And the process of clearing the accumulated links continues…. this collection looks at logos: those graphical elements that represent a company. It looks at some recent changes, some successes, some failures, and some what-ifs:
- The Google Logo. We’re all familiar with the colorful Google logo. On 9/1, Google changed their logo: they went to a sans-serif typeface, came up with some “in process” dots, and a new single character logo. Still clearly Google, but different.
- The Verizon Logo. Google isn’t the only company updating their logo. Verizon just updated their logo. Personally, I think it is ugly, but I didn’t like their logo before. I still remember when they were Air Touch Wireless. Yes, we’ve been a customer that long.
- The Tokyo Olympics. On the other hand, the Tokyo 2020 Olympics just announced, and then ditched, their logo after charges of plagiarism arose. This is what is called “Doing an NBC”. Why? Those of us who are old enough will remember when NBC changed their logo from the peacock to a stylized “N”… only to find that the logo belonged to Nebraska Educational Television (whom they had to pay off). This allows me to finally connect an article that’s been sitting on the links list for a while, about how you can’t copyright facts, but you can copyright fake facts. Especially in the Internet era, it is easy to pass of the factual investigation of someone else as your own. But if there is an intentional error in those facts, that error can be proof of plagiarism (as map people know from fake map places).
- Logo What Ifs. Lastly, here’s an interesting experiment. Take two logos. Swap the colors. Assess the impact. This is a great way to see the value and importance of color in a logo. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.