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January 28, 2013

Pentagram’s Mohawk Logo

Another recent example of transparent, overlapping colors in a brand logo, is Pentagram’s Mohawk paper logo that was announced last April.

The logo is of course a monogram for the name Mohawk. It’s based on the letter M, but it’s also constructed to evoke the papermaking process and the printing process, both of which involve paper going around cylinders. In an abstract way, it suggests how big rolls of paper look when they’re stacked up in a warehouse or when they’re being shipped. You know, those cylinders when they’re stood on end have round bottoms and straight sides. So, the M can also be four rolls of paper interlocking with each other.

Michael Bierut on rebranding Mohawk, Felt & Wire, April 2012

The M-shaped logo works well as a metaphor for paper going around rollers, but I’m surprised that they never quite stipulated to their use of overlapping transparent color, which certainly also works as a symbol for color printing. (Although the implied color mixtures here are really more reminiscent of beams of light than printing inks, since the intersecting areas are generally the brighter hues, suggesting additive rather than subtractive color mixtures.)

As with the Cooper Union trademark, there was a animated logo…

…with a “sound mnemonic” like the early NBC “xylophone” logo.

And, similar to the Cooper Union trademark, logo patterns were designed which further highlighted the overlapping transparent colors of the logomark.

There are also black and white versions—one of which suggests transparency, one of which does not.

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