To celebrate Google+’s one year anniversary, photographer Alex Koloskov and retoucher Genia Larionova teamed up on a photo project to recreate the Google logo using photographs of paint. They tossed paint matching the colors of each letter into the air multiple times and picked out the best shapes, which were then combined in Photoshop.
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Wanting to shed its image of being “old media” and “old fashioned”, Getty Images has unveiled a new watermark that does away with the annoying logo in favor of short links. Rather than plaster the words “Getty Images” across the front of photos, the new watermark is actually useful: it provides a short link that directs viewers to the webpage for that particular image and also gives credit to the creator of the work. Inspired by the plaques found at exhibitions, the new watermark is offset to the side rather than smack dab in the middle.
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Ever wonder how George Eastman chose the name “Kodak” for the company he founded?
The letter “K” had been a favorite of Eastman’s, he is quoted as saying, “it seems a strong, incisive sort of letter.” He and his mother devised the name Kodak with an anagram set. He said that there were three principal concepts he used in creating the name: it should be short, one cannot mispronounce it, and it could not resemble anything or be associated with anything but Kodak. [#]
In 1907, Kodak became the first company to integrate its name and look into a symbol, and starting in the 1930′s, Kodak adopted yellow and red as its “trade dress” colors.
Maybe when Leica’s designers were brainstorming ideas for the company’s logo, they noticed the flag of Japan and said, “Okay, lets go with that.”
P.S. Co.Design has a great piece on Leica’s brand management.
Logo designer Graham Smith has a neat project called “Brand Reversions” in which the logo styles of famous companies are swapped with their competitors. Canon and Nikon swap styles in the logos above, while Leica’s famous red dot takes on Panasonic’s Lumix brand name. Check out the rest on Smith’s website.
Brand Reversions (via My Modern Met via Laughing Squid)
Did you know that Canon’s first logo back in 1934 depicted Kwanon, the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy? Kwanon was actually the brand name used until they began thinking about expansion:
When the Company sought to begin full-scale marketing, it needed a brand name that would be accepted by people worldwide. From this standpoint, in 1935 the name Canon was registered as the official trademark. The word Canon has a number of meanings, including scriptures, criterion and standard. The trademark was therefore worthy of a company involved with precision equipment, where accuracy is fundamentally important. It also embodied the Company’s desire to meet world-class criteria and industry standards. And since Canon and Kwanon had similar pronunciations, the transition went smoothly. [#]
Not a bad decision if you ask me…
(via Hongkiat)
You know that roaring lion in the logo shown before MGM movies? That’s Leo the Lion, and the behind-the-scenes photograph shown above provides an interesting glimpse into how they shot him. He must have been a pretty well-trained lion to have the discipline to stand on boxes, face a camera, roar into a microphone, and not attack the crew.
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The crazy awesome folks over at Google’s London office recently created a photo-mosaic of the company’s logo… by hand. Using 884 individually printed 4×6 photographs, they 5.5 hours assembling the piece, and used a camera to snap a photograph every 7 seconds. The resulting timelapse video shows the whole thing in a little over a minute.
(via Mashable)
