Did they do it on purpose?
Jesper Bram Mar 27th
Apparently Quark has just redesigned their logo for the second time within 6 months, and the designer blogs are all over it. Their first attempt by SicoloaMartin used a shape not that unique and also used by others in the design community. An odd choice considering it’s their target market, and how picky we designers are about these things. Now their second try is out and it seems, from the comments, that they’ve gone from a painful shot in the foot with a peashooter to blowing it clean off with a 12 gauge shotgun.
When I made the logo for Headlight, I was a bit concerned that it wasn’t good enough. That somewhere down the road I would discover a situation where it wouldn’t work. I spend around three days making it, which we all know is a bit short to explore all possibilities. But in the spirit of getting things done; that was the time we wanted to use. Now that I see what a respected company that has long been a design community darling can try to get away with, I’m sure the Headlight logo will be just fine.
They probably spent loads of time and money to reach their result, and they haven’t covered half the issues we’ve covered in three days. Ground rule issues like; how will it scale, how will it look in single color, is the shape similar in positive and negative, seems like they’ve been ignored all together.
While Quark struggles with their community, I have yet to find out if the Headlight logo gets the message through. It’s not a question of whether people think it’s pretty or not. Luckily we all have different taste, so of course there will be some who hate it. There will also be people with brilliant imaginations thinking it looks like a parrot in a pirate’s hat. I don’t really care about that, all I’m interested in is the message.
You can’t really tell until you try it in the real world and in its real context, which means just using it and see what happens. If you start asking around, people will be obliged to have an opinion, and we certainly don’t want a bunch of people with opinions on our back. Like Quark, you could end up with a huge amount of coverage and awareness. Oh no, we don’t want that.
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When I first heard the name Headlight as the name for our new product I couldn’t quite decide whether I liked the name or not. Headlight… - did the name say anything about the product – and would the market and our customers understand what we wanted to tell? But after having seen your suggestion to the logo I saw the light
The way you’ve merged the brain, head and the light together is quite good and I think the result tells a lot about on the vision of Headlight.
But you’re right – we have to wait and see how the real world reacts on the logo before any conclusion can be made. First of all I’m looking forward to hear what our partners and customers think.
I can’t really put my finger on it, but haven’t I seen something similar before?
I am not all for it. It is to dramatic with the brain incorporated in the circle of light.
I like the thought and the components, but I don’t think that people will understand the message of “online marketing made smart” combining a brain and the headlight. The symbolism is to straight forward.
Personally I hate whan people criticise, without bringing something new and constructive into the debate, however, this is exactly what I am going to do - for now! I have to come up with a good suggestion - and these things take time
I’ll be back! (Perhaps with something constructive and helpful!?!
Pelle > The Sony Ericsson logo is ganz cool. I like the 3D style here.
The Quark logo sucks. In the 3D category I also like the 37sigs’ many logos > They remind me of “rosebud” in Citizin Kane.
I like our own new logo. Well done, Jesper. I’ve also seen our new TRW logo > Same style as our Headlight logo. It’s good. Can’t wait to launch!
The reason why I brought the SE logo into the discussion was simply that Quark is the same logo upside down.
I like our new logo - it reminds me of Russian/German constructivism (which is a good thing, in case anyone wonders) and when you see it together with the new TraceWorks logo it works even better.
As I said
“Luckily we all have different taste, so of course there will be some who hate it.”
As for the message. What I’m trying to get through is a head with light in it. A bright head - a common symbol of intelligence/cleverness.
Communicating the marketing message will come when the logo is put into context.
From the comments I can see that the message I intended to send gets through. I wanted no less no more.
Sorry if it wasn’t the message you expected Tobias.
[...] A few days back I presented the logo for Headlight in a post on logo design inspired by the fuzz about the new Quark logo. Since then I’ve had some feedback on the logo, which made me realize I had to change it. My main reason to change it was that some people didn’t see the lit head shape with the brain in it, but an image of a man yelling from the top of his lungs. When I saw what they meant, I kept seeing the yelling man as well. It was clear; the brain had to go. [...]
Sorry but I really do not like.
The Quark logo is too similar to the Sony Ericsson Corporation logo and the Headlight logo is too similar to the Eukanuba logo.
Appreciate the comment, Rafael.
I’m sorry but if this is the Eukanuba logo you mean, I don’t really see the similarity
Interesting comments..
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