
How Logos are Remembered - njbotkin
https://www.signs.com/branded-in-memory/
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duncanawoods
Fascinating but it doesn't seem to prove anything besides we struggle to draw
complex logos from memory therefore the complex logos of Starbucks and
Footlocker are at the bottom and the simpler logos of Target and Ikea at the
top.

I don't think anyone will struggle to recognise the Starbucks brand despite
the difficulty in drawing mermaids. In someways its quite fitting - they want
you to believe their coffee is so complex that its worth >$5 and forget that
you could make it at home for $0.20.

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zodPod
Yeah this almost seems limited by drawing skill and effort. Like I wouldn't
bother trying to put a bunch of detail into the starbucks logo because it
would end up looking bad so I'd probably just draw a quick approximation and
call it done.

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theoh
IMO, for everybody apart from a few graphic designers, it's not drawing skill
that limits accuracy of the Starbucks logo: it's that we never registered its
exact geometry in the first place. The ideas of Gestalt perception are
frequently used in logo design, and one of them is the "binary" figure/ground
relationship that the two colours of the Starbucks logo create. It's complex,
and almost everyone just sees a "Gestalt" and doesn't parse the arrangement of
parts. Somebody with drafting skills could easily draw it based on textual
instructions, but definitely not accurately from memory without a more careful
study of the logo than (almost) anyone ever undertakes.

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wruza
Some sketches are hard to draw even after minutes of watching. Without
remembering "there is <n> <x>'s on <y> background with <z> outline ...", not
many people can draw exactly what they've seen few seconds ago. Our perception
and recalling works in very fuzzy way; you can be absolutely sure that logo is
what you've drawn, but this is just false memory constructed by subconscious
to fill the gaps. Our minds should contain fantastic amounts of these,
retained and restructured there by side-effects of the thinking process.

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overcast
This is seriously well done. I love great stats. I guess the real question
here is how memorable is something versus how prolific it is? Could you have
the most amazingly memorable logo, without it plastered on every inch of the
earth? Likely not.

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mark-r
They missed what I consider to be the best logo in history: McDonalds. The
ability to draw that one from memory would undoubtedly be at the top.

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dguo
Ditto for Nike.

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amrrs
For that matter, Logo of Apple and Audi are two things that are iconic and
just floats on top of mind with no effort.

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bpicolo
Car brand logos in general are pretty iconic, because you see them all over.

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mark-r
I think it's more than that. They tend to be simple and monochromatic, since
they need to be displayed on the car itself - that helps them to be memorable.

My favorites are Infiniti and Toyota.

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franciscop
This is really fascinating as it draws really accurate to my experience
learning Japanese Kanji.

I can study either recognition, where I can recognize a large amount of them
in a short time period, or generation, where I can write them but then it's
slower since I have to repeat writing each several times [1]. I find out that
a combination of both is best for me at this stage and for my objectives.

[1] I use my own Anki alternative, [https://core.cards/](https://core.cards/)

