968
archive: review-968: ross resnick, from australia, talks about logos
The Main Idea
Logos began when psychopathic thugs in the distant past became successful enough to have personal logos which were then called Heraldry. Heraldry caused considerable excitement and quickly lead to Pageantry. Pageantry was based on the ability to run popular events and have your logo held aloft on big sticks. Over the years,with the help of Heraldry and Pageantry the descendants of the most successful of the psychopaths became known as Royalty. This lead to the establishment of corporate headquarters called Palaces and if the palaces were using T QM then the meals were served on time and the horses were groomed properly. As time went by the palaces became larger and the chins became smaller. The whole scam became known as corporate identity and is still popular.
Corporate progress assisted the poor who in return for obedience were granted illiteracy and in return were allowed their own logos . If the local publican painted the word BEER on his sign it wouldn’t mean much to you because you’d be illiterate. For all you known the sign might say Enrol here for a life in the army or Gravedigger wanted to bury Black Plague victims. It just wasn’t worth the risk.
But if the publican paints a big foaming jug of beer on his sign there’s not a double entendre in sight. He’s got you. He’s got me anyway. So welcome to the poor person’s first logo where you can happily drink your beer beer, bang on the bar and shout…Bloody awful logo ,worse than Westpac. The designer knight at the end of the bar, dressed in black can shout…Nothing could be worse than Westpac .
Design has a long history ,many faces and some problems .One of the first problems is that most graphic designers aren’t writers. Or even readers, poor things. Designers see writers from a different and difficult direction. If the designer befuddles the writer’s idea the whole project becomes a turgid puddle.
Some designers understand the double writer/designer function and they’re usually the ones who keep getting good work for their entire lifetime even if they aren’t very good designers. l know a few of these people and they’re very happy especially if they have a hobby to feed their creative urges. As they sit on their Versace ploughs and watch their grapes ripen they thank the Lord that they kept firing clear and cogent messages into people’s brains.
Telecoms have the same function.. They get paid to fire a message with as little static as possible from the head of one person on the planet into the head of another through the ear. In their business if the static is high the profit is low. This decade static is fashionable..People as talented as David Carson can pull off visual static with style and big invoices. People who copy him usually can’t. Carson has the ability to find the main idea and ignore the secondary idea which sometimes disguises itself as the main idea. He then deconstructs and reconstructs the main idea.
A reasonable example of lack of recognition of the main idea occurred in an industrial design context on a sunny day at Isandhlwana in South Africa in 1887 when a thousand English troops ran into an impi of more than 20,000 Zulus intent on killing them.No sweat. The English had rifles,the Zulus had spears. The English formed into the system of rifle squares in rows of three so that two soldiers were reloading while one was firing. They were single shot rifles and slow to load but the system filled the air spaces with walls of lead
The Zulus were as usual but soon there were hip high piles of their bodies still some distance from the English. As the rifles cracked and killed,back in Manchester the designer of the new English ammunition box was probably feeling pleased with himself as he spent his fee. Back in Isandhlwana the Zulus were getting closer as the firing slowed. The quartermaster sergeants in the middle of the square were frantically trying to open the new ammunition boxes.
Back in Manchester the ammunition box designer was probably having morning tea and thinking how clever he was in sealing the ammunition boxes with two copper bands and twenty seven philips head screws. Those black buggers won’t be able to pilfer the ammunition now he thought
Back in Isandhlwana every English soldier was dead. In a battle they couldn’t lose because of the technology the rifle the English had lost because of dumb and dangerous thinking by the designer of the ammunition box who concentrated on the secondary idea. The design philosophy was pretty good for stopping pilfering but not very good at getting handfuls of bullets. The day after Isandhlwana and a few kilometres away ,Michael Caine, by opening the boxes well in advance of the arrival of the Zulus steadfastly defeated them in the film Zulu.
Back in Australia it’s a pretty good example of the dangers in the failure of Design. The constant Recall notices of dangerous products go largely unnoticed, certainly by me. If you’d like to fill your life with dread get an issue of Choice magazine and look at the recalls of defective products. Your car goes great but the left hand front brake hose is about to fall off. But luckily you’ve got an airbag. The airbag will probably embed your Armani sunglasses deeply into your eye sockets. The heater you bought for your convalescence will certainly keep you warm but if you don’t see the recall notice it may burn your bungalow down. And how can you see the recall notice if your sunglasses are living inside your eyeballs.
By its nature graphic design has less obvious penalties for design sins.
