Utterly thrilled to be able to show you a glimpse of how my logo for ADXPRS will probably end up looking when translated to Arabic. All credit for this Arabic logo translation goes to Karim Abboud—Design Consultant from Syria.

This translation was always part of the project and so we arranged, for fairly obvious reasons I hope, for an experienced Arabic typographer to handle the translation of the ADXPRS logo from English to Arabic. I scribbled a quick post relating to the Arabic translation of the FedEx logo a few months back when I first took on the ADXPRS project.

I have been chomping at the bit to see how it might end up looking, and I am just so way past over-the-moon with the results.

Some Arabic translations leave a little to be desired, so I was really not sure at all how it might all pan out. I am, however, just incredibly pumped up by this. My hat is tipped at a respectable angle towards Karim Abboud—Design Consultant from Syria.

No related posts.

Read Arabic Translation of my ADXPRS Logo Design on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

A while back, when the internet was kicking off, it was common practice to shove your TLD: .com, co.uk, .net after every brand name so that it became easy for people to acknowledge that a particular company had a web presence. This was useful as it  guided customers to your place of online business regardless of where someone saw your logo.

Nowadays it’s accepted that most companies have a web presence so the need to append every brand name with .com has declined sharply to the point where I personally feel it can now be somewhat tacky to retain it when considering a rebrand. I have seen a few instances where the removal of the TLD was actually the main reason for rebranding, so some companies are quite aware of the need to keep up with the times rather than live in the dot-com past.

For some companies like Amazon the TLD is essential as it’s a online company operating in many countries and the TLD’s are strong identifiers to which flavour of Amazon you are using. But Amazon is a beast of a company in it’s own league so it’s not really wise to compare against when considering leaving or dropping your own TLD.

If You Get Asked

For the most part I am mostly talking about smaller companies that may approach you with the question, “Do I need to keep .com in my logo?” They may have been operating with .com as part of their logo design for some years, but may be considering dropping it from the logo.

It’s certainly not a decision to take lightly as there can often be some serious brand equity in their current naming, so unilaterally dropping their TLD could cause some confusion amongst existing customers if you rush into it.

It’s important to understand that dropping a TLD is not just a aesthetic exercise. It’s also about strengthening their actual brand name independently of what particular TLD you use to access their web site.

In some cases the TLD could well be part of their registered business name in which case one needs to tread carefully.

You don’t just rip it off and hope for the best.

A Few Considerations

A good place to start is to ask if the TLD is continuing to serve an important and useful purpose? I have had some past clients who have desperately wanted to either add their TLD to their new logo or keep the TLD during the brand redesign. When I ask them why, and I don’t get a reasonable answer, then I tend to steer them away from the idea.

Being asked to add a TLD to a logo design just makes me shiver.

I mostly actively discourage the addition of a TLD to ANY logo for any kind of client, company, business or brand. If starting from scratch I feel that adding a TLD is just clinging to a graphic cliche of a period long past and best forgotten. This is not to say I will absolutely never ever incorporate a TLD, but if I do it will be for very good reason.

A benefit of removing a TLD from the brand name in the logo is that it can really bring focus back to what is important, the brand name and not a domain prefix, as well as freeing up horizontal space in the rest of the identity. I feel there are few good reasons to factor in a TLD to the logo design, but not to say there are none. Don’t discount a strategic need for a TLD as part of the main logo design, but do at least question the reasons for doing so if they are presented to you.

Is the company just an online eCommerce site with no public facing physical locations, or is it a front window to a non eCommerce business? If the former then there is more reason to retain the TLD, but this is not to say it can’t be removed as it all depends on a number of other important factors such as if the registered brand name includes the TLD. If it’s the latter then it is more likely that a TLD can be safely dropped from the new logo design during the rebrand.

Not Just Aesthetic Reasons

There are valid aesthetic reasons to dropping an existing TLD, or not adding it to a new logo design. As mentioned above aesthetic reasons alone don’t trump common sense when it comes to the TLD question.

If there is one thing you come away with after reading this post, I would like it to be: if a client asks for a TLD to be part of the logo design of a new brand, or requests that it be retained during a rebrand, then at least have the presence of thought to query it, discuss it and consider it.

