Tag Archives: logos

It’s been awhile since we’ve had a good ‘new logo sucks’ freak out

The only thing better than a new logo brouhaha is a new logo brouhaha with comicbook nerds at the heart of it. It appears that DC Comics is about to unveil a new logo. Brand New has a lot of details on the trademark filing and what not. You can see the logo is a bit of a snooze. The best thing so far about the new logo is definitely iFanboy’s remain calm post. Seriously, and I quote: “Before anyone gets too excited (or agitated), this is a small step in a much larger process and strategy. There is still a lot we don’t know and it will be a while before we see anything in production.”

Oh man, this is why comicbook nerds are some of the all-time best nerds. They’re a passionate bunch.

Branding 10,000 Lakes

Designer and art director Nicole Meyer has challenged herself with designing logos for 10,000 of Minnesota’s lakes (according to the DNR we actually have 11,842 lakes that are 10+ acres). But even with designing one new logo a day for 10,000 lakes, the project will take more than twenty-seven years. It’s a delightful project that’s fun to look at. Go see for yourself.

Friday Links: Some Webchallenge advice & assorted goodness

The Chicago Webchallenge is this weekend and the Minnesota nerds are making their way down to the Windy City to join their Illini-brethren to make websites for needy nonprofits. Good luck to everyone involved!

• If this is your first time participating in the a webchallenge, here’s some advice from past participants. Also, take a look at a few videos so you know what you’ve gotten yourself into. If you want even more, you can read the entire Webchallenge category. Have fun!
• Meet the class of 2015: your future coworkers and customers.
• Scrabble Players ‘know’ more words, but not necessarily what they mean.
• How browsers work.
• Where’s WALL-E like Waldo, except with a ton of awesome robots.
• The questionable birth of Times New Roman
• How Marty and Doc became friends in Back to the Future. I always wondered why they were hanging out together.
• The Nike Swoosh turns 40.

Friday Links: Hovering art directors & honest logos

• Hovering art directors. Exactly what you would expect.
• I have a sneaking suspicion that there’s a high incidence of nerds in author Neil Gaiman’s fan club. Acting on that suspicion, I will share this: You can win a role in the audio recording for American Gods.
• The World’s Biggest Pac Man Game.
• If logos were honest.
• Why the Internet is no substitute for the library.
• Complain about how other people make software by making software.
• 20 most inappropriate songs ever used in commercials.
• Speaking of commercials. This 1980s StarWars Underoos commercial made me laugh.
• 30 nerdy wedding invitations.

Friday Links: The Geek Zodiac & lifespan of Saul Bass logos

• The Minneapolis Egoist gives a nice shout out to the winner of this year’s WebChallenge.
• Transformers dance to Thriller.
• Why do apps from the same company look worse on Android?
• What Font bookmarklet quickly identifies web fonts.
• The average lifespan of a Saul Bass logo is 34 years. This is kind of awesome.
• Kind of like the Chinese Zodiac, but not really. The Geek Zodiac.
• Atari iPhone App for all your favorite Atari games.
• 235 Star Trek characters in pixel form on one poster.
• 10 awesomely geeky cakes. Inspiration for The Nerdery’s bakers.
• Since badass is one of The Nerdery’s favorite words, I couldn’t resist this: 25 reasons Katherine Hepburn was an American Badass.

Friday Links: The Tron Guy reviews Tron: Legacy

• The Tron Guy reviews Tron: Legacy.
• Popular Mechanics lists 17 Gifts for the Nerds you love.
• Lego Terminator.
• Super Mario Brothers, the musical.
• Electronic Arts has a heaping helping of their iPad/iPod/iPhone games on sale for 99 cents.
• The Nerdery was ranked #40 on Lead411’s Technology 500 list.
• Zeus Jones offers up a rundown on the year in marketing.
• Long, but worth it: Fast Company’s profile of Boing Boing and its creators.
• Google wants to take your caps lock away. OH NOES!
• If browsers were celebrities.
• Comedy Central has a new logo and in a shocking turn of events designers from the Internet seem to like it.
• Video game alphabet.

Friday Links: Nerds rally to support young StarWars fan

• If your heart needs a little warming, check this out: A young nerd girl needs support and quickly racks up 1000 comments in support of nerdiness and being different. Nerd power!
• 11 most controversial Google doodles.
• An open letter to Wired regarding their coverage of women in tech.
• I wanna hold your type, on the creation of The Beatles logo.
• Video game cocktails.
• The first internet router.
• 20 things I learned about browsers & the web.
• How low can your logo go? A content to design the worst logo ever.
• May the Force of typography be with you.
• Popular Science’s 100 best innovations of 2010 the list includes HTML5, the iPad, a robot vacuum, and 97 other cool things (also see Time’s best inventions of the year).
• Angry Birds sequel will reveal pigs’ point of view.

The internet minds the Gap

A wise designer I worked with once said, “Nobody should be able to type your logo.” I wonder what he thinks of the the hubbub surrounding the new Gap logo.

Watching the drama is kind of fun. If you’ve been in a cave or undisclosed location that lacks internet access the Gap redesigned its logo and there has been much hand wringing and outrage by anyone remotely close the the marketing/advertising/design community (See AdAge or Agency Spy or The Consumerist).

Within a day of revealing the new logo, there’s already two different create your own Gap logo generators (here and here), and a contest to redesign the logo. Now it’s being hinted at that this who gradated nightmare is social media experiment/crowdsource sort of thing. Speaking of social media, you can follow the new logo and old logo on Twitter.

Though Gap PR claims it’s not a stunt. They say they are open to ideas. It’s that crowd-sourcing bit that inspired a thoughtful post from Mule Design about the value of design. Which is a nice reminder to all of us in industries where what we do can often be taken for granted to value our work.

Are you following the logo drama? It’s one of those kinds of things I can’t look away from. I wonder what it is about this logo that has evoked such a strong reaction from people. Is it really because it’s ugly? It has to be more than that. If the internet got this hopped up over every ugly logo we’d have no time to watch lipdub videos or tend to our farms.

There’s a lesson in here about brand loyalty and how people react to change in the constantly changing internet environment. I’m just not quite sure what that is yet.

Friday Links: Web ads on the rise, Facebook’s privacy nightmare, and a history of the blink tag

• Web ad market shows signs of life. Related: Internet ad revenue sets Q1 record.
• Uh, yeah, a graphic that attempts to explain Facebook’s privacy options.
• Tetris furniture, it might look good in the expanded office.
• 8 websites you should stop building.
• A showcase of bad infographics.
• A peek inside Pantone, it’s oddly fascinating.
• A brief history of the blink tag by the man who created it.
• 10 famous logos and what they cost.
• Adobe launches it’s ‘We heart Apple’ campaign.

Friday Links: Google’s drop shadow, poetics of coding, and pancakes

• The Poetics of Coding.
• From the not surprised at all file: 92% of Super Bowl ad creators were white men (also Jezebel has something to say about that).
• Layar makes finding augmented reality content easier.
• Brand New goes after the new Google drop shadow.
• If Mario was designed in 2010.
• Mmmm pancakes.
• Our VP of Marketing sent Anatomy of a Website to our sales staff as a nice review or overview of how some of this stuff works. Perhaps it’d be good for your staff too.
• It took Apple twenty-eight days to sell a million iPads. Wow.
• Cupidtino a dating site for Apple fanboys and girls.
• Less than half of Twitter users post anything.
• A review of the Feltron annual report.