The biggest one is when the client doesn’t call you back.
The Main Idea
Logos began when psychopathic thugs in the distant past became successful enough to have personal logos which were then called Heraldry. Heraldry caused considerable excitement and quickly lead to Pageantry. Pageantry was based on the ability to run popular events and have your logo held aloft on big sticks. Over the years,with the help of Heraldry and Pageantry the descendants of the most successful of the psychopaths became known as Royalty. This lead to the establishment of corporate headquarters called Palaces and if the palaces were using T QM then the meals were served on time and the horses were groomed properly. As time went by the palaces became larger and the chins became smaller. The whole scam became known as corporate identity and is still popular.
Corporate progress assisted the poor who in return for obedience were granted illiteracy and in return were allowed their own logos . If the local publican painted the word BEER on his sign it wouldn’t mean much to you because you’d be illiterate. For all you known the sign might say Enrol here for a life in the army or Gravedigger wanted to bury Black Plague victims. It just wasn’t worth the risk.
But if the publican paints a big foaming jug of beer on his sign there’s not a double entendre in sight. He’s got you. He’s got me anyway. So welcome to the poor person’s first logo where you can happily drink your beer beer, bang on the bar and shout…Bloody awful logo ,worse than Westpac. The designer knight at the end of the bar, dressed in black can shout…Nothing could be worse than Westpac .
Design has a long history ,many faces and some problems .One of the first problems is that most graphic designers aren’t writers. Or even readers, poor things. Designers see writers from a different and difficult direction. If the designer befuddles the writer’s idea the whole project becomes a turgid puddle.
Some designers understand the double writer/designer function and they’re usually the ones who keep getting good work for their entire lifetime even if they aren’t very good designers. l know a few of these people and they’re very happy especially if they have a hobby to feed their creative urges. As they sit on their Versace ploughs and watch their grapes ripen they thank the Lord that they kept firing clear and cogent messages into people’s brains.
Telecoms have the same function.. They get paid to fire a message with as little static as possible from the head of one person on the planet into the head of another through the ear. In their business if the static is high the profit is low. This decade static is fashionable..People as talented as David Carson can pull off visual static with style and big invoices. People who copy him usually can’t. Carson has the ability to find the main idea and ignore the secondary idea which sometimes disguises itself as the main idea. He then deconstructs and reconstructs the main idea.
A reasonable example of lack of recognition of the main idea occurred in an industrial design context on a sunny day at Isandhlwana in South Africa in 1887 when a thousand English troops ran into an impi of more than 20,000 Zulus intent on killing them.No sweat. The English had rifles,the Zulus had spears. The English formed into the system of rifle squares in rows of three so that two soldiers were reloading while one was firing. They were single shot rifles and slow to load but the system filled the air spaces with walls of lead
The Zulus were as usual but soon there were hip high piles of their bodies still some distance from the English. As the rifles cracked and killed,back in Manchester the designer of the new English ammunition box was probably feeling pleased with himself as he spent his fee. Back in Isandhlwana the Zulus were getting closer as the firing slowed. The quartermaster sergeants in the middle of the square were frantically trying to open the new ammunition boxes.
Back in Manchester the ammunition box designer was probably having morning tea and thinking how clever he was in sealing the ammunition boxes with two copper bands and twenty seven philips head screws. Those black buggers won’t be able to pilfer the ammunition now he thought
Back in Isandhlwana every English soldier was dead. In a battle they couldn’t lose because of the technology the rifle the English had lost because of dumb and dangerous thinking by the designer of the ammunition box who concentrated on the secondary idea. The design philosophy was pretty good for stopping pilfering but not very good at getting handfuls of bullets. The day after Isandhlwana and a few kilometres away ,Michael Caine, by opening the boxes well in advance of the arrival of the Zulus steadfastly defeated them in the film Zulu.
Back in Australia it’s a pretty good example of the dangers in the failure of Design. The constant Recall notices of dangerous products go largely unnoticed, certainly by me. If you’d like to fill your life with dread get an issue of Choice magazine and look at the recalls of defective products. Your car goes great but the left hand front brake hose is about to fall off. But luckily you’ve got an airbag. The airbag will probably embed your Armani sunglasses deeply into your eye sockets. The heater you bought for your convalescence will certainly keep you warm but if you don’t see the recall notice it may burn your bungalow down. And how can you see the recall notice if your sunglasses are living inside your eyeballs.
By its nature graphic design has less obvious penalties for design sins.
The biggest one is when the client doesn’t call you back.
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