Hello public! Do you know the designer behind this logo? and this one?
or. . .
what about this other one? Exploring the work of past logo designers gives us the opportunity to learn directly from the successful solutions that have powered numerous projects. In today's video, I want to introduce you to the work of 5 American logo designers that I personally admire, and I believe that if you are interested in learning about logo design, knowing and studying them will help you grow.
I once again steal 2 minutes of your time to present you the latest monitor that BenQ has shared with me. This is the PD3225U monitor, a true monster in the BenQ range designed for Mac users, with 32 inches and 4K resolution. It has an LG IPS Black Panel, with a tight 16:9 UHD aspect ratio, with which we will achieve excellent color accuracy for our designs.
Hold on! because this screen achieves a color accuracy of 100% of the sRGB or Rec. 709 color space and reaches up to 98% of the P3.
It also has a maximum brightness of 400 nits, 100 nits more than its previous model. That is, the new version is brighter and offers better visibility in environments with a lot of ambient light. But in addition, the screen also has a higher contrast ratio, achieving a ratio of 2000:1 (two thousand to one), double that of its previous model, to achieve deeper black levels than those obtained with other conventional IPS panels.
The PD3225U also has a mode optimized for Mac users, M-Book mode, which we can activate to improve color accuracy and general performance when used with our Macbook or Macbook Pro. And thanks to BenQ's Display ColorTalk software, we can easily synchronize colors between multiple monitors with just a few clicks. Saving time and effort, for our creativity.
It includes a Thunderbolt 3 port, with a data transfer speed of up to 40 Gbps. Perfect for connecting laptops and other high-powered devices. And with the latest version of BenQ software: Display Pilot 2, we can now control the brightness of our monitor also from the Mac keyboard.
And for those of you who edit video, or like me, always design with music or videos in the background, this monitor has an improvement in the sound quality of its speakers. And remember, with the purchase of BenQ SW and PD series monitors you can get a free year of the new Pantone Connect Premium. So now you know, I leave the link below in the description.
Today we have countless graphic designer logos at our disposal all over the Internet. Platforms like Behance or Drbbble leave them just a click away, but although this may be practical, I think it is important to know the quality work of certain references and how they have been opening the way in the sector. Branding or visual identity is one of the most widely practiced specialties in graphic design.
Something that, as a designer, I understand well. There is nothing more satisfying than helping to create something. .
. to give it shape, personality and character. And, in addition to contributing to giving it an attractive aesthetic that favors impact and communication with the audience, I always say it: a graphic designer must be excellent at coming up with ideas.
We rack our brains to find the best solution to a problem. Lance Wyman, who we will present later in this video, already said it: “Although design cannot change the world, it can improve people's lives. ” A logo designer works very closely with his client.
Investigates, studies, thinks and acts. Creates and proposes a solution for that problem or customer need. In this brief history of American graphic design, there are 5 names that I would like to share with you today.
Come on, let's go with the first one. PAUL RAND Some say that Paul Rand could be considered the father of modern graphic design. He was born in Brooklyn in 1914 and already showed promise from a young age.
He began designing posters and signs for his father's store or for his school. His original name is Peretz Rosenbaum, but he decided to shorten his name to hide his Jewish origin in the United States at the time. The German advertising style 'Sachplakat' greatly influenced his work and we could define Paul Rand's style as simple modernism, with a fine use of typographies, geometric shapes and white spaces.
Paul worked with a wide range of leading brands of the time, in signage or packaging design, but it is his contributions to corporate design and logo design that are still studied in design schools around the world. Among them is the case of the IBM logo, which he designed in 1956, but which he later adapted again to create the logo we know today. In the 1960s, he went on to design the identity of Westinghouse, a major nuclear energy company, the logo of the North American network ABC or the famous UPS logo, which was modified in 2003 by another agency.
What do you think of this last rebranding? Share it with me in the comments. A curiosity about Paul Rand: did you know that he made a visual proposal for Ford in 1966?
He presented a new vision, according to him “more adapted to the trend of the time,” seeking to evoke concepts such as strength, speed, efficiency or usefulness. Although it kept a blue color, the most substantial change was the one applied to Ford's typography, completely renewing it. As you may have already imagined, Ford ended up rejecting the proposal.
. . but what do you think?
SAUL BASS Saul Bass was one of the great icons of the world of cinema, but in case you didn't know, he also contributed to the history of graphic design. He was born in 1920 in The Bronx, New York. Saul was a very creative person since he was little and spent many hours drawing, which led him to end up studying fine arts in his hometown.
He began working for several design agencies, but ended up setting up his own studio in 1950. Saul Bass's cinematographic career is surely familiar to you. He worked to create the opening credits for many Alfred Hitchcock films, such as “Psycho”, “North by Northwest” or “The Man with the Golden Arm”, or to develop film posters for films such as Vertigo, The Shining or West Side Story.
