45 Logo Redesigns from 2009

We’re back in the office after a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s break. Sorry for the blog silence over the past couple weeks… but we’re back and ready to for you-2010.

It seems like everywhere you look someone is rating the “best of 2009″ or the “best of the decade.” We’ll avoid naming the 10 “best” logo redesigns of the decade, and instead show you 45 logos that were redesigned last year. Here at Reddoor, when we’re redesigning a logo for a client there are several big picture questions we consider: How much equity or history is in the current brand? How closely do we want the old and new brands to relate? Which colors (if any) do we carry over into the new brand?

See how these brand redesigners handled some of these considerations for their brand redesign. It’s interesting to see the updates side-by-side, that some pretty significant brands are making.

Some of the redesigns, this past year, that caught my eye:

I think I liked these original brands better than the redesign:

These were interesting, but didn’t fit strongly into my “likes” or “dis-likes” above:

Here are some of the remaining logo redesigns of 2009:

Check back later this week, we’ll be showcasing some of the brand redesigns Reddoor accomplished in 2009. Are there any brands you know of that we missed? In your opinion, what are the best and worst?

Happy New Year!

The Psychology of White Space

The term “white space” was coined in traditional two-dimensional print design, and is a frequently used term in graphic and web design. Visually speaking, negative space provides relief, as well as gives intelligent organization to elements on a page by highlighting and separating text and graphics with the use of white space. Just think of white space as being in-between characters, between lines, between everything, it’s all white space. Effectively using white space means that you don’t crowd content unless you have a good reason. Effectively utilizing white space will create an invisible order and will enhance readability of any piece of design, whether it be a website, a brochure, a Christmas card, or a business card.

As designers, we use white space to create a feeling of sophistication and elegance for upscale brands. Coupled with a delicate use of typography and photography, generous white space is seen all over the luxury marketplace. In our regular dealing with photographers, we find that most are generally trying to establish themselves in a more sophisticated and lucrative marketplace. Generally, but not always, these clients are more comfortable paying higher prices for a premium service.

The cosmetics and beauty industry, for example, use extensive white space in their marketing material to tell the reader that they are sophisticated, high quality, and generally expensive. Here’s a basic example (found online) to demonstrate the psychology of white space at work:

The content is the same on both designs, as are the other elements, such as photography. Yet the two designs stand at opposite ends of the brand spectrum. On the left, less white space = cheap; more white space (right) = luxury. The solution on the right isn’t necessarily the most effective, but it quickly shows a contrasting use of white space. A lot more goes into brand positioning than just white space, but as a general rule a luxury brand’s target audience expects white space and plenty of it to align the product with its competitors.

Here are some examples of well-used white space:

Reddoorla.com

Tiffany.com

Jaguar.com (sometimes white space isn’t white)

And, here are some poor examples of white space use, or no white space for that matter:

Craigslist.com

eCost.com. You have to see the animated fire graphics and police siren on the actual site.

HavenWorks.com. This makes every other bad site on the web look pretty tasteful!

To be fair, the sites we’ve shown in the “poor examples” aren’t necessarily trying to reach a luxury demographic. But in this day and age of clean, easy-to-use web design, discriminating web users demand more from sites every day.

Negative Space reference article
White Space reference article

Type Categories, part 09: Serif/Sans Serif

Have you ever thought: “I’m using such-and-such text face and I need a companion font for captions, headlines, callouts, and the like. Which sans will work best?” This is a pretty common question, and you must consider it when you design. Issues of type compatibility should remain on the forefront of your mind. If you have extensive knowledge of type you can probably create a nice coupling between a serif and a sans serif. But, combining typefaces is more of an art than a science. There are so many aspects to keep in mind to avoid an unholy union — proportion, x-height, weight, and pedigree, to name a few. Unless you’ve studied type extensively, you’ll probably just be making your best guess. Here are two different solutions to ensure you’re using compatible typefaces together.

The 1st option is to use a Serif/Sans Serif Type family:
A very recent development in typography (especially if you consider type history), this style enlarges the notion of a type family to include both serif and sans serif alphabets, and often stages between the two. Take advantage of a full-featured family with serif and sans versions tailored by the type designer to work together. We’ve shown three examples below.

