
Making a Mark: Visual Identity with Tom Geismar - IntronExon
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/making-mark-visual-identity-tom-geismar/
======
gumby
> A design for a sports team, for instance, needs to look different from a
> design for a bank.

This is surprisingly profound, and an example shows this. I don't know much
about sport, but san jose has a hockey team (don't laugh -- I know it doesn't
snow there but apparently they are pretty good). Anyway, when they started
they weren't very good, as new teams never are. But their logo was a shark
biting a hockey stick around a 1990s-style triangle with late-1980s colors
(they started around then). It was just the right combination of cute and
aggressive that even I noticed it, and was shocked to see people around the US
wearing clothing with the logo. It's like the "NY" or "B" baseball hats that
are very popular outside their geographical areas. I believe this marketing
made them quite a bit of money when they were starting up and more importantly
made people around the country pay attention to a team.

(it helps if you are launching a new team to do it in a place like san jose
which is a backwater overshadowed by its neighbor -- the locals were quite
loyal to their only team which helped put them on the map).

I can't really imagine anyone wearing the chase logo on a T shirt except to a
company event. Pretty certainly if you see a shirt with a Google or Facebook
or Cisco logo the wearer is an employee or family member of one. Even Apple,
with its amazing consumer brand doesn't end up with people wearing its logo on
their clothing (instead they carry it :-)).

~~~
et-al
> Even Apple, with its amazing consumer brand doesn't end up with people
> wearing its logo on their clothing (instead they carry it :-)).

I agree with your other examples, but there were a number of folks, mainly of
the Web 1.0 era, that have a _tattoo_ of Apple logo.

Apple has become more ubiquitous these days, but I think they've lost that
cult-like following seen in the Jobs-era.

