Tweet Photo, effectively the next hottest thing since twitter has asked the masses for a new logo to promote itself with. The company is looking for Twitter users, who will effectively become their core customers, to provide feedback and vote for their favorite design.
The closing date for graphic designers to submit their logo into the contest is April 14, 2009 at 12:03am GMT. Many companies are now “crowdsourcing” and its proving to a be a cheap and effective way to get the best design out there.
Twitter Crowdsourcing
Twitter is no stranger to crowdsourcing. Twitter effectively did crowdsourcing with its bird design, purchasing it for $10 to $15, an iStockphoto spokeswoman told wired.com. According to Rodney Rumford, Co-Founder of TweetPhoto, “There’s no better way to engage your customers than to have them design and vote upon your creative needs.”
Crowdsourcing is a simple concept. Twitter asks for a new logo and send out thousands of invitations to its users and designers. Those people recognize the benefit of producing what will be a world famous logo and send through their best work and ideas. The result? A definite excellent logo one would hope!
Instant Classic?
Take twitter’s current bird logo. Its simple and arty and the best thing about it is the fact that its fast becoming instantly recognizable on any website it is shown. One could even go as far as to say that the Twitter logo even enhances a website, making it look more cool, happening and with it.
I’m guessing Twitter gets a lot of responses for this logo request. Hell, I’m even tempted to enter an idea myself. You know what they say. If your not in you can’t win! Good luck to us all!
Related Articles
TweetPhoto Blog
A Picture Is Worth A Thousands Tweets
TweetPhoto: Another one to Tweet your pictures to Twitter
April 06 2009 | Xtra | 2 Comments »
London Olympics
Look at the new Olympics logo for London! Its brash, its pink and some might say its all over the place! Most importantly though, its different and this is perhaps what counts. It has a distinct eighties electric feel to it and its definitely become controversial. When it was released many were in outcry demanding its demise but I reckon we should give this little gem time to mature and grow on us. Will we look back at this decade in years to come and point to it as a classic design? Anything is possible!
Museum of London
Patterns are eye catching and hold your attention. Expect to see more of these types of logos in the future. The Museum of London have a new logo featuring patterns overlapping and full of vivid colour. There is a seventies retro feel here and it definitely makes the viewer take notice. This is perhaps, like the London Olympics logo a new modern design which may take a few years to be appreciated by the public. In essence its not your typical museum type logo. This is a strength and not a weakness. It allows the logo and consequently the Museum of London brand to stand out from the crowd in a creative way. It would be interesting to compare visitor figures to the logo and its introduction within the museum brand. Perhaps there is a report on that somewhere.
Think London
A logo with a lot happening in it! It’s a tourism logo intended to promote London on the international stage. Johnson Banks designed it. Heres what they have to say..” Think London’s job is to sell the city as a location to the world’s businesses. ‘Forget Paris, Berlin, Beijing, set up in London instead’ is their pitch. So how do you distill all that London has to offer into 1 symbol? Well, you don’t. You use 45. We twisted the famous skyline 180 degrees into a reflection and made a new skyline out of all the other factors that would help you choose the city.”
We have seen this idea before and many will argue its now fast becoming over used. City skylines rearranged into a cool looking graphic so that people will notice it and say “wow”. The concept kind of works here though. Its in cool blue and it looks cool. The reflection shows elements from the real London skyline, whereas the upper skyline contains the new symbols. To the potential traveler thinking about visiting London I think it works. Its full of fun and things to do, just like London. Its attractive, eye catching and real.
London Underground
A timeless symbol of quality. Designed by Edward Johnston, in 1918, this logo needs no introduction. It’s a roundel, usually red with the name of the appropriate station placed along the middle. The logo design has become an international symbol for London. And one many Londoners are proud of. It can be found in all the tube stations throughout the city and beyond. The logo is so famous it has been used for other things as well. There are many references in culture to the logo, including parodies of it using different station-names, particularly in London advertisements for unrelated products & services. I would guess that this logo is going to be around for a long time to come.
RELATED ARTICLES
Logo Trends for 2009
When Logo Design Goes Wrong
10 trends that will define logo design in 2008
Three Great Logos I saw in London
April 03 2009 | Xtra | 2 Comments »
Gary Stewart approached Chew Design and asked me to create a logo and branding for his new restaurant, “Tartine”.
This would be a new restaurant situated within the already established Distiller’s Arms Pub in Bushmills. Gary had just bought the premises and wanted to obviously change things about a bit and give the business a fresher feel.
Logo Design Brief
Gary wanted to keep the original typeface and logo of the Distiller’s Arms but have a new cool idea for the Tartine Restaurant. At the time he described his thoughts on the design saying,
“I want to add a new “chic” factor with the addition of a restaurant within the premises eg TARTINE at Distillers Arms. Obviously, the restaurant name being Tartine. I am having a mostly cosmetic refurb/makeover done with more modern fabrics,wall colors,lighting
and aesthetic work done at the outside main entrance.
I am happy with the actual distillers logo/typeface but need a cool idea for Tartine I suppose it is a starting point.”
Beyond that, Gary left all design work to me. I had free rein. This can sometimes be a blessing or a hindrance but in this case it helped things along immensely. After a few brainstorming sessions and a quick bit of research into the Distiller’s Arms I came came up with a number of ideas. Many would link to the historical ties of the actual pub, it having been the home of the Bushmills Distillery owners for many years. The pub had obviously taken its name from this bit of history and I felt that Tartine could possibly benefit from this as well.
