Seth Godin on Logos, part 2
I hate to keep dwelling on Seth Godin’s opinions about logos, but I think it is important for two reasons. 1. His thoughts represent a common misunderstanding about the value of logos. and 2. He has a huge audience of marketing people. That is the same crowd that designers need to be educating about the value of design. If they are being mislead we need to set the record straight.
Today, Seth talks about the 2012 Olympic logo story that we have all been following and draws some surprising conclusions. Seth is quoted below in bold with my responses below.
The art of picking a logo, even one for the Olympics, has almost nothing to do with taste or back story.
By that rational Seth should be praising the 2012 logo. The reality is that the 2012 logo fails for exactly those reasons: it is distastefully ugly, and it lacks any element that connects it to the event. Seth puts absolutely no importance on a logo being formally appropriate or contextually relevant. That is essentially what Seth is saying when he points to Nike, Starbucks, and Apple as examples of corporations that didn’t have to pay for their logos. To him these logos are just a random image picked by an uninformed employee. Yikes.
A great logo doesn’t mean anything until the brand makes it worth something. That’s why spending $800,000 for a logo is ridiculous.
A good logo connected to a strong company should always be the goal. The companies that are paying $800,000 for a logo are the companies that have millions of dollars riding on their identity and its ability to say the right thing. The companies that can benefit the most from a logo improvement would probably pay more than 100 to 500 times less than $800,000. Logo design should be handled by a professional and there are thousands of terrible examples showing how badly a company can look when they try to design their identity themselves.
Of course, the original Olympics logo meant nothing much when they started.
History proves Seth wrong on this point as a quick Google search would have saved him some embarrassment. Isn’t it common knowledge that each ring represents a different continent? If it were up to Seth the original Olympic comittee would just draw a random abstraction out of a hat.
The iPod didn’t need a logo, where a pair of sneakers or a cup of coffee do.
Apparently since the iPod is type only it doesn’t qualify as a logo in Seth’s world.
If you’re given the task of finding a logo for an organization, your first task should be to try to get someone else to do it.
Why? Because it isn’t worth your time? Because it is too hard and it is better to delegate the tough stuff. I would love some explanation on that statement.
If you fail at that, find an abstract image that is clean and simple and carries very little meaning–until your brand adds that meaning.
Wrong. Find someone who has committed their life to logo design. Pay them and trust that they know more about logos than you.
It’s not a popularity contest. Or a job for a committee. It’s not something where you should run it by a focus group.
Well, that’s true. It also isn’t something that you should do yourself if you don’t know what you are doing.
It’s just a placeholder, a label waiting to earn some meaning.
And if you think your brand’s identity is just a placeholder you will never get taken seriously. If Nike, Starbucks, or Apple treated their logo with such little respect nobody would have ever heard of these companies.
June 6th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
thanks for reading, Adrian
ask 10 random people why there are five rings on the olympic logo.
you know that and so do I
but the audience doesn’t.
June 6th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Wow, Seth – that’s all you’ve got to say?
Adrian, thank you for at least trying to be a voice or reason in the drowning madness of marketing. It is because of people like Seth Godin that there is such a rift between design and marketing – I know far too many marketers who consider themselves far more important than any designer, and I definitely have been lead to count Mr. Godin as one of those.
June 6th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
(Editor’s note: When Seth left his comment my blog software ate half my post. The last five points were recovered since then.)
June 6th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
i just asked 10 people. They all knew. None of the people i asked were designers.
Its common knowledge.
June 6th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Ummmm…
What exactly is “100 to 500 times less than $800,000″?
June 6th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
Anyone who has watched any Olypic event in their lifetime should have a clue as to what the rings mean.
Adrien, thank you for your excellent post. It seems like the design communicty spends a lot of time just trying to educate the general public as to why they (the general public) are not going to accomplish much if they rely on themselves and Microsoft Word or Publisher to get the job done.
June 6th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
First off, great response to a completely idiotic article. Seth Godin had absolutely no clue.
