That's supposed to say 2012. And the Olympic Committee paid £400,000 for this. Even the folks behind the logo aren't committed to it. According to the brand launch site:
Available in four colours – pink, blue, green and orange - the new emblem is modern and will be dynamic, evolving in the years between now and 2012.
I never thought I'd utter these words, but in this case, I'd opt for creation over evolution. They need to start over.
This third set of logos (click to enlarge to 1200 x 900) are much more polished then set one or set two. There's still a bit too frequent use of the rounded sans serif fonts, and perhaps a couple seem overly simple, but there's some good thought behind many of these marks. When I look at these logos as a group, and try to identify what "the look" is, I'm struck by the fact that print is simply not the big issue it used to be. Some of these logos may never see print beyond a business card. Most don't need single color versions. It's not that they don't work in print, it's that these logos are meant to look good on the screen.
For the first two posts, I created a Jules Says logo in the style of the featured logos. I thought I'd do it for part three as well, but of course coming up with something really compelling and workable isn't simple. The other two I whipped out in a matter of 10 or 15 minutes. Maybe I'll get inspired and do a "real" logo for myself one day, but it's not going to happen in time for this post.
Observations on this batch: I like the Magnolia logo - it's got a very unique feel, and I think it actually would translate into print very nicely. And I have to admit I like the little creatures of Adium, Mochikit, and Reddit. I'm a little tired of the small, generic people as logos.
I cannot absolutely confirm that these are all web 2.0 companies - I got carried away just perusing all the logos that are starting to look the same, and, in this case, are pretty much cop-outs. Web 2.0 logos, part 1, focused on the many logos - wordmarks, really - out there using rounded and/or outline fonts. There are plenty of those in this batch too. Now we've added some simple graphical elements, too.
There are sound waves, and the talk bubbles. Squares. Circles. Lots and lots of circles. Built-in typographic elements like asterisks and stars. Some of these logos are nearly identical. Del.icio.us, Foopad, and Tilika have the same four-square pattern. Strmz and xanga not only use the same number of squares, there are even similar colors. And what about mozy and orange? Hope neither are in the market for a trademark.
I've noticed there are several “web 2.0 logo builders” out there now, too. That's gotta really piss off a lot of designers... I whipped out this Jules Says mark in Fireworks in a couple of minutes.
Click this image to enlarge it to 1188 x 821.
I understand that many firms, especially startups, can't afford to spring for a design firm to come up with a brilliant logo for them right out of the gate. There's a lot of laziness here, though, and certainly not much that's memorable.
Update:
Web 2.0 logos, part 3
Well, what started out as an observation I thought might make an interesting post has turned into a bit of a project.
Web 2.0 products/services/sites have a definite look. I decided to start gathering some of the logos I thought best represented that look, and many hours later, have ended up with 3 distinct collections.
The logos - more accurately, they're wordmarks, for the most part - in this first collection at right (click to enlarge to 698 x 632) have one or both of these features in common:
Rounded fonts: ariel rounded, helvetica rounded, vag rounded - no doubt there are others.Overall there's a pretty consistent palette - nothing clashes here. There's enough similarity, in fact, that these all could easily have been done by the same design firm. Neighbors, anyway.
These certainly have what I think of as the web 2.0 look, but the other collections I'm putting together promise to be even more interesting than this batch.
I'm going to create a quick (max 15 mins) JulesSays logo in honor of each style featured.
Have some great examples I've missed? Please let me know in comments :)
