
A great logo is recognizable in any form - vnchr
http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_l9rpqtzaDC1qz6flco1_1280.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=0RYTHV9YYQ4W5Q3HQMG2&Expires=1286966076&Signature=kS6kwiEiYz4w3Mm8E1D1TTjn1sk%3D
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tripngroove
At least give credit where credit is due.

Source: [http://designersgotoheaven.com/post/1242437663/changes-of-
th...](http://designersgotoheaven.com/post/1242437663/changes-of-the-bat-
symbol)

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vnchr
No, thanks for this! I just found this image while poking around and I
reposted it because I thought people would find it meaningful (every startup
has to figure out its branding).

I had no idea it would go to the top of HN... Its only my second post.

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tripngroove
No worries :) Saw this on Reddit yesterday and spent an hour looking through
the rest of the posts on the blog; some interesting graphic work curated
there.

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jonhohle
Surprisingly, this doesn't include the original Tim Burton logo (which is one
of my favorite): <http://blogs.theage.com.au/schembri/batman.jpg>

No "shoulders", and "feet" on the tail.

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Gormo
The first time I saw that logo, on a text-free movie poster, I thought someone
badly needed to see a dentist.

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senki
They say, it depends on personality. See
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_test>

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jedberg
Matt Groening figured this out a long time ago. He says that whenever he
creates a new character, it has to be recognizable in silhouette. Look at all
his characters. Bart, Homer, Leela, Bender, Fry. None of them need color.

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ugh
… but you should really stick to one form.

It’s nice to have a logo everyone can draw from memory and that is then still
recognizable. I don’t think it’s advisable for organizations to change the
ductus of their logo all that often, though.

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Tyrannosaurs
It's an interesting point but I can't think of too many more examples. Anyone
else come up with other similarly flexible logos?

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Samuel_Michon
Just a few off the top of my head: Apple, Android, Windows, Nike, WNF,
Playboy, NBC.

EDIT: I didn't realize that all of these variations of Batman logos were
actually used at one time, so I just thought of logos that _could_ be
stretched and skewed while still being recognizable.

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jtbigwoo
The Batman logo is something rare, I think. Most of the logos you list are
bound by either color (NBC's peacock looks funny in monotone) or shape (Apple
would have a hard time reshaping the apple, Nike can only make minor changes
to the outline of the swoosh.) A bright orange batman logo would still evoke
the same character. I'm not a graphic designer so I can't speak to why this
works, but it's pretty neat.

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Tyrannosaurs
I think part of it is that they've allowed it to change and evolve which is
unusual for companies.

I remember working with Shell. They have three volumes of rules on how you can
treat the pectern (the Shell logo). No colour changes, proportion changes,
definite rules about handling it on different backgrounds, about it's use if
different contexts, about use with text... On and on.

Ironically if DC had been like that they'd actually have a far weaker brand.

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Samuel_Michon
Fun fact: through the years, Royal Dutch Shell's logo has changed quite a bit.
It started as a depiction of a mussel shell, the current scallop shell logo
came as recent as 1971.

"the pecten symbol currently in use worldwide was designed in 1971 by loewy.
the design and testing process completed by loewy's firm took more than four
years. one of the tests involved hanging various prototype pectens on poles
where they could be viewed by drivers passing on a nearby british motorway.
drivers were later contacted for their opinions on the prototypes."

<http://www.designboom.com/portrait/loewy.html>

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Tyrannosaurs
If we're doing fun facts: Salvador Dali designed the Chupa Chups logo (the
little lollies, like Kojak used to suck) back in 1969.

Improbably but true. I'd link to their website but they've turned the whole
thing into Flash so I can't. Their design has clearly been going downhill
since 1969....

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ZeroMinx
There's a lot of truth in that.

This reminds me of an old interview with Linus saying that while he thought
the Windows logo was ok (he might have said good, I don't remember), you can't
really do anything with it, while you can do put Tux is all sort of
situations. It was quite common to see him playing ice hockey or reading a
book or whatever -- if you knew the logo (Tux) you knew it was Linux-related.

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jtbigwoo
I disagree. The Windows logo is just a cross in a box with multi-colored
panels. You can twist, turn, bend, or re-color it considerably before it's
unrecognizable. When they've wanted to make their images more dynamic, they've
curved the lines. When they've wanted to look more professional they've muted
the colors and outlines. It's still clearly a divided four-panel window.

In contrast, Tux seems a bit stuck. It's going to be hard to make him anything
but cute and cuddly. A more stylized penguin would look cold and sinister.

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SeanLuke
> In contrast, Tux seems a bit stuck. It's going to be hard to make him
> anything but cute and cuddly.

