Talking Logo Lounge & Logo Trends

Bill Gardner: LogoLounge is a site for inspiration and a resource for designers of identity to submit their works and it's highly searchable so that you can go in and search logos by their designer or their keywords, or the industry they're in, or the time period, or originalities, it's just very deep as far as your research capability when you're working on an identity. But when we do a report, and we do it annually, we take all the logos since the last report that had been uploaded. And this particular year, that's 25,000 logos that have been submitted since the last report that we had done, which was a year hence. And I literally, I take a break from my family, I literally go through every single one of the logos that has been submitted. And I pull off every logo that has some quasi unique aspect to it, some nuance to it that I'm not familiar with. And this year, it turned into a file folder of 1,800 of those 25,000 logos.

Then I pick those over into Illustrator and start to lay all of that on the page in 10 by 10 grids. And I play the world's largest version of Match Game. Are you familiar with Match Game?

Ian Paget: It's like... we call it Snap.

Bill Gardner: So Snap it is. And it's a matter of pulling out one of the logos and you start looking across the other ones, for anyone that serves with the same similarities. And you go, "Oh, okay, well, this one also has that kind of little nuance and this one and this." And you start to build these clusters that identify the unique properties of some of these logos. And it's not uncommon for by the time you've gone through this, and sometimes it will take the better part of a week, to have upwards of maybe 100 or better clusters. And each one you give a name to, to give you a sense of what is going on within that particular cluster. And sometimes it's some kind of a thing like, "Gee, I'm seeing a lot of avocados for some reason or another. Or I'm seeing a lot of moustaches, or I'm seeing a lot of things."

But more often than not, it's some aspect of how it is designed and built. And then we take those and knock those down to usually around 30 of the more significant trends that we see. And then we take those to a group of other designers. And I think I've even asked you to participate in these before where we say, "Take a look at these and let me know which ones you think are most significant." And we evaluate that. Not only do we look at the logos on LogoLounge, but we also look at logos from just general design from around the world, more significant new corporate identity packages. And at that point, we try and evaluate why each of these trends has happened.

And if you've gotten into my reports before, you'll know that I usually give a goofy name to the trend.

Ian Paget: Yeah, we've got names such as like Yin Yang, Pass the Pass, these names are great.

Bill Gardner: And it's something that kind of mathematically helps you remember what that particular trend is. But we also explain why we think it's happening, what we think it is derived from, and potentially where we think it's going. So with that set up, here, let me go ahead and maybe talk about a couple of these here real quick.

There were three up at the beginning that all talk with technique. And one in particular is called shadow brakes. And it this will show how nerdy we are as logo designers is that we really get into these little nuances. But most designers know what a line break is in the design of a logo. And it's usually when one line is passing over another line or one area passes over another area. And we want to show that differentiation of planes that are occurring in there. So we will actually stop a line right before it reaches the next line. And then we'll continue it on on the other side.

Now, of course this happens in a two dimensional field or in a plane. But that little break that we build in there is a symbolic representation of something passing over or under the other element, right?

Ian Paget: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Bill Gardner: What we're starting to see is designers saying, "Instead of just making that cut out of there, creating that negative space, maybe what we do is we go ahead and build a bit of a shadow under there. So if one line passed under another, it would create a shadow typically." And sometimes the shadows are very solid, just a little bit deeper tone. Sometimes they have a gradient to them. But the idea is starting to move away from some of those line breaks that we are very accustomed to, and moving towards the shadow breaks that are occurring in here. And the result of which is a little bit more of a movement towards reality.

Ian Paget: I just want to add to this because like with this style, with these shadow breaks that we mentioned, with the colour versions, a lot of the rules that we all take with logos, they're all taken from principles that were created pre computers.

Bill Gardner: Yep.

Ian Paget: So that was a time where logos needed to be reproduced multiple times. So they had to always work in a single colour. Now with these, like shadow breaks, and blends and so on, a lot of these different trends, they don't necessarily apply to black and white. But I want to just add, if you was to do like a nice full colour version with the gradient that would work really well on the website, on an app, it would work in full colour print as well. But if you did create a black and white version, you can then do the more traditional, I don't know what you called it, then like cut or something like that. You're like basically, with a logo if you want to make a line look like it's going underneath another one, a really nice technique is you essentially just add a little gap and it looks like a shadow. But this has taken that one step further and making it look more three dimensional.

