Thank you for your interest about my vision of logos
I really agree with what you red ! I think fonts are an essential part of design and it’s true : letters are logos ! We only need to see them to identify and interpret them in a blink of an eye ! Personally, it’s my ultimate goal : to design a shape people would understand almost instantly ! Especially for logos, of course

About Phoenician language I didn’t know that ! Thank you very much for this information !!! I won’t look at letters the same way now !

See you !
Vincent

I’m sorry to take so long to reply. My answer to you is that most companies develop several versions of their logo for different applications. Along with that, they often develop a logo usage guide. I did a google image search on the You Tube logo and found at least three versions of it. Not all of them were three dimensional.

Vincent,

Very informative response and I agree with you fully. Thank you for reminding us about hieroglyphs too. I recently read about how the shapes of our letters are technically logos themselves as most of them are simplified versions of pictures that started with a given letter’s sound in the Phoenician language.

Hi Kevin,
Your opinion is very interesting but let me add something about “simple” logos.

A logotype is made of 2 constituents in my opinion : concept and emotion. Concept is essential for the message you want to deliver to your target. And the most significant way to reach this goal is the shape. From prehistoric rupestral paintings to egyptian hieroglyphs, until Nike’s or Apple logos, the most efficient and durable messages come with shapes. It’s a fact : a logotype is, before everything else, a sign. Like #, =, ?, and so on.

Of course, you’re right, medias are currently changing very deeply (especially with web revolution) but logos are still logos : signs expressing concepts. And colors are only conventions added to this concept, precizing it, making it more efficient and even punchy !

That said, the other part of logos’ meaning is emotion. And here we can say emotion is hungry of effects, of funny gimmicks, of harmonious or tranchantes colors, and so on.
I think it’s a very important thing to take in account ! But a general problem I see in a lot of logos is that emotion replaces the concept. I can see a beautiful effect, a great mascot, a delicious harmony, … but it will be impossible for me to remember this logo 1 week later… On the contrary, just ask me to draw the swoosh of Nike and I do it with my eyes closed. Of course, everybody knows this logo now so it’s easy. But why everybody knows it actually ? Exactly because it’s a sign, easy to remember.

Never forget it : a logo is a sign. It has to be versatile : readable in colors (with colors and effects) AND in black & white. Animated AND static.
And above all : simplicity it the key in efficient design.
Remember hieroglyphs

Ok well, sorry for being so long and maybe a bit sententious but I really wanted to express my feeling about it. I hope you understand it that way and I didn’t hurt you ! I’m only really passionated

Thank you for reading me !

Best regards,
Vincent

Does YouTube need a ‘proper logo’? I do agree in principal about what you’re saying, but if the web or TV is where 99% of your customers will see your logo then maybe that should make us look at those rules a little differently.

Thank you for stopping by. I whole-heartedly agree. Very well-said.

Kevin,

I agree that rules can be treated simply as guidelines and aren’t necessarily hard and fast. I also understand that digital graphics have dictated a change in how people want their logos to look these days. But I question what might happen when someone’s online business takes off and they want to include the logo on their website on a business card or an invoice. Then again, I also understand that there are many logos out there that aren’t associated with conducting business, just simply for somebody to have a look that represents them while they write about what they did the night before. In such a case, I can see why they wouldn’t be concerned about the possibility of ever printing their identity.

These days, there’s many identities that are used primarily in digital format and that is why you see such a rise of 3D logos. Indeed, I just did a design for a client for a logo that is unlikely to ever be printed, so how it appears online is key. In addition, since it’s just for the site, normal restrictions don’t apply and I explored creating something larger and more of a design feature than a traditional logo might be.

Those rules you mention are a good guidelines for any designer, but it’s that’s all the should be. Good designers know when it’s ok to break the rules.

I’m a french designer and I’ve just found your post accidentally. The less I can say is I’m completely agree with your conception of logotypes. In my opinion, people who don’t agree are amateurs

Concerning photoshop effects, I think illustrators and designers should be more careful about “all in one” effects. Creation is a matter of decision and inspiration, not a matter of mechanical production. In one word : execution is not creation !

I should add that a computer is only a tool. That’s why I really liked your demonstration of sketching on this blog. I believe that nothing can be created without a sketch first. In order to extract ideas laying deep in your brain, and have an efficient creative flow !

Best regards,
Vincent

I can definitely see a chrome effect working well on the X-Men logo. Though Photoshop makes the effect really easy, I wonder if some things work better when they are rendered with more care. An illustrator would decide where the highlights and lowlights should be instead of randomly letting them fall in Photoshop.

That said, though, I did see this type of effect used well once. I worked in the children’s book division of Random House years ago, and we did a whole series of X-Men books. The X-Men logo was rendered with a really cool metal effect — it looked like beveled chrome. At the time, though, Photoshop was absolutely not capable of creating those kinds of effects (this was before Photoshop had layers!), and it took a lot of skill on the illustrators’ part to make it look real. So maybe it isn’t quite to same…