Remember: If the TLD is part of their actual registered brand name then tread carefully. It is possible to amend the trading name, but great care and thought must be taken if a client chooses to go this route.

Related posts:

1. Ask Graham a Question on Logo & Brand Identity
2. Logo Design Ideas: Trusting Your Client Over Your Own Gut
3. Insert a Logo Design into a QR Code

Read Do I Need To Keep The .com Wording In My Logo? on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

Finding some stellar links over on Stellar.io with this revised BlackBerry logo being one of them. Didn’t see ‘it’ at first, but when I did did I chuckle.

A slap on the back to Robert Padbury (@padbury) for this great logo redefined and LOL.

Blackberry logo updated to better reflect the future of the company:yfrog.com/h2akiehj

— Robert Padbury (@padbury) March 30, 2012

No related posts.

Read Blackberry Logo Updated—New Brand Positioning by @padbury on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

K Source Mads Jakob Poulsen

Anonymous Conceptual Branding by Mads Jakob Poulsen—who incidentally also redesigned Belkin’s new brand identity—is some clever and cheeky designing type identity stuff.

When I first saw just the logo—and I mean that in a somewhat loose term—on Quipsologies I thought, “WTF?” Then regaining my composure I visited Mads’ website to further investigate. The more I looked at these photographs the more I came to totally love the idea.

Particularly fond of the copy on the CD packaging, “Back up your files—we are coming to visit. Sincerely ————.” It’s actually quite a scary/ominous message. I guess depending if you would be an observer or one of their selected targets.

Suppose they would have to hire a middle man to negotiate the price of buying the copyright to Mad’s idea should they want to go all corporate.

Related posts:

1. Original Polaroid Branding by Paul Giambarba
2. Ink Butter – Tattoo Aftercare Branding by Alan Ariail
3. Another 4 Letters & Cross Logo With A Twist By Tom Jaeger

Read Anonymous Conceptual Branding by Mads Jakob Poulsen on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

K Source City Maps
K Found on Quipsologies

City Maps have updated their socially aware maps with brand logos representing each business location. It’s a remarkable thing to look at, and also shows just how insanely prevalent Starbucks: it’s an urban infestation.

City Maps is not particular useful for me being in a small seaside town in England, but I still find it intriguing to see the brand landscape of these fine cities. These fine cities being: New York, San Francisco and Austin.

Must be a pig to keep updated and current.

Related posts:

1. The What if Project-Good Logo Design For Local Shops
2. Building A City With Cold Metal Type By David B Smith
3. LogoStack-An Awesome Logo Design Gallery

Read City “Logo” Maps—Businesses Represented By Their Logo on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

Help me out with this one.

I can’t get my head around the John Lewis Creative Collective logo. On one hand I marvel at the combination of C+D whilst on the other hand I almost have to stop my brain from blowing-up due to the intersecting and intertwined negative spacing. It looks like it wants to be right, but struggling to pull it off. It looks clever and cool, but feels unsure and awkward.

I love it, but I just can’t make my mind up about it. Maybe it’s been used far to big in relation to the wording and needs to be less prominent. Feels to me a little too loud and harsh even for a simple black and white mark. Maybe I just need some time to get used to it.

So as a little experiment I removed the inner D shape to see if this reduced the noise but still retained a visual connection to the D. They would have certainly looked at this as an option. I think this is a more subtle and easier option, but then it lacks the impact of the original which certainly makes it very distinctive. Thoughts?

But on the whole I do love the overall identity design of the John Lewis Design Collective. Stylish work.

The Official Line From Pentagram
Harry Pearce and his team at Pentagram have designed the identity for the John Lewis Design Collective. The Design Collective showcases the best design talent from the UK and beyond and highlights John Lewis’s commitment to sourcing the highest quality of design for its customers.

Designers who form the collective include Bethan Gray, Sebastian Conran, Matthew Hilton and Timorous Beasties.

The mark created in collaboration with John Lewis Brand Creative is a reversed out ‘D’ in a solid ‘C’ and is being applied to promotional material as well as being used in publications, point of sale and in store promotions.

K Found on Pentagram

No related posts.

