Saul Bass's Logo Revolution - 1959 to present
During the first wave of modern design in America, the graphic ideas were originated from the European immigrants who seek to escape political totalitarianism. While borrowing the idea from the European designers, American designers in the 1950s to 1960s added new forms and concepts which were practical, intuitive, and less formal in its approach to organizing space. The most influential American designers during that period includes Saul Bass, Herb Lublin, Paul Rand, Henry Wolf and Gene Federico. The one that I like the most is Saul Bass. He brought the sensibilities of the New York School to LA in 1950. He simplified his graphic designs to a single dominant image, often in the center. The simplicity and directness of his work let the viewer to understand the content immediately. He also created many corporate-identity programs such as AT&T, Quaker, Avery, and United Airlines.
I always want to create logos that look modern, interesting, attractive, simple, and easy to be understand and recognized. Saul Bass's logos can achieve all of these characteristics. So, I would like to use this opportunities to study and learn from his logo design. I compared his original logos with the new versions and splited the changes into four categories, big change, little change, color change only, and no change. Some of the new versions were redesigned by other design companies.
Logos with big change
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Dixie logos
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| Example of Dixie's products |
Dixie sells beautiful disposable paper cups and plates. The original red logo color brings a feeling of "passion" and "enthusiasm" which is very good in the past. However, as people becoming more and more concern about health, the red color on original logo can link the products to "danger" which may affect the consumers' confidence on the product. Therefore, I think changing the color from red to navy not only gives consumers a "stable" and "reliable" feeling but also better suits the company's goals and the healthy trend. Despite the big changes to Saul Bass's original design, the designer kept the original sans-serif font and the decorative letter "X". To make the logo more matched with the colorful products, the designer added colors to the decorative letter "X" to make it more fun in addition to a reliable feeling.
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Quaker logos
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| Quaker latest logo (2017) |
The Quaker man is an imaginary figure projecting the company's values of honesty, integrity, purity and strength. It is not an actual person. The man dressed in the Quaker garb illustrated by Saul Bass can suit all of the above values that the company wanted to deliver to the audience. So, I think keeping the Quaker man in the new versions to delivery the message that the company's values are the same without any changes is good for the company. It is because this imaginary figure not only gives audience confidence but also reinforce loyalty. Moreover, the new logos added the company name "Quaker" can increase people's memory of the Quaker company because the logo tells the company name directly without the need of translating the name from an image. This is a good way to establish a strong company image in the people's mind the competitive market. Finally, I think changing the color from light blue to navy brings good impact because navy is more intense than light blue that it can bring a feeling of "higher quality" and "longer history" to the audience. The latest logo added red and gold can further add values to the company and red color can always attract people's attention.
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United Airlines logos
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The original logo of United Airlines is joining the blue and red color to form the letter "U". The redesign by Onoma Design used a cropped earth with vertical lines joining the North Pole with South Pole and horizontal lines around the earth tells audience that the company connects different places around the world with frequent flights. The new design spread a clearer message than the original logo. However, I would prefer the original logo with the idea of "united" different things together. The "different things" can be anything that you can imagine. For instance, connecting people of different colors, meeting different cultures like east meets west, joining businesses from the opposite sides of the earth, experiencing the cultural shock (complementary colors) and make assimilation ("united). The idea of "united" means a lot more than flying around the earth. So, I would prefer the original logo by Saul Bass.
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Y.W.C.A. logos
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YWCA is an organization aiming at eliminating racism and empowering women. I would prefer the original logo by Saul Bass. The new design with letters only does not tell what the organization does and no clues of what is it about. The original logo is better in my opinion because it let me immediately link it to "women" through the image. First, the logo shows a letter "W" which can link to "women". Second, the middle white image with straight lines sticking out from the middle looks like a figure with long hair, which also remind people of "women". Third, the orange color, which is the only element that kept in the new logo, is a faminine color that people would easily relate it to female instead of male in the traditional gender schema. On the other hand, I love the gradient effect of yellow growing towards the orange and then red because it spreads the idea of "hope" and "changing situation". This message is exactly what the company wants to tell the audience, that is bringing a better situation for the women.
Logos with little change
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Lawry's Foods logos
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| Examples of Lawry's products and McCormick products |
Lawry's Foods is a food products company owned by McCormick & Company. Changing the Lawry's logo from orange to red can help creating a stronger sense of belonging to McCormick because McCormick's logo is in red and blue. Lawry's Foods provides seasoned salt and sources like spaghetti sauce. So, red is more suitable because it can stimulate people's appetite. And changing the logo to three-dimensional make's the logo more stand out on the small and busy label. So, the new design is a good move for the brand.
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United Way logos
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United Way is an organization that aiming at improving lives by mobilizing people to create a better community. The original logo with color transition between yellow and red, and red and blue bring the idea of "changing situation". This should match with the organization's mission. However, the new design deleted this gradient effect. So, I think the original logo not only looks nicer but also better translates the organization's mission. Despite the reduced attractiveness of the new logo, I think the new logo does provide a strong message of giving a "helping hand" can save or improve lives. This clear message can motivate people to immediately think and understand what the company wants from them. So, both logos are successful. I personally prefer the original logo mainly due to the color effects.
