The Apple Logo
Thursday, January 17, 2008 Filed in: Things
Does a product or business logo mean anything
important? Does it have a voice? If so, what does
that 'voice' say?
The answer is an unqualified yes. A logo is important to a business because it says, quickly and efficiently, something important about the business or product.
In recent years, a number of very large and successful companys, with millions of customers and a high profile in technology, have changed their logos. Without doubt, much thought and expense went into the development and integration of the logos.
Some are successful and others are not. Here are some examples of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The Good - Apple Computer's original logo was a multi-colored silhouette of an apple with a bite in the right side. Apple was once a playful company which courted the artistic and rebellious crowd.
Read what you will into the apple for Apple, Adam and Eve, The Beatles, whatever, the logo identified well with the company.
The 21st century brought a new maturity to Apple. Out with the old, in with the new. Gone was the multi-colored, candy-coated Apple logo, replaced by a sparklingly pristine silver image that remained attached to the Apple of old, but clearly brought the company into a new century.
Apple Computer, the maker of Macintosh computers, the iPod, the iPhone, iTunes Store and many other products, simply became Apple, Inc. That was a successful change.
What of the bad and ugly?
AT&T has a new global logo modeled on a globe, a spinning globe of white with blue stripes. Not just any blue stripe, but a blue stripe that is so antisymmetrical that it could only have been the 3rd runner up in the McKinley High School Bad Logo Design Contest.
What were they thinking?
Obviously, the same logo design firm that stuck it to AT&T was immediately hired by venerable copy machine company turned document management expert, Xerox.
The new Xerox company logo is a perfect blend of a Swiss band-aid stuck on a red M & M candy, sufficient to cover the M & M logo, and to bring howls of laughter from the design community.
One can look at the Apple logo and know instantly the company behind the visual cue. What of AT&T's oddly configured spinning Saturnistic striped bowling ball?
It spins, it jives, but it doesn't say much about AT&T, right? Wrong. Maybe it says AT&T still isn't together, despite 127 mergers and buyouts and name changes in the past 5 years.
And Xerox? It's a band-aid stuck on a red ball, for crying out loud! It looks like an inverse three dimensional cry for help, the logo beside the name on a tag of a hospital candystriper.
Corporate America, please, call me before you select and change your logo.
The answer is an unqualified yes. A logo is important to a business because it says, quickly and efficiently, something important about the business or product.
In recent years, a number of very large and successful companys, with millions of customers and a high profile in technology, have changed their logos. Without doubt, much thought and expense went into the development and integration of the logos.
Some are successful and others are not. Here are some examples of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The Good - Apple Computer's original logo was a multi-colored silhouette of an apple with a bite in the right side. Apple was once a playful company which courted the artistic and rebellious crowd.
Read what you will into the apple for Apple, Adam and Eve, The Beatles, whatever, the logo identified well with the company.
The 21st century brought a new maturity to Apple. Out with the old, in with the new. Gone was the multi-colored, candy-coated Apple logo, replaced by a sparklingly pristine silver image that remained attached to the Apple of old, but clearly brought the company into a new century.
Apple Computer, the maker of Macintosh computers, the iPod, the iPhone, iTunes Store and many other products, simply became Apple, Inc. That was a successful change.
What of the bad and ugly?
AT&T has a new global logo modeled on a globe, a spinning globe of white with blue stripes. Not just any blue stripe, but a blue stripe that is so antisymmetrical that it could only have been the 3rd runner up in the McKinley High School Bad Logo Design Contest.
What were they thinking?
Obviously, the same logo design firm that stuck it to AT&T was immediately hired by venerable copy machine company turned document management expert, Xerox.
The new Xerox company logo is a perfect blend of a Swiss band-aid stuck on a red M & M candy, sufficient to cover the M & M logo, and to bring howls of laughter from the design community.
One can look at the Apple logo and know instantly the company behind the visual cue. What of AT&T's oddly configured spinning Saturnistic striped bowling ball?
It spins, it jives, but it doesn't say much about AT&T, right? Wrong. Maybe it says AT&T still isn't together, despite 127 mergers and buyouts and name changes in the past 5 years.
And Xerox? It's a band-aid stuck on a red ball, for crying out loud! It looks like an inverse three dimensional cry for help, the logo beside the name on a tag of a hospital candystriper.
Corporate America, please, call me before you select and change your logo.