Serif/sans serif, circa 1990

Examples shown: Rotis, Scala and Stone. Here are some other type familes, not an exhaustive list by any means, but a place to start if you’re looking for a serif/sans serif:

Base 9
Base 12
Absara
Freight
Nexus
Thesis
Celeste
Quadraat
Eureka
Versa
Legacy
Charlotte
Fedra

The 2nd option would to be to use this handy-dandy chart:
Shown here are a selection of popular typefaces and their compatibility with other faces. A variety of display typestyle choices are listed across the top, and text choices down the side. To determine compatibility, cross-reference from the horizontal category to the vertical. The number at the intersection determines the degree of compatibility. A “1″ indicates it’s safe to mix. A “2″ should be handled with caution, and a “3″ should be avoided. This chart is only intended as a general guideline, and is not intended to be absolute. There are situations where these suggestions may not hold completely true. Happy type pairing!

This post concludes our 9-part series on Type Categories. We hope it’s been useful and informative. A new regular series is in the works, so if you have anything you’d like us to cover, shoot us a note (red@reddoorla.com) and we’ll consider it.  Thanks for following along.

Information cited from: A Type Primer by John Kane, The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst, Font Shop newsletter, and a Typophile forum.

Type Categories, part 08: Sans Serif

Type Categories, part 08

Type Categories, part 07: Slab Serif

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And now, onto the type lesson for the day. Slab Serifs!

During the early 19th century, especially in Britain, letter drawers began creating thicker versions of common European printing letterforms. These new letter styles were called slab serif or square serifs, and they began to appear throughout British society and began widespread acceptance by artists, artisans, printers, and typefounders. These new faces came to represent the age of industrialization, and also the beginnings of advertising. When slab serifs came on the scene, they marked the birth of type that would be marketed specifically for their “display” use. In case you didn’t know already, many typefaces are created for display or headline use only. They are optimized for their appearance when shown large, and aren’t intended to be used for body text.

More recently, in the 1960′s, Adrian Frutiger designed a well-known slab serif called Serifa. Since then it’s enjoyed widespread popularity. Around the same time he also designed Univers, which is not a slab serif rather a san serif, but happens to be Reddoor’s body typeface for our brand. Serifa and Univers harmonize nicely with each other, so we thought we’d give them a type shout-out here.

Many of the typefaces in the slab serif family are based on woodtype faces that were popular in the Wild West. One example of this “western” style is Neo Contact, a typeface popularized by the way it is used by Marlboro. Here’s one of the original Marlboro Man ads, created in 1967.

Slab Serif, circa 1825

These type samples show the heavily bracketed serifs, with little variation between thick and think strokes. These faces were perfect for the newly developed needs of advertising and  heavy type in commercial printing. Examples shown above are: Clarendon, Rockwell, and Serifa.

Information cited from: A Type Primer by John Kane, The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst, and the Linotype website

Type Categories, part 06: Modern

It’s Monday, and you know what that means… the continuation of the Type Categories series. Woo hoo! Today we’ll look at the Modern typefaces.

Here are some general characteristics of a Modern:
1. Abrupt (unbracketed) hairline (thin) serifs
2. Small aperture
3. Horizontal stress
4. Vertical axis
5. High and abrupt contrast between thick and thin strokes

Now you can spot a Modern typeface. Let me tell you where else you’ll see them for sure: Fashion magazine mastheads. Here are the first three I could think of:

Just because these typefaces are en vogue today, they’re by no means nouveau. Modern type came on the scene around 1775, and represents a further rationalization of Oldstyle letterforms. Serifs were unbracketed, and the contrast between thick and thin strokes was extreme. Here at Reddoor, we consider using a tasteful modern typeface when we want to communicate high-end, sophisticated, expensive, fashionable, or premium. Examples shown below are: Bodoni, Didot, and Walbaum.

Modern, circa 1775

In the spirit of Modern typeface’s, come back on Wednesday and we’ll feature a client where we’ve used a modern type in his logo.

Information cited from: A Type Primer by John Kane,  The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst, and I love Typography.com

Type Categories, part 05: Transitional

Hello November, here come the holidays. I can’t believe it’s already the beginning of the end of 2009! Hopefully the time change is treating you well (except for those of you in, Arizona (except some Indian Reservations), Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa). Without further ado, I give you today’s type lesson all about Transitional Letters:

Transitional letter forms were the next stage of refinement to Oldstyle letters. Unlike the diagonal stress of Oldstyle, Transitional letters have a primarily vertical stress and had more refined thin strokes. Thick-to-thin relationships were exaggerated, and brackets were lightened all thanks to the advances in metal type.

