July 22, 2009. Today was the occurrence of the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century. Depending on how you look at it, this is either a glorious act of nature, or a negative omen that will bring about chaos and turmoil, or so they think in India based on religious views. Supposedly the energy can be felt worldwide, although I simply find it fascinating and think of it as an astronomical event that we rarely  have the opportunity to witness. Unfortunately, living in the US prevents me from seeing it live, but it still stirred up some thought on how a solar eclipse has been inspiration to create logos. Take the show “Heroes” for example, their main logo focuses on this interesting event. Below are a few samples of the show’s logo design.

The logo has a few variations, in which one includes visuals of the cast members or a different version of the actual eclipse, however, the glowing sun is present in every version, even if it is mostly hidden.

An eclipse is a powerful image and here, in the above wallpaper display, Apple created their own view of a solar eclipse, in which the Apple logo replaces the moon. It makes the logo appear very strong and powerful with the bright back light shining behind it.

An eclipse style logo is used for many other businesses as well as TV shows. Here above, we have Eclipse eye wear, Eclipse gum and Eclipse is even the name of a specific bar and grill where the crescent moon makes up the “C.”

Hopefully all of those who could see the eclipse made sure to do so. The next one won’t occur for quite some time. An eclipse is a rare and beautiful thing, and based on the logos I found, it’s very effective in the design world as well.

-Nora Reed

Reading through the logo design news  for the day, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the venerable old’ Wall Street Journal has a piece written after Logo Blog’s own heart, covering logo design and logo design companies. Although we won’t besmirch the Journal for inching in on our territory, we do have our own take on their findings.

Peter King, the writer of the Cranky Consumer feature for the WSJ, created a fictional business in order to test and review, several online logo design companies. Operating under the assumption that the client was a jobless entrepreneur, King set his budget at $150 and under and went to work.

Creating DiskFix, an imaginary data retrieval service who specializes in data recovery from hard drives, King selected The Logo Company, Logo Design Guru.com, Logo Design Creation.com and Logo Loft to build his imaginary brand.Providing only a tag line and a simple one sentence description King purposely kept the input to a minimum and let the designers have at it.

After reviewing each design, King and corporate brand expert Dr. Glenn Christensen, assistant professor of business management at Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Management, provided their commentary. Although King and Christensen reviewed price, service, and design, we will turn our attention to the design itself.

Logo Design Guru
I liked this one, it seems both corporate and dynamic, while integrating a cyclical motion with an outlined circle around the company name. I also can’t help but notice a very FedEx like arrow in between the “I” and the “X” in “Fix”, very subtle. The typography is also strong and metered providing an excellent hierarchy between Disk Fix, Solutions, and the tag line. I would like to see the tag line slightly larger, but it can work both ways.
I disagree with Christensen’s assessment that the logo does not communicate what the company is. Clearly the circle, hidden arrow, and the circle around Disk Fix Solutions provide some indication of returning a user or a customer right back where they started from, as any customer of a data recovery service would so sorely want to feel. Overall strong text, plus the subtle cyclical motion makes this the strongest contender.

LogoLoft
I found this logo to be slightly more problematic, in that I found it too spread out and elongated for my taste. Also the text is a little bland.   I feel if you are going to design such a text centric logo, you should at least capitalize on it and do something interesting with it.  I’m just personally bored by the text in this logo.

I do like however the hard disk head resting on the platter, jutting out from the “D” in Disk. (I’m a sucker for design elements worked into text.) My only concern with this is that it could be mistaken for a thermometer. If someone wasn’t particular intimate with the internal working of a hard drive, he or she may not know what was being depicted.

Logo Design Creation.com
I have mixed feelings on this logo. I find the type to be very weak, and I’m not just some sans serif hater, this text is Land of Bland. The text is fitting for a road sign on the Autobahn, not for a data recovery firm.

The icon is compelling, in that it’s a blunt in your face representation of the company, but I disagree with Dr. Christensen that it’s the best representation out of the group. To me it’s uninspired and looks a little too much like an oscillating fan.
The logo is also fairly long and horizontal, and not as condensed and compact as most standard logos.

