Design
September 26, 2007
It’s been a bad few days for logo design. First Adobe kidney-punches us with a crappy new me-too speech bubble + monocle logo. What, doesn’t Adobe have any talented artists?
And then, while we’re still writhing in agony, Wacom kicks us in the head with a logo probably designed by someone’s thirteen-year-old nephew for $20. No, wait, it was designed by Wolff Olins, the company responsible for London 2012. Brand New says the Wacom wordmark is at least a major improvement over the old, but I think that was said under threat of more violence.
The proud parents of both of these designs notified me by email originally. Adobe said something about adding value to the synergized dominant paradigm with a bold new logo that is both inside and outside the box at the same time. Whereas Wacom perkily announced “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!”
For my part, it’s now autumn and time to redesign Thudfactor again. So if you notice weirdness here, you’ll know why. Don’t worry, though, I’m not going to hire Wolff Olins.
Posted in Art and Writing
content rss
September 26th, 2007 at 10:05 am
I actually understand why Photoshop might need a separate logo from the box logo in the CS3 suite.
Photoshop for Adobe is a collection of Photoshop branded products from the original version to Elements and now the online version coming soonish. So I guess I can see why Adobe marketing might think there’s a need to have a common brand system for these products. That said I think the logo is terrible–it doesn’t mean anything that I can tell. What is it? A thought bubble with a hole in it, what the hell does that mean?
The first thing I thought of when I saw the Wacom logo was Teletubbies. Is that wrong?
Of course nothing is worse than the Verizon logo.
September 26th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
“Photoshop: See What’s Possible” Memory loss? Missing words? Ants with really big speech bubbles? I get it-it’s a guessing game!
Wacom does look kind of like Teletubbies. So which trumpety thing is gay?
September 27th, 2007 at 6:38 am
Call me crazy, but that Photoshop logo, to me, is reminiscent of a highly-stylized “P”. So I’m guessing that’s the impression they’re trying to make.
September 28th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
CT–If I squint really hard, I can sorta see what you’re talking about. But I still vote for an ant with a giant speech bubble and some words missing.
September 29th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
To respond to Auntie M, I am guessing that the purple belled trumpet thingie sticking straight up would be a good candidate.