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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.

January 25, 2013

Who designed the Valvoline logo?

That’s what I’d like to know. Who came up with the idea for the “V” symbol made from two overlapping transparent parallelograms, one red and one blue, making a dark triangle where they intersect? Whose design is that?

Iconic and instantly familiar to racing fans, the logo has been adjusted over the years, not always for the best, in my opinion. Early 1960s packages show a somewhat taller Valvoline symbol, in which the overlap is a black isosceles triangle. Later the angles of the symbol were changed to making the “V” wider with a dark blue equilateral triangle at the intersection.

Around 1987 the typography was switched from all caps (with curved baseline and curved capline converging in the middle) to a italicized upper and lower case. This was probably meant to imply speed, but the concurrent switch to upper and lowercase made the logotype less emphatic. Steering the brand down a slippery slope toward a similar-sounding (upper and lower case) Vaseline.

(On the transparency: note how the trademark drawing above right uses parallel intersecting lines to represent the overlapping colors—just as Steven Doyle did with his black and white version of The Cooper Union logo.)

In 1982, Ashland Oil’s patent attorney testified before congress about product counterfeiting of Valvoline motor oil:

Good morning.

I am Vernon Venne, senior patent attorney for Ashland Oil, Inc., and trademark counsel for its division, Valvoline Oil Co.

… Product counterfeiting is of great concern to Valvoline, especially in this international trade. It is this concern that has brought Valvoline to become a member of the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition and to come here today to testify in support of S. 2428.

Valvoline’s experience with product counterfeiters is, I believe, in some respects, a little different than some other cases which will be reported here today.

First, the product that is usually counterfeited, a 1-quart can of motor oil, is not especially expensive. As I am sure you are aware, the value of a product cannot always be gauged by its purchase price. Here the product is intended to protect one of the consumer’s most expensive investments, their motor vehicle.

Second, the Valvoline trademark is not a status symbol in the way that sometimes trademarks for apparel or for jewelry or luggage can be. A consumer will not buy a Valvoline brand product in order that others will recognize their good taste. Rather, the consumer will buy a Valvoline product because he knows that he can rely on the high standard of quality associated with that product and it is this standard of quality which is a very fragile asset upon which the counterfeiter preys.

Trademark Counterfeiting Act of 1982:
Hearing Before the Committee on the Judiciary,
United States Senate, Ninety-seventh Congress, Second Session, on S. 2428
September 15, 1982

There may, however, be one demographic for whom the Valvoline logo is an emblem of good taste: aficionados of vintage graphic design. Two recent products which cater to this group may or may not be officially licensed, but none-the-less use the classic Valvoline trademark:


On left:  Jonathon Kimbrell’s Warhol-style Valvoline print ($45 on Etsy); on right: Eric Stevens Valvoline T-shirt in a can for Borders Perrin Norrander


Black and white photos from a 1966 trademark filing show the range of packaging to which the Valvoline logo was applied

Below, a 1997 commercial uses the V symbol as a metaphor for blending two types of oil.

(The current Valvoline logo, after the fold…) [Read more…]

January 24, 2013

Transparent Branding

I can’t find it now, but for a long time I’ve had a plastic “photo cube” like the one on the right*. Instead of photos, I had inserted six square color gels into it, so that two sides were red, two sides were green and two sides were blue. When you rotated it in the light, you’d see magenta, yellow or cyan where adjacent sides overlapped, as per additive color mixture.

Steven Doyle’s 2009 logo design for Cooper Union reminds me a lot of that object. The animation shows a rectangular C and U, which rotate and slide into one another, forming a cube with transparent colored sides. The letters start out with three colors, but when the transparent sides overlap, they form an additional 3 colors.

“The logo is rooted in logic. If you draw a C or a U as a square form, you would arrive at our basic module: three planes that intersect at right angles. If you twist the U one rotation, its three planes would complement the three planes of the C, creating a perfect square, an ideal geometric form… We have allowed our planes to intersect just at their points, and we have encouraged them to be transparent… The three primary colors are the genesis of all colors, and this little baby looks really cool when it spins.”

Steven Doyle on The Cooper Union Logo

Always interested in the color/black & white dichotomy, I was interest to see that Doyle also made a black and white version of his logo. Not with shades of gray, but with intersecting lines.

As for implementation of the logo, there’s The Cooper Union web site, some very beautiful stationery, and a number of trademarked products available. There’s even a box-shaped Cooper Union compressed T-shirt, letting the logo dictate packaging shape. (See also: Package-Shaped Compressed T-Shirts)

There was also a logo repeat pattern proposed. I don’t find a lot of evidence that this pattern was ever implemented much, although these flip flops below appear on Doyle Partners’ site…

… and I found evidence online that at least one pair might actually exist.

*Footnoted Digression: the Photo Block photo cube above appears to be a product which contains its packaging, rather than the other way round.

(Another animation of The Cooper Union logo, after the fold…) [Read more…]

January 11, 2013

Gloob

A more recent multicolored logotype: this logo for a new preschool channel launched last summer by Brazillian TV network, Globosat, was designed by their in-house team, led by Manuel Falcão. (via: Under Consideration)

Similar to what we observed yesterday with the early, multicolored Joy & Crest logos by Deskey, it’s not just the colors that vary from letter to letter…

According to the manager of Creating Art Globosat , Manuel Falcon, said: “The letters of the name are in apparent imbalance and disproportionate sizes with each other. This was deliberate, and expresses the whole personality cheerful, colorful, curious, playful and, when lively irreverence of Brazilian children” he said.

And thus concludes our “Multicolor Typography Week.”

January 10, 2013

Joy & Crest (2 multicolor logos by Donald Deskey)

In case there was any lingering doubt, it’s “Multicolor Typography Week” here on box vox. (Starting with last Friday’s Holiday vs. Vacation)

Arguably, a more popular graphic design device in the 1950s and 60s, although eBay & Google might suggest otherwise.

These two examples (Joy dishwashing detergent and Crest toothpaste) by Donald Deskey typify the playful, informal sixties style. Not only do the colors of the letters vary, but the position and the angle of each letter also differs deliberately.


Joy ad via: SaltyCotton’s Flickr Photostream; 1950s Joy bottle via: RoadsidePictures’ Flickr Photostream

One surprising area of variability were the specific colors assigned for each letters in the word, “Joy.” Not sure if this was due to advertisers disregarding the style guide or what, but while the “J” was always red, the “o” and “y” seemed to occasionally swap colors.


Crest carton (at top) from RoadsidePictures’ Flickr Photostream

With Crest Toothpaste’s early branding the colors of the letters were more consistently assigned, although in later years the two blues were consolidated into one color. (See also: Donald Deskey’s Toothpaste Tubes)

Both of these brands had a very different look when they were originally trademarked…

(See also: NBC & Jif Peanut Butter and 2 More Design Patent Bottles by Donald Deskey)

 

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