Development of an Idea
Upon receiving the first batch of ideas Gary immediately picked one that he preferred over all others. It was the logo with the barley symbol that caught his eye. The barely symbol comes loosely from the historical ties the pub has with the Bushmills Distillery. Whiskey is made there and barely is used to make whiskey. Gary liked this logo and so I set about developing ideas about colour, layout, spacing and font around this chosen design. Gary was very specific about colour. He wanted the logo to tie in with the new interior colours of his restaurant and also compliment it. He mentioned plum, purple, aubergine, greys, black as colour preferences and I certainly stuck to this set of requirements. Experimenting with colour allowed the design to breathe and develop. I sent through a number of design alternatives.
Refining the barley
Gary was delighted with these samples and became very specific about how he wanted the logo to look. The font needed a little work. Gary liked the idea of elongating a few letters. This would enhance the logo further but we had to be careful. Too much manipulation would make the text and font unreadable. He liked gray and aubergine. He also wanted me to try placing the logo on an oval shape. This would give the design a little more consistency and perhaps tie it in with the theme of its parent pub, the Distillers Arms. I experimented with circular and oval shapes and sent through another batch of samples.
We had pretty much nailed it with this last batch of samples.
Gary picked one that caught his eye and I finalized it for him. The logo is simple, light in colour but definitely effective. It sets the mood almost immediately for Gary’s new business venture. Gary was delighted. “ You did a great job! Things are beginning to heat up with Tartine and im now at the stage where i need more hours in the day.
Its all good!!”
Another happy client. Another great logo!
LINK TO DISTILLERS ARMS WEBSITE www.distillersarms.com
Other useful Articles
“When Logo Design Goes wrong”
“Top Ten Logos”
“The Logo Design Process of Top Logo Designers”
“Logo Design process for Vivid Ways”
March 31 2009 | Xtra | No Comments »
Picked up a copy of “The Encyclopedia of Fonts” last weekend in Chapters Bookstore in Dublin. No Designer should be without this book! Authored by Gwyn Headley, it has an extensive list of fonts. The handiest part of the book is the fact that it includes handy preview images of the font showcasing what it will look like from A to Z. Ive already started using it when designing logos for clients.
Can’t find the Font
On numerous occasions a client will contact me and request that I include a certain font in the design I’m working on. No problem there. But normally all I will get is an image of the font and not a name. Its always very hard to find the font on this occasion and Ive spent hours searching online before. Hopefully this book will solve such a problem. It has already come in very useful and I’m finding it a lot easier to specify certain fonts as particular candidates for chosen logos and other designs Im working through. Thank you Gwyn Headley for compiling such a nifty little solution to the age of problem of finding that illusive font!
An Instant Reference
From the Book’s Introduction, “The age of the personal computer has occasioned a flood of new fonts but there has been no equivalent graphic revolution to the invention of sans serif in 1816 or slab serifs in the 1840’s. Today’s trend is to produce variations in weight and style from the basic same design. A font may now appear as lineale, serif, slab serif, monospaced and monocline, with weights ranging from Ultra Light Compressed to Extra Black Extended- creating a complete family suited to all tasks.
The Encyclopedia of Fonts traces these developments over time. It provides a visual guide to text fonts- designed for maximum legibility and display fonts designed to attract attention. Chronological listings show how these new ideas have been introduced and how designs have developed. Well informed witty notes reveal the origin of many font names. This is an instant reference for the graphic revolution of the last 25 years”.
I have discovered many new fonts within this reference, one such being Bobo by SE Norton and Tim Ryan. Its one of the relatively new fonts having been designed in 1995. A playful take on typeography, it signifies a growing resource. This book is highly recommended as a method of understanding the scale and development of the font within logo and graphic design today. I for one will definitely be keeping it on my designer’s desk as a handy reference in future.
March 27 2009 | Xtra | 1 Comment »
The British Government and logo design. A likely match? Possibly not and definitely not in the case of the logo redesign for the Office of Government Commerce, the OGC. When turned on its side the new logo looks a little rude. How long did it take for someone to recognize this when the logo was revealed? Five minutes! Apparently employees spotted the mistake as soon as it was revealed.
A spokesman for OGC said: “It is true that it caused a few titters among some staff when viewed on its side, but on consideration we concluded that the effect was generic to the particular combination of the letters OGC – and it is not inappropriate to an organisation that’s looking to have a firm grip on Government spend.”
The logo, for the Office of Government Commerce, was intended to signify a bold commitment to the body’s aim of “improving value for money by driving up standards and capability in procurement”. I’m sure it does just this. It’s a simple idea- robust and official but one can’t ignore the fact that it looks like a man with an erection. I wonder why this wasn’t spotted in the design studio before the logo was passed and approved for the client.
The simple answer is we are all human and mistakes do happen. Designers are peculiar folk. We get so wrapped up in an idea and work on it for hours, days even that we sometimes miss the obvious. When designing I always try and get a second opinion. Perhaps this is a good example of why a second opinion counts for so much. I for one will be asking others to take a quick glance at projects I’m working on just to be sure!
Paul
March 25 2009 | Xtra | 1 Comment »
« Prev - Next »
