fuzzypuzzle

Some Decent Fall TV Logos

For the most part, television show logos are throwaway crap. I'm always amazed that the networks throw millions of dollars at developing these shows, but can't spend a few more bucks on the wrapper. FX has proven to be one of the exceptions to the rule (HBO generally does a great job too). The eerie gothic/deco influenced logo for the new Ryan Murphy show, American Gothic, is so unexpected and weird, it sets the tone for the show perfectly. And the double "N" slash for The Ringer logo is a clever nod to the show's premise of overlapping twins pretending to be a single person. Both logos communicate ideas. This is what good design does. So everyone else in the newtwork marketing and design departments — your fired.

Ben Wiseman is Killing It

Ben Wiseman is an illustrator and designer working in New York. It's pretty rare to find someone absolutely mudering it in two mediums this effectively.

Gen Art Film Festival Typography

 

Sweeeet. Reminds me of Evan Hecox's type for Chocolate sk8brds.

 

 

The Typography of the New Amazing Spider-Man Movie Logo

Frankly, I think the world needs another Spider-Man movie, like I need another credit card bill, but whatever. I always preface these crits with the disclamier that it comes from a dark place of anger and jealousy; as I'd kill to have the opportunity to design the new Spider-Man logo.

Regardless, this logo is pretty bad. Arbitrary logic is the enemy of successful design, and nothing could be more arbitrary that putting "the amazing" in lowercase. Why do that? Here's a little design tip: The type will usually tell you when you do something illogical and stupid. In this case, it's pretty obvious — the descender of the "g" is kissing the Spiderman letters. That just doesn't work. At all. Period.

Also, there are plenty of great extended gothic typefaces out there; so why horizontally scale (ie. stretch) the type?! This is like typography 101. Horizontal scaling deforms letterforms and messes with legibility ... and it just looks really bad.

Third. The kerning is weird. "The amazing" letters are miles apart, and "Spider-man" is jammed up like the L.A. freeway. This disparity is problematic from a readability standpoint, as the logo is supposed to read "The Amazing Spider-Man!", not "t" ... "h" ..."e"... you get my point. The horizontal space between the "t" and the "h" is larger than the vertical space between the stacked words. That's junior varsity typography. 

Finally, if you want something to look cohesive, it's a good idea to utilize similar font weights. Utilizing a lightweight lowercase font up top (?!) and a bold uppercase face on the bottom doesn'y make much sense. Add the aforementioned kerning disparities to the equation, and it makes me think someone is intentionally sabotaging this logo. Maybe the designer hates Spider-Man? Or is upset that Tobey Maguire was replaced as Peter Parker?

Oh, and one final observation. If you're going to go to the trouble of making the logo 3D, don't present it straight-on from the front. It's the one angle that kills any sense of form, space, perspective or drama. 

Sanborn Fire Maps — Typography Eyegasm

Craft exemplified.  Link to complete series.

"D. A. Sanborn, a young surveyor from Somerville, Massachusetts, was engaged in 1866 by the Aetna Insurance Company to prepare insurance maps for several cities in Tennessee. [..] Before working for Aetna, Sanborn conducted surveys and compiled an atlas of the city of Boston titled 'Insurance Map of Boston, Volume 1, 1867'. [..] The atlas includes twenty-nine large plates showing sections of Boston at the scale of 50 feet to an inch. It is believed to include the earliest insurance maps published by Sanborn.

The success of the Boston atlas and the commission from Aetna must have impressed the young surveyor with the importance of detailed and specialized maps for the fire insurance industry. Following his assignment in Tennessee for Aetna, he established the D. A. Sanborn National Insurance Diagram Bureau in New York City in 1867. 11 From this modest beginning grew the specialized company that has compiled and published maps for the fire insurance industry for more than a hundred years." [source]

Other Books Logo

Something really wonderful about the fresh, unassuming simplicity of this. Love it.

Sweet Sans Lives Up to It's Name

A super sexy extended sans (say that three times fast.) Check it out over on MVB Fonts.

