I know I should be more tolerant of these, especially as reproduction capabilities expand, but I’m tired of the blurry logo. I shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds me, but it strikes me as purely a result of the abilities of the computer and less of the craft and idea of the designer. Of the four logos shown ’Äì¬Ýevolution, CityRail, 3, and Corning ’Äì only “3” seems purposely created with the blends in mind. Evolution could easily have been done without the blurs, as well as CityRail. For those that don’t know, the Corning mark actually has no blurs, but is a series of lines (a la AT&T, LA’s Stars in Motion). I didn’t design the logo, but worked at Landor when it was created by Junji Hase. He and the production team worked extensively to render it as solids and not blurs so it was easily usable in all applications. They did have to make about 4 or so versions in varying degrees of complication to suit different sizes and uses. The embroidery of it was quite amazing. The point is that, most of the time, with some effort, the right execution can be developed that doesn’t rely on the blur.

Am I alone in this feeling or am I just somewhat old guard on this? I have never designed without the computer, so please don’t regard me as an old pissed-off rubylith-and-plaka kind of guy.

(And this isn’t related to trends, but: sticking spiky serifs on Gill Sans? Are they mad??? )

I don’t know about this assessment of trends. When the company’s name is ‘Newleaf’ it’s clever to show a well-executed flipping leaf. That doesn’t make a ‘leaf’ a trend. Trends would be elements that have no reason for being aside from a need to make an unremarkable logo more interesting or ‘hip’. I would also have to disagree with the above on the City Rail logo. I immediately connect that blur with my experience of subway systems. That seems to be a great image of speed for trains specifically. But a blur for no reason, well, then I would call it a trend.

Wanting designs to be independent of the technical tools it took to generate them is a powerful and humbling perspective for critique, but a great many designs came out of wood cutting, lithography, and screen printing that took advantage of abilities provided by the medium. Let’s not neuter our tools by claiming that the use of their unique abilities is bad design.

The Corning logo is in the magazine. It is pretty cool how they pulled off the blur.

I am torn on the whole blur issue. On the one hand, you want a logo that will look good in many applications. Then again you lose something by targeting your logo so that it will print well on a coffee mug.