Read The John Lewis Design Collective Mark on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

Updated my logo portfolio with this logo mark which is part of a larger identity redesign. For the moment my client has requested that I don’t use the brand name, but what I can show is the logo mark in all its glory.

Note: this is not the final final version for which will have sightly thinner horizontal ‘bars’.

Obviously hard to put into context, or even work out if the mark works if you don’t know what the bloody thing is meant to represent. What I can say is that the mark does form the first initial of the company which is B, and I’m pretty sure that once I am permitted to write more about the brand you will/should see exactly what the graphic represents both literally and metaphorically.

From a personal perspective this design is one I am really proud of, and ranks up there with the one I designed for PureStorage. So I can’t wait to be able to write and show more about this top secret re brand.

Until then it’s just an arrangement of lines with a TM. :)

No related posts.

Read Update to Logo Portfolio on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

I absolutely love this style of logo design used for the Argentina Football World Cup 1978: simple, clean, strong, bold and Helvetica. Not to mention I am a real fan of that sort of blue.

Like how this example looks with the ever so slightly rounded edges and corners of the type. It’s that authentic ‘used’ look and feel that only period design, production, typesetting and reproduction can impart.

K Found on VoicesofEastAnglia

No related posts.

Read Argentina Football World Cup Logo 1978 on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

In the continuing quest to research each logo project one will always uncover marvelous examples of existing logo artwork.

During the research phase for T-Shirt Express logo redesign project I came across this marvelous vintage style logo design for Freight Baggage. Love the colour selection, thick key lines and the actual train illustration.

K Logo Inspiration from http://freightbaggage.org/

No related posts.

Read Freight Baggage Logo Design on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

Not being at all familiar with the National Organization for Women I had to assume that the above logo observation was a bit of a “spoof”. Seemingly this observation has been around for some time, but having just seen it for the first time I really did want to share.

What you see above is the official logo for NOW, and has a very special double meaning incorporated into the logo: Iron NOW. I would really love to think that the logo designer, being anti-feminist, did this as a wonderful practical joke.

I do get that an “iron” isn’t entirely accurate representation to what women are looking to distance themselves from, but it really is just comical.

I d take women seriously, I respect and admire them—and by saying that I almost sound patronizing, but I’m not. What I find hard is respecting those that feel the world owes them something, or whom just feel inadequate for whatever personal/collective reason they have. Why don’t you put all your collective anger towards rallying for world peace, or something a little more important than worrying about yourselves. Then you might just be taken a little more seriously in the process.  Also, get a new bloody logo.

The National Organization for Women branded with a hot steaming iron. Iron-y just isn’t remotely adequate.

K Found on http://bitsandpieces.us

Related posts:

1. The Rolodex Logo Shock
2. British Gas Logo Redesign Leaves Me Disappointed
3. The Gmail Logo

Read National Organization for Women Logo LOL on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

Rebrand ahoy… AP (Associated Press) have announced their new logo which replaces the AP logo of 30 years long standing. Any logo that has been is use 30 years deserves utmost respect. I personally feel this 30 year old all red logo design could have been designed just yesterday. Found this news via 512Pixels via Poynter.

Presumably quite the challenge, and responsibility, to have the responsibility to redesign such a long-standing logo, but it’s definitely  looking good. New York design firm Objective Subject took the challenge. I would feel particularly proud if this had been from my hand.

Although there is absolutely nothing wrong with the old AP logo in terms of it’s aesthetics time in itself can be quite the bitch. 30 years is a long long time for any visual identity and it’s just a simple case that sometimes a fresh make-over makes sense to ensure it doesn’t get too tired, and hopefully see AP into the next few decades. Also about time that that leaning A is put out to retirement given it’s been a design feature since 1933 in one way or another.

The video presentation (below) that Objective Subject have put together is just a crazy cool way to see the logo development process: starting from the original AP logo and running through all the various options until they get to the finished design.

AP Process Video from Objective Subject on Vimeo.

Some of the Logo Ideas

The New AP Logo in Action

K Found on Poynter

No related posts.

Read AP (Associated Press) Rebrand by Objective Subject on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

Guffaw.