Adam Garcia is Winning the Logo Contest (Among Other Things)

Adm Grcia's shiz here.

 

The Sucker Punch Logo ... Sucks

Doing typography along an arc or a curve presents a myriad of legibility and style challenges. It's a job for a craftsman. Chris Ware has become the de-facto master of this particular skill, drawing his own beautifully elegant, custom curved typefaces. The graphic directly below illustrates the convetions and architecture of typography that make it "read" properly.

The new logotype for Zack Snyder's, Sucker Punch movie ignores all of it. (Click to embiggen) As an aside, my criticism of the logo comes from a place of anger, jealousy and frustration, as I would've really liked to work on this logo.

 

Here are some glaring examples of things that simply don't work, read or make any typographic sense.

1. The typeface is an ill advised, hybrid Franken-face composed of a transitional weight serif font and a mono-weight, condensed sans-serif. Why do that?
2. The S, P, and H characters fluctuate in weight indecisively, ineffectively and anesthetically.
3. The S abandons the proportional convention of the other condensed letterforms — so it looks completely unrelated. Check out the space between the S and the top of the U. Oi vey. 
4. Letterforms end in arbitrary locations and ugly positions and angles, looking like stump limbs. (I just watched 127 Hours).
5. Certain letterforms resolve in randomly selected "style-serifs" —  that I can only assume are derived from things in the movie (gun and katana-blade shapes perhaps?)
6. Style-serifs resolve themselves in completely random sizes and shapes. Sharp ends, blunt ends, round ends and square ends. Me no like.
7. The first U features a single indecisive, tiny style-serif. Why even bother? This is the typographic equivalent of a third nipple. Gross.
8. The C is a completely untouched, poorly skewed sans-serif. (Bell Gothic maybe?) So I guess the designer just ran out of time? Got bored? Look at the shape of the bottom curve. Yuck.
9. The Franken-K is supposed to be composed of knife blades or something? I dunno? Completely arbitrary angles and sharp shapes. Brilliant. 
10. Rather than design the E to solve legibility and composition problems — they opt to just jam in there, and chop it off with the K. And then the designer decides to add some kind of clubfoot serif thing, to the base. Huh? Wha?
11. The R just goes totally rogue, suddenly abandoning the deco-inspired curves of the S and P, in favor of a random triangular counter. Again, completely unrelated and arbitrary. We're officially off the reservation. Is this a student project? Was this logo picked from a contest or something?
12. The P joins the S in Ugly-ville. employing a curving counter composed of a barely noticeable weight change. I guess he couldn't make up his mind? Get the curves clean and proper?  Look at the little stump punching through the ascender. Gross. And check out the weird slab-step-thing at the top of the ascender. What the hell is that? Is that even intentional? 
13. The second U is again just an untouched, condensed sans-serif — guillotined by the P's goofy-looking counter.
14. The N has … gun-handle serifs? But is still probably the best-looking lettterform in the entire motley assemblage.
15. We already talked about the stupid C.
16. And that brings us to the ungodly, book-end H. Which is actually just two vertical slashes of different weights, bisected by a curved crossbar… thing. Why not at least make it a samurai sword or something cool or recognizable? The giant gap between the two ascenders is canyon-like. The tops of the ascenders are grossly skewed with absolutely no relationship to the curve, letterform or logo. (So what did they base the angle on?!) The base of the two ascenders are outfitted with A.) a half-serif, nipple-foot, and B.) a randomly rounded base.

It's truly powerful typography that makes me literally avert my eyes. 

Trending — Curving Ornamental Poster Typography

Curving ornamental typography should only be attempted by professionals (ideally Chris Ware). The Innkeepers logo is very well done, although I might have omitted either the gradated tone OR the big white drop shadow — as it's a little busy. The logotype for Zack Snyder's Suckerpunch on the other hand, is a typographic abortion of epic proportions. This designer clearly knows just enough about type to be dangerous. I'm apalled that this is actually the final treatment for a 100 million dollar marketing campaign. A more detailed post about the innumerable typographic attroctities committed in the Sucker Punch logo forthcoming.