But in addition to his designs for films and posters, throughout his forty-year career, Saul Bass also designed many iconic logos, working on visual identity projects for renowned brands such as AT&T, Warner Music Group, United Airlines or Kleenex. His work is super interesting and if you look closely, many of his logos make use of negative space in a very original way. LANCE WYMAN Lance is another prominent American graphic designer who has left his small, significant mark on the international scene for over five decades.
And although he was born in the United States, we could say that he is almost a “Mexican” by adoption. His career began with a degree in industrial design at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 1960, a time when graphic design was just beginning to be introduced into universities. Later, after his time at Yale University, he had the opportunity to meet Paul Rand, which may have influenced Lance to end up as a logo designer.
In 1966, Lance Wyman received one of the most important commissions of his career: to design the logo for the 1968 Mexico Olympic Games. Thanks to this work, he settled in Mexico for four years, where he came to work for other graphic projects of the country, like the Mexico City metro or the 1970 World Cup. I myself lived in Mexico City a few years ago, when it was still called FD (Federal District), and I have to say that the image and the system of pictographs of the metro captured a lot of my attention.
In 1969, part of the city's population did not know how to read or write, so Lance Wyman was tasked with designing a system of pictograms to help identify the city's subway stations. The result was a communication system that, despite distancing itself from the written word, it found its support in visual synthesis, being equally comprehensible to both the city's locals and tourists. PAULA SCHER Paula Scher is another prominent American designer who deserves to be mentioned to learn about her work.
She was born in Washington in 1948. She studied Fine Arts in Pennsylvania at the Tyler School of Art in Elkins Park, and began making her first work as a designer shortly after. Her work draws heavily on Russian constructivism, but always adding a very personal touch.
She began her career as an art director in the 1970s, but it wasn't until the 1980s that her eclectic approach to typography began to gain popularity. A few years later she presented the identity for The Public Theater, which made use of typography on posters in a dynamic and expressive way, one could almost say that it captured the essence of theater. She was the first director of the well-known design agency: Pentagram.
She joined the team in 1991 and is currently one of the partners at the New York agency. She has worked on rebranding cases such as the one she developed for Citi Bank or Tiffany's, and has also designed logos for other projects such as Windows 8, the Highline Park or the Jazz Lincon Center in New York. But her work does not stop there, she has also participated in the development of promotional material, packaging or editorial design for multiple companies such as Microsoft, Bloomberg, CNN, Adobe or Coca-Cola.
Paula Scher's work has been exhibited around the world and is represented in the permanent collections of some museums such as the MOMA in New York or the Center Pompidou in Paris. Let's continue with LINDON LEADER. I also wanted to include the work of this designer: Lindon Leader, who over three decades of dedication to corporate identity, has garnered considerable recognition.
Leader earned a bachelor's degree in Advertising Design from the Art Center College of Design in California. In his first job after college he went to work with none other than Saul Bass. Although it seems that as a junior designer, Leader was not allowed to attend important presentations, he managed to hide around to listen and learn.
It was as senior design director in the San Francisco office of Landor Associates where he designed the FedEx logo and since 2001 he runs his own studio: Leader Creative, where he continues to work on the branding needs of clients around the world. Lindon's logo design work includes logos such as Hawaiian Airlines, Novariant, ALSCO, or the logo for the National Senior Games Championship Festival of 2008, to name a few. But if you check his website, you will see that Lindon's work is quite varied, and he has collaborated with companies such as Addison, Disney or Motorola.
Personally, I do not consider that all of his projects are perfect cases to study, but I do find very interesting aspects in some of his work from which we can, undoubtedly, learn. And, I know I told you that we would talk about 5 designers in this video, but since we are talking about American logo designers, I would like to make a special mention of. .
. AARON DRAPLIN Aaron Drplin is a cheeky and charismatic graphic designer who has a very interesting work. For this reason, I did not want to leave him out of this video.
He studied at the Minneapolis Institute of Art and Design, and upon finishing his studies he worked for several magazines and companies with minor jobs. But what I like about Aaron is that he is passionate about what he does, and you can tell. Since setting up his own design studio: Drplin Design Company (DDC), he has not stopped designing logos for friends, acquaintances and other people in need of a good identity.
Apparently a large part of the logos he produces are for friends and family and the other part is dedicated to working for people like Nike, Wired magazine or the New York Times. Aaron Drplin's style is characterized by the use of thick lines, flat-design and Pantone Orange 021, his most frequently used color for the designs of his own studio's merchandising items. As a hobby, this graphic designer from Portland rescues small treasures from history that serve him as inspiration.
His studio is filled with small memos, badges, pins, patches and many other vintage design pieces. Well, we're almost done! What did you think of them?
Did you know the work of any of these designers? If you enjoyed this video format. .
. give it a like! And don't forget to leave me in the comments if you would like me to make another new video featuring masters of logo design from Europe, for example.
Don't forget to subscribe to my channel and click on the bell so you don't miss my next graphic design videos. And I also leave you here below how to sign up for my newsletter, from where I share all kinds of curiosities about graphic design, which are left out of this channel. .
. Design a lot! Byeee.