Bill Gardner: We actually took a couple of these logos in, and I guess I haven't shared that. So I'm also an author for lynda.com, which is now LinkedIn Learning, which is a tremendous resource of online courses that people can sign up for and take. And we do now, outside of the series on logo design for them that you can watch online. We do them on our Trend Report every year. So the Trend Report has just been released there as well, so you can watch me.

Ian Paget: After this, I'll take a link from you and we'll add that into the show notes as well.

Bill Gardner: Sounds good. The reason I was going there was because we actually did look at a couple of logos that have shadow breaks in them and we said, "Okay, let's look at what this looks like if you put a line break in it." And it looked totally wrong.

Ian Paget: Really?

Bill Gardner: The difference between night and day. So I suspect... Let me go back to your comment that led into this, which was that, there's that series of rules, those tenants that we follow the logo design canons, if you will, it's when you start getting into it has to be in black and white with no halftone to it. Or that it can only be a couple of colours, that it has to be hardline.

These are things that I ask people to question. Because frankly if you look at identity design in a world that is shifting. Look at major corporations, you're going to find that more and more of them have kind of cast these aside. And it is a difference in era. It is certainly a difference in technology. Because when those rules were established, we were living in a CMYK world where at best, everything was CMYK, cyan, yellow, magenta, black-

Ian Paget: In those days is probably the, like a logo was always reproduced in some way. And they were put into like advertisements. So that logo had to work in a newspaper at single colour.

Bill Gardner: Yep.

Ian Paget: And in terms of branding, branding has also evolved as well. There's a lot more complex stuff that you could do now that you couldn't do then. So from an identity point of view in like the 50s and 60s as well, I would say everything boomed. The way the logo was so important, the way it was done it was just slapped on everything. So this was a mark that had to work on absolutely everything, tiny sizes. I still think that applies today. Really tiny sizes that had to work on the back of a truck, that had to work in a newspaper magazine and so on.

But now, where do we see a logo? We see on a website, in an email signature, in a video, on social media.

Bill Gardner: We see it in RGB.

Ian Paget: Yeah, we see in RGB. Primarily, maybe print now and again, but like probably 95% of the people that are interacting with that brand, they will probably see that logo first in RGB.

Bill Gardner: Yep. And it is a different environment. And even when we do see it in CMYK, again, technology has shifted. So let me, I'll use the example of UPS or united partial services, that they serve Britain?

Ian Paget: I think UPS do.

Bill Gardner: Okay.

Ian Paget: They show up. I know the brand.

Bill Gardner: Okay. So they took the old Paul Rand UPS shield, which I loved, and they did something terribly crappy with the logo. Pardon me, but it's just my feeling. They shifted it to... it's still a shield, it still says UPS, but it has this golden, the highlight, ping of light, gradation and tone to it. And it works perfectly for the consumer, the consumers get it, but take a look at UPS with fleets of thousands and thousands and thousands of vehicles, aircraft packages and shifting over to a logo that couldn't be reproduced in black and white. You know really.

And the reason that it works is because if you take one of their delivery vehicles, keep in mind that they used to hire a painter to paint the logo on there. Couldn't have painted effectively, a gradation, but now the cost of printing out the vinyl to apply to the outside of the vehicle is less expensive than the time it would take just to call the painter on the phone.

So suddenly our whole technology paradigm has shift. The idea of what it used to cost to scan a colour image in print colour was much higher than it is today. Obviously, digital printing has dropped these biases dramatically. So just this technology shift is saying, but now when you start to say, "Well, I need a logo that's in black and white so that it will run in the phone directory and in the classified ads." Well, nobody uses phone directories or classified ads anymore. Suddenly that need has turned into the tail on the dog and not the dog. So-

Ian Paget: I do think that it's worth adding, there are still instances where you might need a single colour version, but what you can do is you can create a version with his, like if he was to look at the Trend Report, there's these nice logos who like these shadow breaks with these really nice gradients, I mean, you couldn't reproduce that in black and white. And when I say black and white, I mean solid black, not grey tones and so on. Where I mean this could be used is in vinyl. So say if in the office, for example, you wanted a nice painted glass with a-

Bill Gardner: The logo in a single colour.