Second, I find it funny that the google ad on this page links to logoworks.
June 7th, 2007 at 7:31 am
Ugh. WHY is there ANY discussion about this Seth Gordin? I may not be any high flautin super designer with tons of “professional” training, but after going thru his blog and the above referenced post of his, WHY ARE ALL THESE DESIGNERS WASTING TIME WITH HIM?!!?!?
Honestly, he seems to be the perfect embodiment of the people spinning the greatness of the olympic logo!
NEXT! please!
June 7th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
The only time I have ever seen or heard anything about Seth Godin is when Adrian obsesses over him like this. I have an idea, Adrian, STOP READING HIS BLOG, since you seem to take so much issue with whatever he says.
Seriously, out of everything happening around this logo, THIS is what you choose to center on? Really?
June 7th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Nate and DJ Scissor.
I made it pretty clear in the first sentence of my post why this should be important to all of us. Go back and read it. I will wait for you to catch up with the rest of the class. Got it? Ok, then. Complaining about the Olympic logo to other designers does absolutely no good. If we are going to correct the problem we need to talk to non designers. That is going to be the marketing people. Seth is a huge name in the marketing community, and I recommend that you familiarize yourself with him. He is a bigger name than any of the design celebrities we talk about.
June 8th, 2007 at 8:06 am
does anyone else worry about this mob mentality of hatred for the logo?
I’m wondering how many people actually dislike it for valid reasons, and how many others are just reacting to the bad press and agreeing with the opinions vs. the actual reasoning behind why it may or may not be a terrible logo?
June 8th, 2007 at 9:24 am
I’m with Adrian on this one. I can’t believe this guy is who he is and thinks that the graphic logo is a tabula rasa until MARKETING puts a spin on it. Surely in his line of business he understands the importance of competent design. Maybe Mr Godin is talking about the difference between a $1,000 logo design and an ugly $800,000 logo design. Sure, then I can see where the marketing and actual business practice make up the rest of the brand. I agree with that. A great logo does not make a brand. A brand is the culmination of a customer’s experience with the company including the logo, design, marketing and product/service provided by the company.
I truly hope that he is not advocating that Marketing departments should start designing their own logos. That’s ludicrous.
June 8th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Adrian,
Thank you for treating your readers and myself like a bunch of fucking jerks. It was the second sentence where you actually presented your reasoning behind Seth’s article’s importance. I suggest you go back and read it. I’ll wait for you to catch up, and to quit alienating the people who visit this site.
June 8th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
I think I’ll keep going.
A great logo doesn’t mean anything until the brand makes it worth something. That’s why spending $800,000 for a logo is ridiculous.
He is absolutely right when this is applied to the idea of a company’s brand. Logos are not brochures. They are not websites. They are signifiers alone. It is only through continued perception and brand performance that the logo begins to develop significance and meaning. Look at Apple’s logo. It’s a fucking Apple. It in no way represents what the company does or its history or its place in the current market context. That information is filled in by the viewer, and by the viewer’s mind only. Not by design. when logos go too far to try to describe a company’s business, they fail.
The iPod didn’t need a logo, where a pair of sneakers or a cup of coffee do. The iPod doesn’t have a fucking logo. That is a standard type treatment from Apple. In fact, the first iPods had a different type treatment than the newer models because they changed the standard. The type standard. and he’s right, it doesn’t need one.
If you fail at that, find an abstract image that is clean and simple and carries very little meaning-until your brand adds that meaning. Wrong. Find someone who has committed their life to logo design. Pay them and trust that they know more about logos than you. Obviously he won’t be hiring you, because someone who has dedicated their life to logo design already knows brand performance and perception add meaning. See my above point. And every book on logo design ever written.
It’s just a placeholder, a label waiting to earn some meaning. You know, that’s a bit of a harsh point of view, but again, it is more true than not.
Essentially, Godin is describing logos the way they work, and you are retorting about they way the work from the point of view of the creator who values their work more than the performace of that work after it leaves their hands. I’ll bet it really pisses you off when a client redesigns your stuff a year of two after you make it.