Examples shown: Baskerville, Century, and Times*. The Transitional type category was the first new category of type in almost 200 years (Scripts circa 1550). It will only be 25 years until the next new type category. Tune in next Monday as we discuss Modern typefaces.

*A note about Times. Times happens to be a “Transitional” typeface and worth talking about in today’s lesson. Since it was designed in ~1750 there have been a number of redesigned versions or new releases. One you’re probably quite familiar with: Times New Roman. We’ve found that many people have a distaste for any type resembling Times or Times New Roman. I actually Googled “I hate Times New Roman,” and there are no shortage Times haters. The reason you/others don’t like Times is because every computer under the sun has it pre-installed as a system font. Therefore, it has become so common and over-used that that it’s received a bad rap. Next time you see Times, remember that it’s actually very well-designed, albeit over used.

Information cited from: A Type Primer by John Kane and Fonts and Logos by Doyald Young

Periodic Table of Type

We stumbled across this great table that charts some of the most Popular, Influential and Notorious Typefaces of all time. This list was generated from a compilation of sources that can be found in the lower left hand corner of the page. Perhaps my favorite source is the “Typefaces No One Gets Fired for Using.” Click the image below to see the the table in it’s full glory. You’d be wise to keep this in your proverbial back pocket for when you’re scrambling to pick a typeface in the future.

This chart should be especially enjoyable for all of you chemists at heart. Notice each “element” of the table includes: the family or class, the rank, the symbol, the name of the typeface, the designer(s), and the year it was designed.

Happy Halloween!

Type Categories, part 04: Script

We’ve moved our regular installment of Type Categories to Wednesday this week, due to the urgency and excitement we had for the U2 concert post. Today’s lesson is about everybody’s favorite curvy type: Scripts!

Scripts range from formal and traditional to casual and contemporary. The original formal scripts were high-contrast cursive forms that were based on flexible pointed pen handwriting. Typically the lower case letters are connected and have generously-sized, or over-sized capital letters.

Script, circa 1550

Originally script letters were an attempt to replicate engraved calligraphic forms. When you’re considering using a script, please remember that it is not appropriate for lengthy text sections, it has however, enjoyed wide acceptance when used in shorter applications. Formal Script examples shown here are: Kuenstler Script, and Snell Roundhand.

Here at Reddoor we use scripts occasionally and only when appropriate. Since we have a number of clients in the wedding photography industry, we find that most of them would rather avoid formal scripts, since they’ve become fairly expected to their clientele. All that to say, a good script is appropriate in the right situation, even in the wedding photography market. Here are two samples of work we’ve done for ourselves or for a client: Lightschoop. Click on the image to see it in use on the site.

Even in this digital age there are still masters of hand crafted lettering. One current master of scripts is Doyald Young. He can occasionally be found instructing students at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and has published several beautiful books, and is a sought after custom font and logo designer. You can find excerpts from his “Dangerous Curves” book here.

Information cited from: A Type Primer by John Kane and Fonts and Logos by Doyald Young

Type Categories, part 03: Italic

Echoing the contemporary Italian handwriting of the day, the first italics were close-set and condensed, allowing for more words to fit on single pages. Italics were initially used to produce pocket-sized editions of the classic literature. Italics soon became complements to many roman type families. By the 16th century, virtually all typefaces have been designed with accompanying italic forms.

Italic, circa 1500

Examples shown here are the italicized version of the Oldstyle type we showcased on October 12th, 2009. In order of appearance: Bembo italic, Caslon italic, Garamond italic, and Jenson italic.

CONSIDERATIONS WHEN USING ITALICS
First, make sure that the type family you’re using includes an italic, and that the italic is installed on your system. If you specify italic without having an italic font installed, you’ll get only a slanted version of the roman, which looks (and is) amateurish. Every variation within a type family — italic, bold, condensed, extended semibold italic, whatever — is a separate font. Having one of them does not guarantee that you have all the rest. Just because an “italic” style shows up on your font menu (especially in Windows) doesn’t mean that an italic font is installed on your system. Some typefaces were never designed to have an italic complement.

Information cited from: A Type Primer by John Kane and an article from CreativePro.com, written by John D. Berry