Only Logo Design

When logos go very very bad

Of course, it’s in our best interest to emphasize the value of good logo design. After all, that’s our business. However, that doesn’t change the fact that creating a decent logo takes an certain ‘eye’ - the ability to see symbols and visual metaphors and wrestle them into a design that expresses those metaphors to the majority of people who view the logo.

Unfortunately, these visual metaphors can get mixed up, and what you think your logo represents is quite different from what other people see. The logo above left is a classic example. I should point out that this logo made the rounds of the Internet last year (and was the subject of a lot of cheap jokes - voted by many to be the “worst logo ever”) and was subsequently removed from the center’s promotional material. I don’t know the genesis of this logo, but it’s a pretty safe bet that the design was a result of either a) an internal attempt to visually ‘metaphorize’ (is that a real word? If not, it is now) what the center did, or b) the result of a sales job by a designer who lacked the skills (and foresight) to tackle such a project. In any case, the logo did not accomplish the task and was the source of great mirth and tacky jokes before being changed to a text only version (at what I would imagine was fairly significant expense and hassle).

And they’re not alone. Another logo that made the Internet rounds was the logo for the Instituto de Estudos Orientais, the center for oriental studies at the University of Santa Catarina in Brazil (right). Supposed to be a serene image of an oriental styled house in front of a sunset (rising sun), the logo seems to suggest something else entirely. The logo was the winning entry in a typical logo design contest. Once again, the visual ‘metaphor’ is obviously not what was intended (to put it mildly). And once again, after the University realized (with what I suspect was horror) what the Internet ‘communities’ were saying about their newly announced logo, it started to disappear from public view (the web page for the center is now ‘under construction’). And again, probably at great expense and hassle.

For reasons that are beyond me, dental logos seem to fall prey to these mangled visual metaphors - with their little symbolic ’stick figures’ (officially referred to as ‘pictograms’) getting caught in what appear to be compromising positions (left). Once again, the logo is likely the result of an internal branding attempt, more than likely a staff member who can’t see what I (and half the Internet) see. To them, I’d guess it looks just like what they intended - a caring dentist doting over a patient (and to prove my point even further - while I think the dentist logo looks somewhat sexual, my wife Sue thinks it looks like one guy “beating the crap out of another”).

If there’s a lesson in all this, it is as follows - just because your company owns some of the same design tools and software that professional designers utilize does not mean that you can crank out the same types of logos that they (we) do. That also goes for them online ‘logo creators’ (glorified clip-art generators really) and logo design templates. Your nifty Do It Yourself logo may not suggest what you think it does.

Source: http://www.thelogofactory.com/