The Logo Co.
This is a compelling logo similar to the Logo Design Guru logo that I think takes the right approach. Circular in design, the logo creates the effect of spinning drive platters and is appropriately turning clockwise indicative of getting back to the start of something.
The 1s and 0s are a particularly nice touch at communicating the nature of the business and providing the necessary fill in inside the logo’s center. My only concern with this would be printing or embroidery. I wonder how well this would come out. I find the font for Disk Fix a little too thin, with the word “Solutions” becoming lost below the company name and above the tag line, but the design is still perfectly serviceable.

After offering our humble commentary on the design portion of this article, what are your thoughts about these logos? Did the Wall Street Journal get the design aspects correct? Which logo is the best and most likely to be selected and used? Which firms could have done better? Leave a comment below or vote in the poll on the right, under the RSS feed box.

Images and Graphics originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal July 16, 2009.

-Kevin Scott

Green is a trend that seems new, although environmentalists have been trying to get it going for many years. Finally “going green” has become popular and that idea is what was needed for people to wake up and do something about conserving our earth. American land has come a long way and the more time that goes by, the more the land is being used for homes, commercial areas, industrial areas or anything else that we may feel we need. Due to this, it is even more important now than ever to protect the natural environments we have left. National Parks conserve the land and keep it natural as it should be. It is extremely important for us to preserve the true beauty of our land and support the designated parks that do so.

In the American west, multiple National Parks are home to countless animals, mountains, tress, lakes and so many more of our natural beauties. It isn’t hard to gain visitors to these areas, although park administrators have created some really interesting logo designs to attract more guests.

This is the main logo for the National Park Service. The service has branded this image along the entry ways of most parks it represents. It has a great arrow head shape, complete with a mountain view and lone buffalo. These are things you most likely will see when visiting any of the National parks in the American West.

A lot of Logo designs have hidden symbols within them, like the design for Glacier National Park which hides a mountain goat within the snow along the mountain tops.

Bears are a common image in National Park logo designs. As you can see, they pop up pretty frequently, but since bears are popular residents of these locations, it makes sense for them to be used more often.

The beauty of these locations is barely captured in their logo designs. They are truly places that need to be seen to believe. When setting foot in these serene and breath taking areas, it is easier to realize that “going green” and making an effort to conserve America’s beauty is well worth it. After all, making that effort today will only give us a brighter future.

-Nora Reed

Spring and summer are usually the best times to visit the zoo. Whether it’s an educational field trip or just pure enjoyment, the zoo offers plenty of entertainment and opportunities to view wildlife. With so many zoos in existence all over the world, there is a great collection of logos to represent them.

Silhouetted animals seem to be a classy and simple look that is used in many of the zoo logo options. In my opinion, it works very well because it shows the type of wildlife that the zoo has to offer and does not overdo it.

I was a bit disappointed in the San Diego Zoo logo. With such a famous zoo, I would expect more than just simple, colored text.

Zoo logos seem to be very simple designs. There is not much to them and it seems promoting a zoo through a logo is not a first priority of such establishments. Perhaps local zoos could attract more visitors with a more complex or detailed design. People want to feel that they are visiting a clean, safe, well kept wildlife center and the best way to start off and create that impression is with the first thing you see, the logo!

With stars, stripes and a celebration of freedom, July 4th sets the true start of summer. Who can resist a cookout or pool party on this glorious day? With the 4th approaching so quickly, I know all of America is looking forward to the holiday weekend and an extra day off of work. In the spirit of the holiday and my own excitement for the upcoming parties, I decided to search for some logo inspiration that will put anyone in the mood to start singing the “star spangled banner.”

Simple, but brilliant. Obviously when you think of Independence day, you think of a flag and the red, white and blue color scheme. This logo represents the freedom of the 4th and flows graciously into the lettering.

I enjoyed this one as a great play off the star design. It’s more then just a simple star, it takes the concept a step further and gains a bit of flair. This design is still is very patriotic and has a more 3 dimensional look to it. I found it to be a really creative way to go.

I like the fireworks on this one. It is a nice, colorful edition to an otherwise common design. The fireworks concept is fun to play around with since fireworks can be formed into any shape, they give a designer the chance to get really creative.

Google is great for their ever changing logos. They’ve had many 4th of July editions over the years, but this one was most classy and festive.

Independence day was a great moment in American history and continues to be as we celebrate it each year. It’s a great way to start an exciting summer break with a bang and some fireworks. Happy 4th of July!!!

-Nora Reed