Category — History

October 11, 2008

I always find the archeology-like visual evolutions of modern history fascinating. Maybe because when looking back in such an iconic and immediate way, there’s an instant and historic impression (albeit a capitalistic perspective) of our culture and how business and commerce was thought of and valued and represented. This blog entry on best-ad showcases about 50 examples like the one below.

The most obvious progressive pattern is the visual simplifying of the visuals and typography. I’d theorize that it’s to strengthen their presence among an increasingly more crowded market. 

I’d also attribute the evolution to the maturation of the industry of creating logos. Before the mid-1950’s the industry of creating logos was made up of a few white guys in New York and one in San Francisco. Today there is an entire industry that specializes in complete identity systems that are aligned with any competitive company’s strategic agenda.

This maturation process has gotten us away from much of the hand-illustrated craft, and mainly for self-evident reasons. For example, it’d be hard to imagine Apple’s original hand-drawn logo (circa 1976) legible on any early generation iPod screen. But ironically I can’t help question the reproducibility of the details starting to showing up in of many brand new logos. For example, the “croquet ball” stripes and 3d effect of the red sphere in the newest Xerox logo (circa 2008) wouldn’t pass certain basic stress tests. I have not seen an embroidered or faxed version of it - but they must exist, and wonder what they do.

I’m not sure where this logo design maturation process will take us over the next 60 years, but it will be interesting to see how today’s iconic snapshots of western culture will stack up and what stories they tell.