To your very last point, Adrian, you have to seriously ask yourself if Nike, Starbucks, or Apple would have failed as companies if they had different logos. of course they wouldn’t have. Their success as brands has enabled their logos to be regarded as successful, not the other way around.
June 8th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
What? You actually read my post and thought it was worth talking about afterall? Thanks. Still trying to make sense of your comment, though. So you agree with Seth on this one? Interesting.
Oh, and if I was rude to dj_scissor, I apologize.
June 11th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
couldnt agree with you more adrian, i managed to look over seth’s site, which i hadnt done in about 2 years and thought, yep, nothings changed. whats worse people take this guy like he has something meaningful to say. i may be a bit biased being a mac user, but if you cant see the genius in the apple logo and its judaeo-christian reference, then what sort of idiot are u? a marketer who cant even use abstract logic, and association to draw meanings? no wonder his posts are dull and hollow. what is that old adage? empty vessels…
June 11th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Adrian, you make valid points. There definately needs to be a lot of thought that goes into the logo and what it represents or the feeling that it gives – it shouldn’t just be a random process.
But I didn’t know that the rings represented 6 continents *blush*!!
June 16th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Seth, I agree that marketing will an communicate a brand, but the trivial and random selection of a logo is a scary concept.
The objective is that the logo represents and complements the message and is further communicated and strengthened through advertising and other media.
For example: Sprint’s new logo. What is that a wing, a tire mark? The logo meant nothing to most people I spoke to about it at first, but I think slowly, people are beginning to realize that it’s the pindrop, because of communicative marketing.
I do this stuff for a living and I missed it the first time. Just seeing the static image, I didn’t know what I was looking at. However, as soon as I saw the FIRST Sprint commercial I happened across while channel surfing and saw the animation of the logo, it hit me immediately.
They complemented one another. The designer knew what it was and it had been thought out, the marketing only strengthened and further explained what was there.
If they had just flipped through a clipart book and slammed their finger down with their eyes closed, we may have a Sprint Green Bean instead…which would be ridiculous. I’m sure marketing and design could have MADE UP some neato stuff that Green Bean could stand for, but that’s not really how it works. The logo is an iconic representation of the companies mission and beliefs, a holistic image for everything they do… It’s a cart before the horse problem.
The logo DOES need to be calculated and thought out because, ordinarily, a LONG, EXPENSIVE journey of marketing and advertising follows the seemingly random mark to connect experience and branding…not create it.
2 cents.
June 19th, 2007 at 6:35 am
One thing for sure it that in a very short time, this olympic logo has gain worldwide notoriety.
And that’s where I agree with Seth, sometimes designing a logo has nothing to do with taste a what it represent, because for some and especialy marketeers all that matter is to have it well knowned in the shortest time, especially for an event like the olympic game, which last 2 weeks!!.
A all bunch of derivative products needs to be sell before it ends, therefore big money at stack.
And what better in the Internet world, than word about good taste and critics spread at light speed to help sales margin!!!
June 20th, 2007 at 1:45 am
I’m appalled by Nathan Voss. Dude, you have maybe one decent piece on your entire site, and not a single logo besides the stretched Lithos-y Wally Jr. disaster.
Seriously dude, wtf.
June 20th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Please.
There are several logos of mine on that site. The Up, Up & Away mark, the typographic treatment on the side of that locomotive, The AIGA Summer Seminar Series‚Ķ I mean, it’s there. I have not built a career around logos, I have built a career around design. I’m not a specialist, and you won’t hear me profess to be the end-all-be-all of knowledge. At least, not today. But not practicing a speciality on a daily basis does not exclude one from understanding its fundamentals.
Nice website, by the way.
July 2nd, 2007 at 12:06 pm
I’ve enjoyed the posts and comments at Be a Design Group, but I have to say that if we can’t close ranks when our profession is so flippantly attacked as Seth Godin did in his post, we need to examine ourselves as professionals
You all have good things to say. Nate Voss: your posting on getting used to the 3D look of New Identity Design is spot on. He not busy being born is busy dying, indeed. Adrian Hanft: Your posts on Godin are a scrappy, if somewhat overzealous, defense of design. I’d like being on your side in a fight. But is picking fights with each other what we should be doing in a design blog?