K Designed by Bobby Soloman

Related posts:

1. Windows 8 Logo Update—More on the Official Line from Pentagram
2. Just Slightly Bothered by the Windows 8 Logo Design
3. The New Swiss Airlines Brand Logo Redesign

Read Finally – Windows 8 Logo Redesign is Cracked on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

I really did resist all weekend, but the pathetic child in me won over. I promise this will be my last post about the Windows 8 logo…

Related posts:

1. Finally – Windows 8 Logo Redesign is Cracked
2. Just Slightly Bothered by the Windows 8 Logo Design
3. TJA Logo Update

Read Windows 8 Logo Update—More on the Official Line from Pentagram on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

Post Update: 19th February 2012

Now that the official statement on the Windows 8 logo published by Pentagram the perspective issue that I pointed out in the post below is now a mute issue.

It also appears that the version of the Windows 8 logo referenced by myself and many other websites is NOT the version designed by Pentagram. You will notice that their design (image above) has the stroke thickness of the vertical and horizontal lines set much much thinner.

Pentagram also cover the reasoning for the equal thickness lines as being based on classical perspective drawing rather than computer perspective. I still think this looks odd, but at least there is an official line for that particular design direction.

“The perspective drawing is based on classical perspective drawing, not computerized perspective. The cross bar stays the same size no matter the height of the logo, which means it has to be redrawn for each time it increases in size, like classic typography.”

This also is a good example of trying to be too clever for your own boots—that is a direct reference back to me—and not waiting for an official description before going off all half-cocked. I personally wouldn’t bother reading anything below mostly because it makes me look like a real dick.

j Read More on the Windows 8 Logo by Pentagram

A lot of press coverage over the announcement of the new Windows 8 logo design, and with that has come a substantial quantity of mixed thoughts. Note: There was a story running last weekend reporting that the Windows 8 logo was a fake design, and I pretty much got sucked up with that, but it now seems to be very much official.

The Official Windows 8 Logo Brief

To get right down to it I’m not overly offended by this new Metro style of design that Windows 8 is based on.

In fairness to the Windows brand, we have a common theme being addressed (the window pane) as well as the rather specific name in Windows which doesn’t leave a whole lot of visual choices for us to base a logo design around. Hard to reinvent a window without resorting to something dramatically stylised which is not really an option given the Windows logo design heritage.

If this has been a logo for something totally different and from a totally different brand than Microsoft then my overall thoughts would likely be quite different, and by different I mean not so, “I’m not overly offended…“.

There is, however, one design detail that does bother me, and I just can’t stop being bothered by it. I have tried to see a plausable reason for it, but I just keep coming back to it being a design flaw rather than a purposeful feature.

Those pesky window frames.

It’s all about the perspective and the simple fact that the white dividing lines would/should/ought to—I like to think this is a reasonable conclusion—increase in width the further left-to-right background/foreground it goes. Instead, the white dividing lines remain constant and seemingly don’t work/run/flow with that quite dramatic off-the-page perspective.

It’s one of those details for me that makes it look like it’s either: trying too hard to not be realistic in any reasonable form, or it was just missed all together. There are no hard/fast right/wrong rules with logo design, but there are some things that just cause murmurings amongst the design fraternity.

So going back to last weekend when I first saw reports that the Windows 8 logo was a fake: it was this feature that led me to assume that it could quite possibly be a fake as  this surely would not have been in an official design? So I was wrong on that front.

I have, so far, not seen design feature this picked up by any other critic so am I am just being particularly particular?

K Read more on Windows 8 logo design over on WindowsTeamBlog.

Related posts:

1. Finally – Windows 8 Logo Redesign is Cracked
2. Windows 8 Logo Update—More on the Official Line from Pentagram
3. AP (Associated Press) Rebrand by Objective Subject

Read Just Slightly Bothered by the Windows 8 Logo Design on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

I’m ashamed to say I am quite a fan of the various Derp meme’s so when I saw the Android “Derp” logo from Derper.com I just giggled like a girl—not that there is anything wrong with girls giggling just that for a 40 year old bloke it’s not something to brag about.

Curiously the original Android “Derp” logo didn’t have the Derpy style eyes so I simply had to Derpify it a bit more convincingly. Moving one eye down and in seems to do the trick quite nicely.

No related posts.

Read Android Derp Logo on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.