1. Atm

Stealing the idea from other blogs I decided to wake up and take particular attention to the logos I would see that day, get pictures of some twenty-four and post them here.

Some of them are actually logos I discussed in this blog.

2. Untho

3. Zero Milano

4. Amsa

5. Rai Uno

6. Apple

7. Smart

8. Box Vision

9. Intesa Sanpaolo

10. Barilla

11. Bike Mi & Expo 2015

12. Fiat Abarth

13. Il Sole 24 Ore

14. Suzuki

15. Esselunga

16. Humana

17. Bialetti

18. Honda

19. Lufthansa

20. Lucky Strike

21. Mandarina Duck

22. Fred Perry

23. Illy

24. Frankie Garage

Nipple Clthing Logo by Luca Napoli

Luca Napoli is a friend. Yet before this he’s a young designer with a great passion for graphics. He studies Communication Design at Politecnico di Milano in Bovisa and likes to apply his creativity in his spare time working with symbols and images.

He created several logos just for fun or even for some friends’ projects. Recently he designed his own brand Nipple Clthing.

I was explained the meaning behind the logo sharing a beer some weeks ago: “First of all Nipple Clthing is a project of Love and Brotherhood. I chose the nipple because it is universal, since everyone shares this body part, no distinction being made between men and women or between races. Secondly the nipple represents the first feeding from the mother’s breast, and in this sense it symbolizes Life and Birth”.

Then he told me what he wants Nipple Clthing to be, a repository for good designs and beautiful stories, without everything related to commerce like publicity, and more importantly nonprofit. Going with an under-exposure of the brand he wants it not to be presented as “cool” or “successful” by others. On the contrary he desires that everyone who sees the brand can decide on its own whether he appreciates it or not. Raising spontaneously in other words.

Nipple Clthing graphics by Luca Napoli

Lombardy stem by Noorda, Sambonet, Tovaglia, Munari

In 1974 a supergroup of milanese graphic designers, Bob Noorda, Roberto Sambonet and Pino Tovaglia, headed by Bruno Munari as coordinator, were to develop the Lombardy Region symbol.

The field of studies was particularly wide, from Agilulfo’s cross to Carroccio representations, from the Legnano Battle to the Sforza Castle, but then the most evident references to Milan were eliminated, as for the complicated symbols or those like the Biscione already used for commercial companies.

The final choice was a petroglyph in Val Camonica, the so-called Camunian Rose. The project relation reads: “With the help of these rock drawings we get to know the beliefs, uses and costumes of the Cammuni, the ancient inhabitants of Lombardy, who were witnesses and messengers of foundamental phases of the european civilization from Neolithic to Bronze Age”.

The graphics was then regularized with a geometric design with Leonardo Da Vinci style. The color was green on white because the Lombardy region is full of water and nature.

The Camunian Rose petroglyph down.

Rock engraves from Foppe, Nadro, Val Camonica

The Milan Expo 2015 Logo

As you may know there is to be a Universal Exposition in 2015 that will be hosted by the city of Milan.

The designer community resented the choice of the logo to the 2015 Expo in Milan. Some argued that it appears as a poor mix of clip-arts with the stylized Vitruvian Man and the earth image centred on Mongolia(?). It surely cannot represent at its best Milan, one of the worlds design capitals.

So in 2007, when the Bie had not chosen yet the city that would host the Expo, Socialdesignzine an italian design blog wished for Izmir to win. Quoting the article “We like to believe in the existance of a god of good-design that will punish the communicative arrogance of the pro-Milan committee”.

So I made a logo myself, and I hope Mrs. Moratti will take it into consideration when she will change that out-dated stem of Milan.

Photo of the Eni Logo

The six-legged dog is the logo to the Eni, the italian multinational oil and gas company, and to every other other company associated to the group. Eni was founded in 1953 by the Italian Government and was transformed into a joint stock company in 1992.

The figure was presented the first time in 1952, when it won a competition to design billboard ads to the Supercortemaggiore oil produced by Agip. The official author was Giuseppe Guzzi but it was attributed post-mortem to the italian sculptor Luigi Broggini.

The interpretation given by the company itself is that the six legs of the dog symbolize the four wheels plus the two legs of the driver. It also draws back to African mythology where to represent the concept of power animals like lions or leopards were depicted as having six legs.

The logo was restyled by Bob Noorda in 1992 when the company went private.

