simple, stupid” as a design principle noted by the U.S. Navy in 1960.^[1]^[2] The KISS principle states that most systems work best if they are kept simple rather than made complicated; therefore simplicity should be a key goal in design and unnecessary complexity should be avoided.

There are many rumors about how the original Apple logo came to be. One widely-spread tale is that the technicolor apple was a tribute to the late, great Alan Turing, who’s known as “the father of computer science.” Turing committed suicide in 1954, possibly by eating a cyanide laced apple.

Although this tribute to Alan Turing is a somewhat romantic gesture, it’s completely untrue. Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Apple CEO Steve Jobs reveals that Jobs was in the middle of a fruitarian diet, and had just come back from an apple farm. Jobs simply thought that “apple” sounded like a nice word that was “fun, spirited, and not intimidating.” As for the bite out of the apple? That’s just so people wouldn’t mistake it for a cherry.

The big takeaway from Apple’s logo is that it’s imperative to keep it simple. According to a recent study by DesignBuddy, 95% of the world’s top brand logos are comprised of only one or two colors – proving that simplicity is championed in logo design. A simple design is versatile, allowing the logo to shine across both physical products and digital platforms, and stays evergreen throughout time.

Jun

Taphouse Graphics’ logos featured in LogoLounge7

LogoLounge 7 features recent work by such world-renown firms as Pentagram, Lippincott, Turner Duckworth, and The Brand Union; emerging agencies venturethree, Dragon Rouge, and TAPHOUSE GRAPHICS; and stand-alone artists Louise Fili and Chris Mitchell. This definitive resource provides in-depth, behind-the-scenes knowledge of how the brightest in the field create winning identities today.

May

A Client’s Guide to Design: How to Get the Most Out of the Process

If you represent a corporation, institution, advertising agency, investor or public relations firm, or are an individual in need of graphic design, you’ve landed exactly where you need to be. Welcome.

Jul

Brandjacking: How to Establish Your Brand’s Best Defense

Brandjacking is one of the biggest social media problems that modern brands face. This term, which combines “branding” with “hijacking” is when a company or individual purposefully assumes the identity of another brand in order to exploit or undermine them.

While brandjacking can severely damage your brand’s reputation, it’s also easy to defend against as long as you’re prepared. To make sure this never happens to your brand, here’s an explanation of what brandjacking really is as well as what your brand can do to prevent it.

Customers and activists are typically the source of brandjacking, and this usually occurs if they want to draw attention to a brand’s corporate practices in order to influence some sort of change.

Lego: Ending A Brand Partnership

Oct

2015 Logo Trend Report

Each year, as I browse through thousands of logos in preparation for the annual Trend Report, I can’t help but consider the societal, technological and environmental influences and how they will affect the future of our industry. This year, three thoughts occurred to me.

One.

Now more than ever, perhaps because they make up a majority of the world’s early adapters and drivers of trends, we look to children and adolescents for insight into what will become the next big thing.

We’ve known for some time, and I addressed in last year’s Trend Report, that the size of our digital viewing ports – I understand the layman calls them screens – continues to get smaller and smaller. And a recent Pew Research Center report indicates that 91 percent of teenagers access information online through mobile devices. So if we are paying attention to this demographic, as history tells us we should, it’s no wonder that designs continue to bend to the parameters of small, mobile canvases. And need I mention the affect devices such as the Apple Watch will have this phenomenon?

And for those of you thinking, “On the contrary Bill, the iPhone 6+ and monstrous Galaxy W (seriously, that thing is bigger than my toaster) suggest that the pendulum is swinging back the other way toward larger screens,” I ask you to consider the latest TV models that, while the size of small cars, also incorporate these new symbols and icons into their user interfaces.

DESIGN INSIGHT

Simplicity is Championed in Logo Design

Taphouse Graphics’ logos featured in LogoLounge7

A Client’s Guide to Design: How to Get the Most Out of the Process

Brandjacking: How to Establish Your Brand’s Best Defense

Lego: Ending A Brand Partnership

2015 Logo Trend Report

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