[ocaml-biz] logo connotations

[William D. Neumann]

On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 13:09:54 -0700, Brandon J. Van Every wrote

> To cut to the chase, there's a severe "WTF?  What the hell is up with
> that?" factor looking at a Camel Rock logo.

Sure.  But that's hardly the point I was making.  Your original comment on the image was that it 
wasn't effective because few people are familiar with camel rock.  My comment was that familiarity is 
not a requirement in a logo.

> Not really.  Logos *can* carry connotation.  They don't have to be
> completely arbitrary symbols that are drilled into people only by
> repetition.

Yes they can, but they don't have to.  A logo can be good or bad completely independently of 
whether it conveys a message about what it represents.

> And a lot of logos suck.  If the logo doesn't make some kind of
> connection to the product, it is failing to do a big part of its job.

I guess we have different views on what logos are there for.  In my mind they serve three main 
purposes: To catch the eye and get someone to look at the product behind the logo;  To eventually 
serve as a stand-in for the products name (You see the swoosh, your mind says Nike; you see the 
searchlights, your mind says Fox. But the connection doesn't have to be there from the outset, when 
O'Reilly first started using engravings for their covers, they said nothing about O'Reilly.  But after 
years of seeing the covers next to the name the two have become linked -- engravings on the covers 
== O'Reilly); To serve as free advertising (as in, "Hmmm I see that swoosh everywhere, maybe Nikes 
are worth trying out," or "Damn, I'm seeing that flipping camel everywhere... maybe Perl is a good 
language to work in.")  Anything above those two jobs is pure gravy.

> Apple's logo said *enormous* things about their corporate culture 
> back when the 'rainbow' logo was first produced.

And it says jack about the product.  By the early/mid 90's people saw the logo and associated it with 
the brand which may have had some connotations aboutthe product if they were of the right age 
during the rise of Apple -- but show that product to a kid who was born in, say, 1980 and it tells 
him nothing.

> Well when you've been at it as long as IBM, you can do whatever
> impersonal vague thing you like.  I do think that the logo communicates
> "solid, no nonsense."

And it says jack about the product.

> > Dell,
> 
> Again, "corporate, solid, no nonsense."

You get that from a skewed block E?

> This is all just 
> geek history. Probably all got started with the GNU Hurd.

No, you can read the story here <http://www.oreilly.com/news/ediemals_0400.html> if you want to.  
It still doesn't change the fact that the camel says nothing about Perl and that the animal engravings 
say nothing about O'Reilly.  The engravings were chosen because they gave O'Reilly books a different 
look, hoping to catch the eye of a browser (see job #1 of a logo above).

> I disagree.  It simply doesn't have as compelling a meaning as it 
> once did. 

Well to me it has almost zero meaning.  I went half my life without knowing why NBC had a peacock 
as their logo... My folks knew, but it meant nothing to me.

> The connotations of logos are extant in many cases.  Particularly 
> with the more compelling logos, i.e. Apple.  

And I don't think that's the case.  I only think the meaning stays alive with those who where around 
when the original meaning was established -- and it's not the kind of thing that is passed down from 
generation to generation (Son, let me tell you about this here logo...)

To me, logos that will likely always offer something to say about what they represent are logos like 
Paramount's (the peak, the top, the best), Prudential's (solid, unyeilding), Travellers' (protection), 
RSA, Rockwell, RCA, Sandia National Labs, The World Wildlife Fund, CEI's Reddy Kilowatt, etc.

> I am wondering if 
> you're just not a verbal thinker, so you don't see a reason to 
> attach descriptive words to logos?

I don't see a reason to go fishing for descriptive words to attach to logos because to me that's not 
their primary job.  As I've said, for the requirements to be a good logo are to be eye catching and 
easily recognizable.  If it communicates something about the product as well, that's even better, but 
it's hardly necessary.

William D. Neumann