Originally posted by Trip
So are these a good example of showing what the company is all about?
Servus, again.
Well, despite my promise I'm able to follow this thread by means of that e-mail notification - a great feature of this site, thanks to whoever built it.
OK, now to your question above. First of all,
natobasso also confused "logo" with "sign". The word "logo" comes from "logotype" and it means a uniquely designed/typesetted company name. What's a "good" logo? Something you haven't to change all too often and which reflects the companies style. A great logo is "IBM" - the company's name in bold egyptienne style letters formed by blue stripes is a perfect example of a good logo. The same goes for Microsoft, with that packman like "o". Their previous logo was much simpler, with a striped "o" in "Micro" it looked like an IBM subsidiary (was this intended, given IBM "made" Microsoft?).
Apple in turn has put its name in compressed Garamond - a simple solution which is "widened" by using the same font for headlines, even in the web, where serif fonts aren't a first choice. So they had to use big font sizes and this makes it a good example of "logo placement".
In this sense, I think #3 is a good example of a well designed logo. I'd try to enhance it by using capitals for "light" and the font size for that word to match the "optical weight" of the bold "Box". However, this is a logo, but the discussion should focus on the "sign".
Now Apple also has a "sign", that Apple you can see on the upper left of your screen. That's a sign, not a logo.
I too referred to the sign as a logo, to prevent me from writing the stuff above
OK, what's a good "sign"?
Shortly put: Something which is unique, doesn't make use of any letter (!) and helps to build an immediate recognition. Putting a shell on every gas station is at least smart - it's easy to recognize and as that logo has a long history, we all learned what to expect from a lit shell in the public. Signs are always directly related to the context, to what people already know. A good sign should visualize the name of the company or its primary business. The sign became popular in Europe at about 1200 a.c., when people couldn't read and companies had to advertise their names in front of the shop - inns named "eagle", "swan", etc., or professions, like shoemaker, butcher, whatever. There's a great book about this, Adrian Frutiger, "Man and his signs" (or the like, I simply translated its German title), so if you're interested, have a look at Amazon.com
In general we face a trand to more abstract logos in our days. Nike's "check mark" and Adidas' "Three stripes" became well known signs because of the size and public display of the companies. The sign itself won't work if the company hadn't put a lot of money in building the right context. Seen this way, those signs aren't the best examples when de-sign-ing for a small startup.
However, the companies success isn't tied to its sign, so no matter what you use, it can be changed once demoscopic research demands it (like Microsoft did). Funny enough, the most successful old companies kept their logos for a long time, with minor changes to reflect the change in time, but the (abstract) star of DaimlerChrysler, the (simple) sign of Volkswagen and of course the shell and the bitten apple remained, while "better" signs disappeared.
Which raises an important question: Where will the sign be used?
I have trouble to imagine shopping bags and screen banners showing any of those four signs for "LightBox". The company will have little public display, as it doesn't produce mass-marketable goods (heck, who knows if tomorrows consumers wouldn't get into their grocery store, asking for some fresh website layouts?).
For this reason I would concentrate on the logo and on a proper corporate design (including proper typefaces, high quality paper for letters, etc.) instead of wasting a lot of time crafting "the sign". Of course, if you intend to put that sign on every website layout you sold, it should be as simple as a bitten apple to fit nicely on every screen.
There's a simple test for a sign's quality: I show my layout to my (now three year old) son and if he points me to that sign everytime when he finds it in ads or on products, I know I was successful. If needed I'd show some of my working designs, but I think the message got across - don't feel obligated to anybodies understanding, but stick to the uneducated minds, as signs aren't ment for people who perfectly understand everything - for those you have to find the proper typesetting to keep them reading your message. And the latter also require a well designed logotype and as those are the ones who will be the majority of your products, you can easily omit the sign...
My 2%,
Norbert
