Vintage VW Logo Specification Poster Recreated For Download

After posting the Vintage VW Logo Spec Sheet I can present a reasonably faithful recreation of the Vintage VW Logo Specification Sheet.



Vintage-VW-Logo-Specification-Sheet-Recreated-Square-1

Vintage-VW-Logo-Specification-Sheet-Recreated-Square-1

Vintage VW Logo Specification Poster Recreated For Download

After posting the Vintage VW Logo Specifications Sheet; one thing lead to another, and now I can present a reasonably faithful recreation of the Vintage VW Logo Specification Sheet (see also: Recreated Vintage 1976 Montreal Olympic Logo Grid Poster for Download & Vintage Canada Airlines Poster; see end of post).

No real reason to recreate this other than I thought it would be a fun project to work on, but also the original lacks some quality so can’t be enlarged and printed out to well.

Vintage-VW-Logo-Specification-Sheet-Recreated-Square-1

Vintage-VW-Logo-Specification-Sheet-Recreated-Square-1

I thought that if I reproduced it, warts and all, it would allow me a up-close view of how this was originally created.

It’s not until you tear it apart and start looking at all the various line weights, arrows, text and the sobering realisation: we didn’t always have copy and paste and mathematical precision based artwork tools at our disposal.

It’s also nice to know there is now a detailed replica of these logo specification.

The Original Crafted by Hand

Original VW Vintage Logo Grid

Side-by-side Comparison of Original and New

Imperfect perfection

It was tempting to balance all the unbalance aspects, to unify the type sizes and styles, to bring all the vertical and horizontal alignments to perfection but I didn’t.

Using the enlarged version of the VW logo specification sheet that Steve Smith and Farzan Balkani found, I was able to, reasonably accurately, reproduce the imperfect perfections of the original.

Vintage-VW-Logo-Specification-Sheet-Recreated-Square-1

Vintage-VW-Logo-Specification-Sheet-Recreated-Square-1

There are a few areas where I had to just suck it up and accept close was close enough. Some of the type styles are just impossible to nail as they look like they have been handwritten, and there is a mixture of a lettering set in a variant of Avant Garde Gothic.

Some of the lettering, should you feel the need to check my accuracy, will be close but not exact in style. What I have done is to ensure the spacing and placement of all elements is as accurate to the original as possible.

Vintage-VW-Logo-Specification-Sheet-Recreated-Square-1

There are 4 versions which you can download as one massive 300Mb zip, or just download the Illustrator vector versions without the textured background

  1. Two versions without the textured background: one as a key line only version, and the other with solid fills, both saved as Illustrator .ai.
  2. Two versions with the high-resolution textured background: solid and key line as #1. The textured background was created from scratch and not using stock scans of any kind. It’s not 100% accurate, but it’s close enough for my purpose.

I am conscious of not creating too many variations of this so as to cause confusion over the prestigious nature of the original.

For this reason, and this reason only, I have added a small credit that states this version is a reproduction.

I would ask, with respect to the original artwork, that you leave this credit in place—if posting variations online—so as to avoid this getting mixed up with the original.

Download Vintage VW Logo Specification Poster

Vintage-VW-Logo-Specification-Poster-Recreated-5

Vintage-VW-Logo-Specification-Sheet-Recreated-Square-1

Recreated Vintage 1976 Montreal Olympic Logo Grid Poster for Download

Update: I’ve now recreated the below Olympic Symbol Grid, which you can download here: Recreated Vintage 1976 Montreal Olympic Logo Grid Poster for Download

Recreated Vintage 1976 Montreal Olympic Logo Grid Poster for Download

Montreal Olympics Logo Guide Poster

“Vintage Air Canada Logo Rainbow Poster Design – Recreated for Download”

Same applies to the beautiful Vintage Canada Airlines Poster, and Tokyo 1964 Olympic Logo Guide Poster, that I recreated below (original on the right, vector version on the left), the post goes into more detail about the process:

Vintage Air Canada Rainbow Poster Design designed by The Logo Smith

“Vintage Tokyo 1964 Olympic Design Guide Poster – Recreated for Download”

Vintage Tokyo Olympic 1964 Logo Guide Poster For Download

Vintage Tokyo Olympic 1964 Logo Guide Poster For Download