Designing within Context

What makes a logo work? Is it good outstanding design? Or the success of the company that owns the logo? Is the success of a logo beyond the control of a designer? What does a designer do then?

Read Michael Bierut blog entry over at Design Observers

The lettering in the Chanel logo is neutral, blank, open-ended: what we see when we look at it is eight decades' worth of accumulated associations. In the world of identity design, very few designs mean anything when they're brand new. A good logo, according to Paul Rand, provides the "pleasure of recognition and the promise of meaning." The promise, of course, is only fulfilled over time. "It is only by association with a product, a service, a business, or a corporation that a logo takes on any real meaning," Rand wrote in 1991. "It derives its meaning and usefulness from the quality of that which it symbolizes."

Technorati Tags: graphic design, identity, logo, business