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ehsankia
I liked the ending quiz too. Though the question about reddit is wrong. I
answered orange and they said it's red. It's actually neither, it's orangered.
That's literally what they call it themselves.

~~~
c3534l
At the end, I couldn't figure out what the difference was meant to be with
half of the choices. They had a bunch of pictures and I'm like "well, three of
these are exactly the same."

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robbyking
It's really interesting how many people remember the previous version of any
given logo. I wonder if this means these logos were updated at the correct
time, so when people see them they seem fresh and modern.

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jimmaswell
Some logos have changed from memorable, iconic, and well-designed into
listless forgettable mailed-in husks intended to be more "modern," one of the
worst offenders being Pepsi.

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corobo
The Pepsi logo became super memorable in my mind when I pictured it as a
rather rotund person wearing a red shirt and blue trousers leaning backwards

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Domenic_S
Like Strong Sad!
[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lEbPtIKmS_U/SaAuUZOmJrI/AAAAAAAABb...](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lEbPtIKmS_U/SaAuUZOmJrI/AAAAAAAABb4/y0djH3Dyk6w/s400/pepsi_strong_sad.jpg)

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sporkologist
The ability to draw a memorable thing from memory is entirely dependent on how
much of an artist the drawer is. It has nothing to do with the memorability of
the logo. We can all recognize the Pepsi or Coca-Cola logos, but only artists
who have made mental notes of the shapes will be able to draw a likeness...
And that doesn't even mean anything.

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nmstoker
As others say, this is recall vs recognition.

What would be an interesting next step would be to trial the cleaned up logos
to see how well people recognised the correct ones and rejected the others

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DonHopkins
Who can forget this memorable Logo?

[http://www.donhopkins.com/home/archive/lisp/llogo.lisp](http://www.donhopkins.com/home/archive/lisp/llogo.lisp)

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fencepost
Why is there a bunch of what looks like really old BASIC code at the bottom?
Pretty sure most LISP processors will choke on that.

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gertef
That's LOGO, not LISP.

The program at top is a LOGO interpreter, written in LISP.

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fencepost
Thanks, somehow I managed to grow up in the 80s without ever actually using
Logo and getting LISP only in one programming course plus a little bit of
Emacs (vi FTW!).

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jordache
yeah but having someone be able to articulate the make up of a logo on a paper
is a huge departure then you having an identifiable logo that can not be
confused for another by the consumer.

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gt_
Idgi. Am I supposed to be surprised or maybe unimpressed that test subjects
did not remember these miniscule details? Why did I get a sense the author
expected a movement of heart?

Logo design is not concerned with trivia, but with symbolic association. If
there is a goal, it is gross, unmediated communication of form and resulting
symbol.

If anything, this study would be best used for these companies to know what to
remove from the logos in their next redesign.

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jxcl
I'm really confused by the graphs. The axis are labeled exactly the same, so I
don't understand how they're ordering these logos within them.

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arketyp
Yeah, they're ordered like the flow of text. Took me a while.

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charred_toast
The author needs to put his site assets on a CDN.

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lemoncucumber
I'm getting a 404, but Google's cache works for me:
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QB_TwJ...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QB_TwJX3SdUJ:https://www.signs.com/branded-
in-memory+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

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archildress
Fun read.

Should companies use studies like this to recreate their logos? Is it a look
into the subconscious of how we process symbols and icons?

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ajeet_dhaliwal
I hope the people who drew the least accurate ones are just unfamiliar with
these companies, I have bad memory but these are hilariously bad. Also the
Foot Locker man still looks like he's wearing a hat to me when I see the logo
so I'm not sure that's a memory issue.

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adventured
I got a pretty good laugh out of the various intentionally incorrect logos. I
think you're doing impressively well if somehow you manage to get people to
remember even a single dominant feature and color of your logo.

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bduerst
I wonder how well this correlates with brand recognition. For example, if
people are better able to remember the logo, does that mean it's more
recognizable?

It could be good for trying to design better logos.

~~~
davidivadavid
Interesting question but I find it doubtful. Coca-Cola's logo is fairly
complex.

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gt_
It is complex in intricacy but simple in form.

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freestockoption
Seeing so many timeless logos from the 60s and 70s make it look like that era
was the golden age for logo design. OTOH, that might just be survivorship
bias.

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tropicalmug
Think it's funny that the person who drew the Pizza Hut logo for Domino's is
considered more accurate than the person who drew a domino.

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agumonkey
I'd love more test logos.

Also, I'd be incapable of drawing BK logo. And even IKEA I would probably
hesitate a bit.

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yeahdef
we just wasted 15 mins in our office giving ourselves this test on the
whiteboard.

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zymhan
Was it just me or are there duplicates of all of the images on that site?

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amelius
That Starbuck logo, is that a mermaid with two tails?

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Bretts89
My mind is blown at Apple's 1976 logo!

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platz
the replacements for 7-11 are pretty great

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sogen
503 error.

Hugged to death

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dingo_bat
[https://imgur.com/a/eO2cp](https://imgur.com/a/eO2cp)

Cool website lol!