I smell a photoshop contest.

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jerf
No need to call a special one: <http://images.google.com/images?q=tux>

Whether this proves or disproves the point probably depends more on your
personal definition of "cute and cuddly".

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andfarm
Interestingly, that image search shows the Crystal Tux designs (one shows up
second in that search for me - it's shiny, rounder, and has unevenly sized
eyes) is nearly as popular as the classic Larry Ewing design in adaptations.

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danielnicollet
A question though: Is this a logo I am recognizing or just a black bat ; which
if filled with black and projected at this angle can rarely be anything else
than the Batman logo?

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jfager
Um, isn't that the point?

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danielnicollet
I mean that in this logo example, there is little semantic noise in the
recognition process:

Not many other logos using bats (because bats typically scare people maybe).
Now, imagine your logo was a cow, or a bicycle, do you think the logo would be
recognizable in any form? regardless of how well it was designed? I guess this
statement is just not true in every case. It's just like Apple's design
philosophy: There is just room for one Apple in every industry
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1762682>). Maybe there is also just room
enough for one black bat logo in the world...

Unfortunately, the freedom enjoyed by entertainment logo designers with
regards the choice of their iconographies is nothing like the constraints of
say, designing a logo for one more enterprise software startup for for one
more ISP.

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jfager
_Now, imagine your logo was a cow, or a bicycle, do you think the logo would
be recognizable in any form? regardless of how well it was designed?_

Your logo is supposed to create an association between an image and your
company. If your logo is a generic something that gets lost in the noise of
all the other similar logos, it is pretty much by definition not well
designed.

If anyone could just pull a fantastic, iconic logo out of their ass on a whim,
this story wouldn't have gotten any upvotes. You seem to be saying "gosh, I
can't blindly apply this to crank out my own logos, so it's not useful", but
that's wrong - it's useful _precisely because_ it's so rare, because it
becomes an ideal to aspire to.

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danielnicollet
If anyone could just pull a fantastic, iconic logo out of _their ass on a
whim, this story wouldn't have gotten any upvotes. You seem to be saying
"gosh, I can't blindly apply this to crank out my own logos, so it's not
useful", but that's wrong_

No, I guess You misunderstood me. I am just saying that while this might be an
ideal logo to aspire to, it is something most designers should not worry about
achieving in order to satisfy their bosses or clients. I love the bat
nonetheless!

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piramida
Wait, no one else thought that these are variations of the Bacardi logo first?
I must be drinking too much...

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davidedicillo
I think this is a very extreme case, but it’s interesting how the logo in this
case becomes more of a concept than an actual design. Indeed if I asked you to
draw the batman logo most people would probably design a different one because
there isn’t only one.

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wr1472
It seems that the logos with the most mileage (ie. you can bend, squeeze,
stretch or distort in many ways before it becoming unrecognisable) are the
ones that have a simple silhouette outline or are made up of a few geometric
shapes and colours.

* Batman logo

* Windows logo

* Pepsi logo

* Coke curve

* Addidas stripes

Are just a few that come to immediate mind.

[EDIT: Formatting]

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udfalkso
Nike Swoosh

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scoot2006
Or...

It's recognizable because it's a bat.

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mcantor
Yeah... it's kind of like putting two dozen pictures of human faces next to
each other and saying, "Look! They're different, but they're all clearly human
faces!"

I mean--that _is_ kind of amazing, but I think it has more to do with faces--
and bats--being _symbols_ than well-designed logos.

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f1gm3nt
If no one has read or heard of "The Brand Gap" I would recommend it. There is
a part of the book that covers this and another example of a good logo is the
MTV logo.

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novas
Not to be confused with "the Gap brand".

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MichaelApproved
When the logo becomes this generic and in this many styles, you're probably
going to have a hard time maintaining a trademark on it.

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templaedhel
I don't have the source off the top of my head, but the original coke bottles
were designed to be reconizable even after they broke.

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jdeeny
I found it referenced on wikipedia[1], but the source given[2] in the article
does not mention broken bottles. The documents in the collection may.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola#Contour_bottle_design> [2]
[http://www.vigo.lib.in.us/vcplarchive/inventories/business/d...](http://www.vigo.lib.in.us/vcplarchive/inventories/business/dean.asp)

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klochner
Some of those would not be recognizable as the batman logo if presented alone.

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sahillavingia
Similar: I would recognize a variation of the Reddit alien anywhere.

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liad
not sure i agree.

its not the logo which makes it instantly recognizable - it's the hundreds of
millions of dollars of branding and advertising