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AT&T logos
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AT&T logo redesigned by Interbrand in 2005 changed the earth to an actual three-dimensional sphere with little shadows around the earth, and changed the letters from capital to small letters. The original sphere is an abstract sphere using different line thickness to create a digital sphere. It is modern and nice. The new sphere looks nice but it may be less ideal for printing especially the circular lines on the transparent blue sections. So, I would prefer the original abstract sphere designed by Saul Bass. On the other hand, I would prefer the small letters than the original capital letters because the original letters are too compact and looks uncomfortable which the new small letters has better kerning than the original.
Logos with color change only
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Alcoa logos
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| One of the Alcoa factories |
The new logo changed both the red and light blue into navy. The new logo makes sense because red is a color representing "warning" and can evoke emotion while Alcoa has four smelters including hydroelectric power which needs to give the public a "safe" and "calm" feeling. So, deleting the red color to reduce to contrast effect and uncomfortable feeling to the public. This improves the corporate's image. Changing the main color from light blue into navy can give the public a more "mature" feeling as well. So, the new version of the logo is better matched with the company.
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Girl Scouts logos - using organic shapes!
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The Girl Scouts logo is very creative by using negative shapes to create many girls in a simple logo. The color green is also perfect for the organization. Changing to a lighter green helps to bring a younger look to the company image. So, the new color works well for organization. The new design by OCD Agency also slightly modified the head shape of the girl in negative shape. I think this modification is too much. The new logo seems the girl's eyes are covered by hair and makes me feel uncomfortable. I would prefer only a slight modification of the angle at forehead or keep the original shape.
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Konica Minolta logos
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Konica Minolta is a tech company selling office equipment and imaging system. The new design, which added three dimensional effect, and changed color from light blue to navy, successfully created a high tech feeling and enhanced the message of higher quality with the improved intensity of color. This successful result should thanks to Saul Bass's original design which already evoked a technological feeling with the compact lines in different thickness. Using the "cool" colors also matched with tech companies because it helped people to link the companies with machines.
Logos that are still using today
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Fuller Paints logos
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The logo for Fuller is so perfect that it has a color wheel which can tell audience that this company sells colors. Second, the logo shape is a bucket which can evoke reader to immediately linked it to a bucket with color paints. Finally, the circular shape works perfect with the company name "Fuller". So, even the company changed names, it keeps its original logo without modifications because it is hard to develop another perfect logo that can translate the message so clearly.
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Rockwell logos
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Rockwell is an American manufacturing company producing defense-oriented technologies, industrial automation, and others such as aircraft. The blue color link the company to cool stuff such as machinery. The white paths in the middle looks like the flight path in the airport, leading us to a higher level.
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Warner Communications logo
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Warner Communications involved film, television, music and entertainment business. The square logo with round corners looks like a television that helps audience to link the company to TV and film business. The white lines in the middle is an abstract "W" to represent the company's name "Warner". This logo is so successfully that I believe it will be continue to be used in another four decades unless changes in the business's name and categories.
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Avery Dennison logo
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Avery Dennison made packaging materials. As lots of packaging materials involve paper, the use of brown color is suitable for the theme. Three compact cylindrical shapes forming a triangle made me think of packing and tying the things together. So, Avery continues to use this logo design after four decades.
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Boys Clubs logo - using geometric shapes!
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We can compare this Boys Clubs logo with above Girl Scouts logo. The Girl Scouts logo used organic shapes but the Boys Clubs logo used geometric shapes. I believe this design was affected by the traditional ideas of gender differences such as boys have to be cool and strong that geometric shapes with straight lines and angles are more suitable for the boys. While for the girls, traditional society prefers girls to be more considerate and obedient to the males that organic shapes seems better interpreted this gender at that time. With this gender schema, Saul Bass logos made sense in the 1980s and is still using until today. However, with more and more discussions about the gender inequality, I believe the trend of logo design would probably changed and this kind of gender schema may be removed from the logos in the near future.
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The Getty Center logo
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This logo is interesting because it cropped the letters, and used different letter sizes. This can create a dynamic feeling telling the audience that the company is fun and relax. The cool color gives a stable feeling that can balance the unstable dynamic feeling.
In general, the new versions made the logos looks sharper by increasing the contrast between the colors such as replacing light blue with navy to increase the contrast effect with white (e.g. Minolta, United, Quaker), and adding some dynamic elements such as adding lights and shadows to create a three-dimensional effect (e.g. Dixie, Minolta, AT&T). And the changes of colors can create a new look and feeling to the company such as navy can improves the message of reliability. To conclude, nearly all of the new designs kept the original shapes and color themes. Thanks to the original great designs by Saul Bass, the new versions with little modifications give readers a refresh or stronger feeling of the company.
After studying these successful logos by Saul Bass, I believe understanding a company's mission, business type, target audience, and future goals are important because it can affect the selection of colors (e.g. cool for machinery, red for passion), the style of lines (e.g. geometric or organic lines), the shapes of the logo (e.g. round shape or triangular shape), and the fonts to be used. Better understanding of the business can also help us interpret and break down complicated messages into a simple image.
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