The rededesigned New York State Logo by Saatchi & Saatchi

The I Love New York logo is a rebus created by Milton Glaser 1977, set in a rounded slab serif typeface called American Typewriter. The innovative pop-style icon became a major success and has continued to be sold for years.

The logo and advertising campaign have been used for decades to promote tourism in New York State, not just New York City as many believe.

The image became especially prominent following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the city, which created a sense of unity among the populace. Many visitors to the city following the attacks purchased and wore the shirts bearing the I Love New York logo as a sign of their support.

However the fact that it was seen as representing just NYC was disturbing and in 2008 the New York State Division of Tourism has spent $17 million with advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi to redesign the logo (adding a squirrel, a butterfly and some grass below). Do you see the 17 million dollars worth change?

Deutsche Bank by Anton Stankowski

Martina, a friend of mine, studies design at the Politecnico di Milano University. She had some lessons on logo design so I asked her to lend me some materials about the theory.

Their study starts from semiotics and proceeds showing the differences between logos and logotypes, or between monograms, pictograms and ideograms. They explain the processes of identification, appropriation, comunication and evocation that come with logos.

Afterward the characteristics that a perfect logo should have, with the aid of the world-known Deutsche Bank logo designed by Anton Stankowski in 1974.

‣ Solidity and Compactness, Simplicity, Regularity

‣ Legibility, Recognizability, Resistance to “noise”

‣ Reproducibility, Rrealisation ease, Effectiveness on various supports

‣ Shape/background contrast or Black & white contrast

‣ Proportion of empty/solid spaces, concave/convex shapes 

‣ Reduction, Effectiveness in small dimensions

Coop Logo redesign

I have already talked about milanese designer Bob Noorda. In 1985 he developed the coordinate image of Turin-born Coop. Coop is an Italian cooperative which operates the largest supermarket chain in Italy. 

Not only did he redesign Albe Steiner’s 1963 logo, Noorda went on to “reduce to unity”, both from the outside and the inside, the visuals and the graphics of every selling point.

He designed every single graphic element to diffuse the brand (from papers, to stickers and plastic bags) and developed the whole system of signs and lightings, the colours on informative panels, redefining internal spaces on consumer paths and expositors.

That is basically what a corporate coordinate image is about: creating brand recognition through the unity of logo, packaging and advertising.

Coop coordinate image by Bob Noorda

Apple Logo by Rob Janoff, used from 1976 to 1998

The 24th of January 1984 Apple launched the Macintosh. 25 years have passed, the company has transformed  and the logo has changed. Happy 25th anniversary!

Apple’s first logo, designed by Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne, depicts Sir Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree. Almost immediately this was replaced by Rob Janoff’s “rainbow Apple”, the now-familiar rainbow-coloured silhouette of an apple with a bite taken out of it, possibly as a tribute to Isaac Newton’s discoveries of gravity and the separation of light by prisms.

While it is generally accepted to have referred to Isaac Newton, another explanation exists that the bitten apple pays homage to the mathematician Alan Turing, one of the fathers of the computer, who committed suicide by eating an apple with cyanide. The rainbow colors are rumored to be a reference to the rainbow flag, as a homage to Turing’s homosexuality.

Another theory is that the missing bite is a reference to the Fall of Man, representing the acquisition of knowledge.

The logo’s shape is one of the most recognized brand symbols in the world, identifies all Apple products and retail stores (the name “Apple” is not even present) and has been included as stickers in nearly all Macintosh and iPod packages through the years.

The original Apple Logo featuring Isaac Newton; the monochrome Apple logo, used from 1998 to 2000; the stylized Apple, used from 2001 to 2007

United Colors of Benetton Logo by Vignelli Associates

The italian clothing brand United Colors of Benetton is also known for his controversial publicity campaigns.

Photographer Oliviero Toscani was given carte blanche and ads were created that contained striking images unrelated to any actual products. They included a variety of shocking subjects such as a deathbed scene of a man (AIDS activist David Kirby) dying from AIDS, a bloodied, unwashed newborn baby with umbilical cord still attached, a priest and nun kissing, a collage consisting of genitals of persons of various races. The company’s logo served as the only text accompanying the images in most of these advertisements.

The logo is simple and minimalist, a plain combination of white characters on a green background. It supports the idea behind Benetton designs: minimalism, elegance and vivid colours. 

One of the controversial Benetton ads by Oliviero Toscani