Ian Paget: The logo, yeah, in a single colour vinyl, that's not good... I mean, you probably can get that reproduced but it's not going to be that easy. So that's one instance. And say, in terms of printing on t-shirts, with screen printing, the cost of getting multicolour screen printed t-shirt version versus a single colour, there's a big difference.

So there are still instances, but what I think you need to do, people that are listening to this, when you create a version like this for your client also create a version that would work in black and white. So for example in this Trend Report, there's a really nice kind of red. How would you describe it? It looks like a flower. Like this version I would potentially either have the shadows in some places as a break, or maybe just do the whole thing as a solid item. And I mean that logo would still be identifiable in single colour. So that's a nice example.

Bill Gardner: Yeah. And I mean, honestly, there is always going to be a way that you can produce something in a single colour if you need to. But I guess the point that I'm trying to express here is I don't want people to get so hung up on that, because-

Ian Paget: I don't think we need to anymore.

Bill Gardner: ... it's only portion. I'll give a example that may be close to your region. If it was here and we were to take a look at the last version of the AT&T logo that certainly required gradation. And it wasn't just as simple as the current version. Or if you look at BT on the island, BT in the UK is a wonderful example of a logo that requires transparency, gradation. And BT didn't shut down when they moved from the piper logo to the one that has the six hemispheres that are kind of working together on the globe-

Ian Paget: That particular logo, that wouldn't actually work in black and white.

Bill Gardner: Yep. But it...

Ian Paget: I'm curious. I need to find what that looks in black and white if there is a black and white version.

Bill Gardner: BT didn't quit manufacturing shirts, they didn't quit manufacturing mugs, they didn't quit... They just found other ways of demonstrating it as opposed to looking to use tools that used to be used to demonstrate vector art. So just, not trying to argue the point. I'm just saying that it's one of those things where typically somebody comes back with this, "Well, the old school says you need to do it this way." And I'm going, "Okay, give me one example of an area where this logo couldn't be used and I can always find an exception for it."

Ian Paget: And you find in most cases, those examples I mentioned where say the t-shirt would be printed in single colour, where you are screen printing, there are other printing methods that can print the gradients.

Bill Gardner: Exactly.

Ian Paget: So, I mean, that was an example, but in reality using that, if you didn't have a single colour version and you only had these versions with gradients, there are ways to do it now. So I think what Bill is saying is totally correct. It's like it's one of those principles that originated in the 50s, in the 60s that we should start to question as a community.

Bill Gardner: So, that being said, let me counter myself now and tell you that there is nothing that I love more than a beautifully crafted single colour vector logo. Because it shows me that level of craftsmanship. It warms my heart, especially when I see something that's just got a beautiful line to it. So, matter of fact, I'm going to move to the next trend that maybe is kind of pressing things and that's simplicity, which is in here.

And it's almost hard to look at this and go, "Really, does that belong in the Trend Report?" But it is speaking to this entire aesthetic that's going on right now of trying to become more austere, more spartan, trying to economise on stroke and mark to convey a message. And, if anything, this trend probably is going to suffer from the possibility that we're going to run out of geometric shapes to be used here pretty quickly.

And frankly, if you're looking in the report, there is both simplicity, and there is simple overlays which have a lot of commonalities in there. But with simplicity, it is taking truly geometric simple shapes, much like those building blocks that we may have grown up with as children and rearranging them to craft out marks that express this idea of, this company has found a way to reduce something down to something you can understand. That this company produces a product that is going to be easy for you to manipulate. This company manufactures a process that you will understand. So, that's a lot of the message that's going on in here.

Ian Paget: I've seen a lot of big brands start to... when they redesign, at the moment they are going more simple. So a lot of brands that did have gradients like Audi, they redesigned and they're gone very simple. But I think many did the same thing with logo, they're going very simple. And I think in a lot of cases it works. And I was thinking the simple trend, which I mean, it's in this Trend Report, but you mentioned it's been around for a few years now.

