Comments on: Logos: the fossil fuel of design?

By: Steve - Eightyone Design

Steve - Eightyone Design — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:32:05 +0000

Something one of one my Professors at University said to me many years ago stuck with me – he said ‘there are no new ideas, only new takes of an old idea’ which I guess applies here!

By: Tessa Carroll

Tessa Carroll — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:23:11 +0000

Graphic designers continue to get more and more creative as time progresses. If this trend continues, there’s certainly nothing to worry about. True, we’ll eventually run out of “classic” designs, but who’s to say that someone isn’t going to come around and create the new classic design tomorrow?

By: David Airey

David Airey — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:31:40 +0000

The eyeballs are classic, Doug. Here’s hoping it arrives okay—a second national postal strike in two years is on the cards in the UK.

Thanks a lot for the continued chat, folks. Some points worthy of republishing in a “focus on reader comments” feature.

By: Douglas Bonneville

Douglas Bonneville — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:18:23 +0000

Brandon: There was an experimental image comparison engine release to the public a couple years back. I can’t think of the name, but it’s only a matter of time before that technology is refined, and maybe custom-focused on logomarks. I can see it not only functioning in a legal sense, to help us avoid trademark infringement, but also as a source of inspiration. You could put in some kind of basic shape and get all kinds of composition ideas related to that…

By: Brandon

Brandon — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:55:36 +0000

This always haunts me when I’m designing a new logo.”Have I seen this design somewhere before?” Followed by a bunch of Google Image searches to put me at ease. As for now, I feel I can still whipping up original ideas, but I could see this being a problem in the future. Maybe someday there will be some sort of logo upload site that scans your designs across all the world’s trademarked designs and proves my designs are a bunch of rip offs. Till then…

By: James Kurtz III

James Kurtz III — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:16:21 +0000

Impossible. A “new” idea is simply a combination of two (or more) old ideas. So actually the more ideas out there the more possibilities there become, not the other way around. It’s like saying “there are only 26 letters in the alphabet so won’t we eventually run out of words and have nothing left to say.”

By: Carson Shold

Carson Shold — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:13:38 +0000

I’ve thought the same a few times, but incredibly creative, yet simple logos continue to pop up.

The same issue comes up in regards to new inventions. You see some things come out and you wonder, “How has no one thought of that before?” One answer can be technology, but that isn’t always the case.

I don’t think the ideas are going to run short anytime soon, even in any of our lifetimes. Different trends will arise and those trends will in turn effect the logos we design.

Cheers.

By: Rob Cubbon

Rob Cubbon — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 09:32:33 +0000

An interesting discussion. My instinctive belief is that there is no end in sight for excellent logo creation although people have been making valid comments about our propensity to copy and imitate. It’s interesting that people are talking a lot about music and maybe it’s because popular music just recently seems only capable of endless regurgitation. I also sometimes think that the noughties have been particularly lacking in creative trends in music in particular and in popular culture in general. Or maybe I’m just getting old.

By: Jasmine

Jasmine — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 03:37:26 +0000

As it says in the Bible:

Ecclesiastes 1:9
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

I don’t believe there are any absolute new concepts. We may draw inspiration from the strangest places and our train of thoughts are always different from every other individual but the end product is still only limited to the creative’s imagination, and I guess because it’s all human imagination and our brains all work in the same way it’ll always be the same imagination. Get me?

So no, good logo design is not like fossil fuel which will run out one day. Good logo design is recyclable – like Aluminum I guess, the only 100% recyclable material.

Grace+Peace
Jasmine

By: Kiren

Kiren — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:56:15 +0000

When Andrew says 3D logos, does he mean a logo created with 3D software or achieving that same effect within 2D? I don’t think technology is neither a good or bad thing for design. Back in the day, all logos were created by hand and most of them were by fairly good artists (I think so at least). Nowadays, you don’t really need to know how to draw in order to create a logo, is that the difference between art and design?