Logo Design Love

This illustrative logo for a chain of Japanese restaurants caught my eye. It was designed by Egor Zhgun of Art. Lebedev Studio in 2014. The studio’s case study dates back a while but you can catch that here. The triple meaning makes the design — the chopsticks in hand, the red-crowned crane, and the rising sun. The crane is a Japanese symbol of longevity and good fortune, so it hints at the culture without clichés like the torii gates or cherry blossom.

Super Logo Design, edited by Taki Ono, is a two-volume set of paperbacks published in 2001 and 2002 by Graphic-sha in Japan. These spreads are from volume two, available to digitally borrow on archive.org. It gives an interesting look at video game logos (among others) designed in the 1990s and early 2000s, listing the designer, client, year of creation, and software used (mostly Illustrator and Photoshop, but also Strata Studio Pro, KPT Vector Effects, 3D Studio Max, and more).

Rome–based designer and art director Davide Mascioli shared his latest project — SELA (Space Exploration Logo Archive). Passionate about art, space exploration, and design, Davide envisioned the SELA book as a project he’d love to own. His dedication to creating something tangible that preserves and celebrates the rich visual history of space exploration is the heart of this project, and his Kickstarter funding drive has resulted in more than double the initial goal.

Each year, for more than 20 years, Bill Gardner of Gardner Design has been studying thousands of logos to select the strongest fit for the year’s Trend Report. “Flat Box” logos (above) by Scorpion Rose Studio and Semi:Formal, Blue Blazes, Asterisk, and Creative Spark. Speaking about the collection, Bill said, “As ever, this report is an observation of the logo design industry and isn’t meant as a guide for best practices. Trends are trajectories that evolve and modify over time, not a passing fad.

Each year, the students of SVA’s Masters in Branding program spend 100 days documenting their process with a chosen creative endeavour. This year, Print Mag has been showcasing each student. Here are a few 100 Days projects that stood out from a logo perspective. Kaylin Ingram’s Brand Castles is a creative look at how the businesses we build are distinctly ephemeral, like castles in the sand. Brand Castles on Instagram.

In December 2023, the Chengdu 2025 Organising Committee (OC) initiated a national contest to create the logo, mascot and slogan of The World Games 2025. There were 3,562 logo entries, and in early April 2024 a meeting was convened in Chengdu to narrow the entries down to ten finalists. Following professional refinement, five candidate emblems emerged and were put to a public vote. More than 220,000 “likes” were cast.

The Zelman Meats logo, designed by Red Dot Studio, identifies Misha Zelman’s steakhouse in Knightsbridge, London. Red Dot Studio elsewhere on Logo Design Love with their work for Flipper Taps.

Shoop is the brainchild of Noam Oppenheimer, an Israeli architect with a burning passion to bring hot soup to the people of central London. Alongside chef Brem Gil, their mission is to serve up delicious soups (and sandwiches and salads) freshly made every day from seasonal ingredients.

A new book by Steven Skaggs dropped through the letterbox, titled The Hidden Factor: Mark and Gesture in Visual Design (2023). It’s by no means logo-focused, but that’s good, because logos are, after all, pieced together using the same marks that make up all our visual surroundings, and it’s useful to step back once in a while and recognise that.

Logo Rhythm: Band Logos that Rocked the World (on Kickstarter) features more than 90 design stories behind iconic band logos from the 1960s to present day. “Many of the band logo design trailblazers are no longer with us. Some of their stories have been lost in the mists of time. Logo Rhythm does its damnedest to put this right. To give credit where it’s due.