Taco Bell redesigned its logo recently, but I just felt like there's a threshold for taking it too far. I'm not sure what your thoughts are with that particular example but I just felt like it lost something, I kind of feel like with simplicity, there's a threshold to which it should be taken. And I felt with Taco Bell, there was something about the previously identity that was recognisable that they lost in the new version. So I think with simplicity there's a line to which simplicity where you can be over simplified.

Bill Gardner: Yeah, and part of it depends on if you're looking, Taco Bell logo and application or if you're just looking at it against a white background. I think in each location it works a little bit better. Frankly, my biggest issue with it is it looks like a prophylactic that's not been fully unfurled. And I'm sorry but I can't get beyond that when I look at the new draftsmanship on the bell. I think that maybe one of the issues with Taco Bell is that they have pushed it.

Ian Paget: I thought that trend, the simplicity one that's actually in here just so that everyone listening that hasn't looked to this, where you're referring to simplicity in this, it is very basic shapes. I mean, we're talking like circles, squares, triangles. This is basic as it gets. It's almost like, how would I describe it? Almost like a child has cut out shapes and put them together. This-

Bill Gardner: They use a product called colorforms. Do they have colorforms in the UK?

Ian Paget: I'm not sure about those.

Bill Gardner: They were little coloured pieces of vinyl that would stick together vinyl, that would be cut into shapes and kind of like a Tanner Graham that you could take these various shapes and construct and build things out of them on a flat picture. And it looks like it was a set of those that were used to design some of Zendesk, which is a letter Z which is formed out of two outer circle that's been cut in half. So two pieces of circle and two triangles that form a letter Z. And it's a beautiful simple shape but it also talks about the simplicity of the product and its use in many ways. But if you take those particular shapes, I can rearrange those and I can recreate the imagine logo that Chermayeff & Geismar has created for imagine media, which is a company, which is a circle and a square.

Ian Paget: With simplicity, I do think where big brands do really well in most cases is that, like their identity has existed for many years in most cases. And there were some component of that that's become very identifiable. And where I think Taco Bell made a mistake is that they lost whatever that was in that previous one that was very identifiable and stripped out some element from there. And I just feel like that's one of the first big rebrands where I felt like they've oversimplified or they've lost some element of what made that very identifiable. They've removed that.

So I think with simplicity, what's important to bear in mind and it's worth looking at, like logos from say, like Starbucks, and revolution, you will see that is being refined and refined and refined and now it's at this... Even though it was quite complex in comparison to these simple ones in the Trend Report, it's probably as simple as it can get without turning it into a green dot.

Bill Gardner: Well, that may be the next step, who knows? We look at something and we kind of go, "Okay, now they've reached that epitome of simplification. It can't get any more than this, but it always does. We're always able to knock something down and make it simpler. I think, back to Taco Bell and not to focus on that.

But I think what's happened there is that certainly at one point, if you really go back in history of Taco Bell, it was a flat and dimensional silhouette of a bell shape. And then it started to take on dimensionality from the perspective of it and the shape of it. And now it has even carried that further, it's tried to pull together this combination of flatness and dimensionality together. And they're working in counter to each other. Which is where I really see the problem with Taco Bell.

Ian Paget: Yeah. I mean going into that. I mean, we generally talk a lot about what makes a really good logo. But since you've seen so many logos uploaded, how many... It must be like... was it half a million that you've had uploaded?

Bill Gardner: No, no, it's a quarter a million but I'll take the half a million if you want to give it to me. Quarter a million still on. I think as of today there are 265,704 logos that have been uploaded to LogoLounge. And you always see the most recent one on the front page. The most recent logo today is-

Ian Paget: In the books or in the Trend Report, we tend to see the very best. Can you talk through a few of the mistakes that people make? Any of the logos that are particularly bad that are getting rejected, what is it that make them bad?. I mean, I like people that's listening to this, they hear what not to do because it's all very well hearing, yeah, it needs to be simple, it needs to be memorable, but we don't talk about what mistakes people are making. So have you got any things that you can really see?

Bill Gardner: One of the biggest traps that young identity designers will get caught up with is this concept of being literal in what you're trying to communicate for a company, for an entity, for an organisation. And that is that, gosh, if this is a company that manufactures tires then it's imperative that I show a tire in the logo. And it's not. In fact, a company that manufactures tires, what they're doing is they are dealing with the business of getting people from point A to point B. They're dealing with motion and moving things from place to place. They're dealing with velocity. You start to take a look at what a company is doing, you could also say, gee, Michelin comes out and says, "What we're doing is we're providing that degree of comfort and safety for your family as opposed to we're making tires."

