Logo Time
Sagi Haviv
When the practice of corporate visual identity design got under way, in the middle of the twentieth century, the tools of the trade were cumbersome and required many hands and specialized training. Clients often had to be talked into accepting (let alone paying for) modern design—and very few people outside the profession thought much about it. Today almost every casual computer user has a suite of software available to create and reproduce images and type, and everyone seems to have an opinion about logos.
But while the mechanics of visual identities have transformed dramatically, the core principles of our practice have actually changed very little. The fundamental goal of a logo design is to create an image that can endure over time, gathering significance throughout the life of the company or organization it represents. In order to achieve this, we employ essentially the same process and look for the exact same qualities in a logo, as did the identity design pioneers of the 1950s.
Simplicity—a design that was uncomplicated in form—meant then that it could function beautifully both in the strenuous conditions of black and white newspaper ads and also as large three-dimensional signs on sides of buildings. However, achieving an image that is sufficiently simple and yet is distinctive enough to be remembered isn’t simple at all. It requires a disciplined and persistent process of strategic thinking, design exploration, critical analysis and continuous, unremitting refinements that leads to a distilled mark.
In 1960, Tom Geismar and Ivan Chermayeff were able to establish such an enduring identity for Chase Manhattan Bank. They worked over a period of months to develop and refine symbol options that could work in all the communications that the bank—then the largest in the country—would need. The meticulous presentation included mockups of the designs in the context of typical applications and signs to prove to themselves and to the heads of the bank that the simple identity could work well everywhere and was distinctive enough to represent the bank.
Fig. 1 Symbol for Chase Manhattan bank, 1960 / image courtesy of Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv
While Ivan and Tom were convinced that the abstract design could work well, the heads of the bank and specifically the chairman were not. Looking at it for the first time, they didn’t understand what it was supposed to mean or how it was supposed to relate to the bank—and they just didn’t like it. However, after some intense conversations, the chairman agreed to adopt the symbol for the retail bank, with one caveat: “I don’t want to see it on my letterhead, I don’t want to see it on my business card; I don’t like it!”
Two months later, after the mark had been officially adopted and in use, Ivan and Tom ran into the chairman in the hallway of the bank’s headquarters. He was wearing a tie with the logo pattern on it, cufflinks of the logo in three-dimensions, and a baseball cap with the logo. The blue octagon had become the representation of the bank to him, and he had seamlessly transferred his feelings for the bank onto the symbol.
Simplicity works: the distinctive octagon has meant Chase for over sixty years now. It still looks good in black-and-white newspaper ads and on the sides of buildings, but it also thrives in tiny sizes on mobile devices, digital animations, and in the pixel formats that are required today.
The Chase example also brings up another important pillar in the understanding of visual identities that can endure: you don’t have to like it right away. This is very hard to explain to a client, as the culture we live in today seems to reward instantaneous reactions. Everyone wants their photos on Instagram to be liked, and their comments to be upvoted and retweeted—and the speed of all of this mutual evaluation can be dizzying.
Even professionals who specialize in identity design can get swept up into the trend of instant judgment and novelty-seeking. Peer-review sites like Behance and critique blogs like BrandNew have an important place in the online design community, but the work of effective identity design requires that a practitioner ignore the trends, put aside the expectation of getting good reviews (or likes, or upvotes), and focus on the needs of the client at hand.
Effective identity design solutions grow from the clients—their culture, history, vision, and aspirations. To achieve this level of personalization, designers must immerse themselves in their clients, understand them thoroughly, and absorb all the information available. What you then create has to be examined and judged for appropriateness in light of the clients’ attributes. This meditation requires a serious investment of time.
Only with the passage of several weeks—even months—can a designer begin to imagine how a logo will mature and endure. During this time, many revisions, refinements, and recalculations take place. Practitioners as well as graphic design students who hope one day to be practitioners of corporate identity design have to make a mental adjustment: they have to slow down the pace, ignore the chatter and the latest fashion, and be aware of technological innovations without falling captive to them.
Great identity designers—in the mid-20th century and today—work outside their time in order to create a design that can look timeless.