You two guys might want to keep your personal insults out in the alley behind a bar where they belong. It is embarasses me as a fellow designer to read posts with insults and profanity on a professional site. Please play nice and continue educating the wider community with thoughtful posts and comments.
July 6th, 2007 at 12:45 am
I was quite stoked to see this post. Although I like much of what Seth Godin says, he does occasionally say some things that are completely wrong when it comes to advertising and design. The thing is, it suits him to make these outrageous comments because they often indirectly benefit his own causes, such as Squidoo.
I recently read a post of his wherein he stated that there are only two types of advertising, rational and glamorous. I thought that he was so far off base that it lit a fire under me to write my own post that tells people a lot more about advertising than did his post.
His logo post is another clear case of him making an outrageous statement to support his own causes. The man is clearly not an idiot. He is extremely successful, and he stays that way by saying things like this. He has a huge audience of dedicated readers, and a lot of those people treat his words like godsend. Heck, I find some of his stuff inspiring.
Ultimately, all he is doing is asking professional designers to throw down the gauntlet and do an exceptional job of designing logos that have true meaning and that personify the companies for whom they are designed. If he is not doing that, then I am.
All three of his examples were totally off base.
By the way, all three of the logos he cited do have quite a lot of meaning, in spite of his statement to the opposite:
1. The Nike swoosh has speed and power, which is exactly what Nike customers want. It is also suggestive of a road. Nike started out making running shoes, so the road reference was perfect.
2. The Apple logo is a reference to Sir Isaac Newton, who was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist, regarded by many as one of the greatest figures in the history of science (source: Wikipedia), and the bite out of the apple immediately engages people on an emotional level.
3. The Starbucks logo made coffee, a murky brown, gritty, often burnt stimulant (not sourced from Wikipedia) sexy. People are willing to pay more for sexy goods than ugly goods. How do you sell a ten cent cup of coffee for four bucks? Make it sexy. Job well done.
Thank you, Adrian, for bringing his original logo post to my attention. I would not have otherwise seen it.
October 23rd, 2007 at 3:21 pm
Now I understand why Yahoo! logo is so stupid. It was designed either by a MKT or an IT!!! An it was directed by Seth, of course.
I think this is one of the reasons he points. If I had a billion brand and it’s poorly executed, why bother? Who cares? E.G. Coca-cola (designed by an accountant), Google, Yahoo!, Ebay, etc.
The difference is behind the business idea, that’s why they are so popular. But it doesn’t mean they are good identities for a big brand.
I still remember Paul Rand’s story of his Next logo presentation. “I know I’ve done a great work once my client ask me for a hug”. Genius.
February 13th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Interesting article.
I’m actually currently searching for a logo design site offering professional logos at an affordable price. There are many sites out there but I’m not so sure which to choose. Has anyone heard of LogoDesignCreation.com (http://www.logodesigncreation.com)? I’m planning on using one of their services but still haven’t decided yet. Do you have any other suggestions? I heard logoismdesign.com is also good. Does anyones here has experience in using online design services? I’ll like to know what you guys would suggest.
February 14th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Francesca
This is the way logo factories work:
1- They send you 3 proposals.
2- You pick one.
3- You pay for it.
4- They have 2 proposals left to offer to another prospect.
5- Big deal.
Let´s suppose you´re invited to a very important party, so you´re searching for that special suit for you (your company). Are you going to hire a taylor or do you think you can buy the best one because you saw it on a catalog?
Budget? Ok, you don´t need the best of the world. The best in town could be enough.
Let´s put it this way: you are able to speak with the taylor and tell him what you need because his work is to create exclusively for you. He thinks about YOU. He looks at you and then, he can give his advice and best designs for you.
Do you think a shop is appropiated for this occasion?