And when you start to think about what that logo is going to be, as soon as you realise that you're starting to just draw pictures of what they manufacture or trying to draw pictures of what they achieve, you probably are heading in the wrong direction. It's fine to lay those down and to kind of get those out of your system, there's an old expression in design that no idea is as dangerous as the only idea that you have. And when you're designing your very first ideas, sometimes they're good. Sometimes they're just that first idea and you need to keep moving and not become so infatuated.

Another aspect of this is this idea of trying to, there is a secret to being able to build layers of information into an image without making it complex. And our designers at Gardener Design, one of our mantras is that every logo needs to live on three levels. That as you look at that mark that it initially says this to you. It might be an initial for the company, who knows.

But secondly as you look at it, you start to realise, "Oh, that also could be this," which is what they achieve. And "Oh, it could also be this," which is, it looks like the place where it is. Or you can start to see these different layers of things as you become familiar with and develop a relationship with that mark. And I use three euphemistically because it could be four, it could be five, but we really try and build layers of complexity into it. But we try and keep our marks incredibly simple in form.

And sometimes that is the way that as a designer, keep in mind if I gave you the challenge, Ian, of draw a logo that looks like the letter K but also looks like a dog. I'm positive that you're skilled enough that you could do that. That you could make it both a letter K and a dog. But at some point in there, you're going to shift it so far that people say, "Ah, I see the K but not the dog, or I see the dog but not the K." And the objective is to try and find that point at which you're able to fathom both but not be literal about either. Does that make sense?

Ian Paget: Yeah, it does.

Bill Gardner: So for younger designers, the other thing is that be able to know how to rebut a client politely. Keep in mind that they have hired you because of your level of expertise. And it's easy to be cowed or directed by a client in such a way, and I'm not saying you don't want to listen to the client because that's imperative that you build your brief from their objectives and what they're trying to achieve. But also keep in mind that they have a very limited sight. That they... I'll give you a quick example.

Years ago, we were approached by a company that provided job opportunities to people that had visual impairments. It was called Wichita Industries and Services for the Blind years ago. And one of the things that they pointed out was, whatever you do when you create this identity, don't use an eye in it. A person's eye. And we thought, "Okay, well, that's kind of a strange request. But we'll heed that." And as we got into it, we started realising that it was very challenging to create something that didn't use an eye when you're talking about sight. Not impossible, but challenging.

And we ended up coming up with this wonderful logo, which were these two hands that were coming together because the hands are a person who is visually impaired eye often. And as the two hands came together, these two thumbs touching kind of created the shape of an eye with a pupil in the centre of it. And we showed it to them and they loved it. And it served them well for many generations now.

But when we asked them why they didn't want to use an eye, it was because they had seen a logo of a person's face with, in place of their eyes there were a couple of x's drawn, where the eyeballs would be indicating that they didn't have sight. And yeah, that would have been a terrible solution. But it was what was driving them towards why they didn't want to use the eye.

So when you have a client that tells you, "Don't do this." Keep that, listen to it. But also try and determine why they've said that, and if you believe that there's an opportunity there, then show them what that opportunity is.

Ian Paget: I've experienced that situation very recently. I did a logo for a vegan company. And they specifically asked, "Don't use any leaves or green." But I came up with a really good idea that used a leaf. I showed it to them. I said, "I understand that you did ask to avoid this direction but I would like to show you this is one of the options." We didn't take that route in the end, but she loved it.

Bill Gardner: See.

Ian Paget: Making her mind up about that. And it literally used a leaf.

Bill Gardner: There you go. And again, you're the expert, and I'm the expert, our listener is the expert too. When you're approached, the value that you bring to this is that you have this level of experience where you understand the way that the public responds to iconography and to symbology and what you can get away with and what you can't, and we're stewards of their brand when we do that. But they're looking for our best advice.

Ian Paget: I think one thing that we both said here is we've acknowledged what they said and actually told them, "I understand that you did ask to avoid this route but." So I think it's important to do that. Yeah. I think you have to do that so that you acknowledge that you've heard what they said, but you then recommended an alternative direction that does use that. So, yeah, I think that that's an important takeaway from this.

Bill Gardner: That being said, sometimes they may say that and be totally right.

Ian Paget: I'm really keen to know, what was it that got you into logos? Where did you start out? Where did that passion for logos start?

Bill Gardner: A couple of different answers for this. One, you track it back to when I really got into it as far as the actual practice of design. But the other thing that becomes evident to you after you start giving a little bit of consideration is, points during your childhood that you're realising that you paid far too much attention to these little symbols and what they meant.

So, in fact, my grand father was a rancher and an oil man. Failed at both, by the way. But as a rancher, and keep in mind, this is a gentleman who was born 1895. And I'm from Kansas and you've got oil and cattle there. He had a brand for, he and his father's ranch which was called The Diamond Bar. And that literally meant that they branded cattle with this diamond shape that had a little line underneath it. And at a later point in his career he went into home building which is really where he made his career.

And he would actually tack these little diamond bar shapes on to people's trellises, or their garage doors, or build a window into the house that was diamond shaped, a little bar underneath it, and the likes. And when my father took over the business he had these diamond bars cast in aluminium, or as you might say aluminium.

And they would screw them to the front doors of the houses. So, I can recall as a child drawing and redrawing this diamond bar working with the proportions of it, and trying to make it feel better to me. So, if you really are saying, where did it all start? Hey, a 10 year old with some prismacolors, drawing a logo over and over that belong to the family. And if you start thinking about it from that perspective, that's a little bit too obsessed at an early age.

You look back at this, I can either recall as a child seeing logos for like a television station locally that I be going, "That K and the letter N are the same thickness but the letter S is thinner. Wouldn't you... and it should be connected here. And wouldn't that..." So, I was a critic long before I was actually... And then college came along and a lot of people don't realise that I actually started with a degree in business so I have a BBA in business, and then decided that I wasn't really happy going into the business which was real estate and real estate appraisal.

So, I went back to college. I was putting myself through school at the time doing magic. And wasn't really tied down. And had done some some art in college and thought, "I'm going to try design degree." So I went to a different school, ultimately found my wife there, found out they didn't have much of a design program. Came back to Wichita State where I graduated from and got another degree in fine arts design. And at that point, started looking for a job.

Ian Paget: So what happened after this? I understand that you have your own studio, how did that come about?

Bill Gardner: I have never worked for anybody else. As I indicated, I was putting myself through college doing magic, and I was relatively well known. I worked for a gentleman doing magic before getting in design that traveled around the world putting up magic conventions and became pretty associated with a lot of the name magicians that your audience might know. Including some from England, like Bob Reed, Paul Daniels and the likes that I befriended. But I was going to say, ultimately when I started going out and interviewing for a design position, I would make it through the interview and people would look at the portfolio and then they would say, "Well, that's all good. Show me a trick."

I realised at that point, and I didn't mind showing them my trick, but it was a matter of, I need to put away the magic. If I'm going to be focused on design I need to put away something that I love and pursue an avenue that really can build a living for me. And I started doing some freelance work here and there and pretty soon had enough work that I needed to hire somebody to help me with it, and it just turned into a company.

I had a partnership or two, actually a partnership in there at one point, but I have always worked for myself and Gardner designs, sole proprietorship. So we've got a group of about 10 or 11 folks here, depending on a good day. And we just focus entirely on branding and brand design.

Ian Paget: That's an amazing story. Thank you for sharing it. Now, we're close to the end of our time, so do you have any final piece of advice for our listeners?

Bill Gardner: You know what? We are so fortunate that we have a really tremendous group of clients that generally have a lot of courage. And I'm guessing that if there's some level of advice that I can give to the folks out there it's that when you're creating for somebody, realise that this is going to be something that you don't have to live with as much as they do. And that this is going to represent them in such a way that you can never ultimately fathom. So, you've got to... don't just draw a picture, don't just vastly look at this project but really consume the project, know everything you can about that particular industry or client so that you're creating something that is going to represent them again for generations to come.

Ian Paget: Bill, thank you very much for your time.

Bill Gardner: Thank you again. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to your audience and congratulations with your success with Logo Geek.