Mark Sinclair explains why the world needs a new book on famous logos

In March 2011 our pals over at Creative Review ran a special logo issue of the magazine, which celebrated 20 logos whittled down from designers’ favourites, readers’ suggestions and expert industry opinion. Now that issue has been turned into a handsome and useful book by Creative Review’s deputy editor Mark Sinclair called TM: The Untold Stories Behind 29 Classic Logos. The in-depth case studies range from Saul Bass’ Bell System to Sir Peter Scott’s WWF panda, via the London Underground, Tate, Penguin, British Rail and Pirelli.

There are lesser-known or under-appreciated selections amongst these famous faces too, such as the Osborne bull “silhouette” and the CND symbol the sol de Miró. We spoke to Mark about the book’s genesis, why we need another book about logo design and the things he learned along the way.

The book is an expansion of a 2011 Creative Review issue – how did the idea to turn it into a book come about?

I think as soon as the issue came back from the printers there was talk of how it might make an interesting book (publishers like magazines love a list too). We had chosen some very strong examples as our top five – Woolmark, Michelin man, British Rail, Deutsche Bank and the V&A – but, we thought, what if the same amount of research (and space) could be given to a selection of the others? Surely there was much more to say about the NASA work, British Steel, Penguin or Tate?

We approached Laurence King with the premise of taking the issue as the starting point for a book and they liked the idea. Choosing what went into the book was then down to me – I ended up expanding 16 of the magazine entries and researching and writing 13 new examples from scratch which I thought were worthy of inclusion. Some entries in the magazine list didn’t make it into the book, mainly for reasons of ensuring that a range of graphic styles and time periods was more fully represented, and I guess inevitably my own taste came into play here as well.

There is quite a lot of coverage of logos and the stories behind them. How does this one differ from previous books on the subject? Why is this an important subject to be exploring now?

Yes, there are some great volumes of collected work out there like Michael Evamy’s two volumes Logo and Logotype and Angus Hyland and Steven Bateman’s Symbol. For analysis that responds to the contemporary scene, David Airey’s Logo Design Love and the Brand New part of UnderConsideration are still two of the best sites out there.

The idea with TM was to really dig down into the stories behind some of the “classics,” and where possible, talk to the designers involved. It also makes for a more compelling story when you can interview someone about a specific job they did. It was great to talk to Bruno Monguzzi for example who designed the logo for the Musée d’Orsay in the early 1980s – he had some fantastic and funny recollections of the time. And each person I spoke to was also able to situate the work in the time in which it was made which is relevant when evaluating how good or how successful a logo is.

Of course, for a few of the examples, I couldn’t talk to the people directly involved in their creation, but that actually meant unearthing some really interesting histories. Much of this research involved looking at material that was not publicly accessible or widely published. For example, Coca-Cola’s archivist Ted Ryan was very helpful in sourcing in-house company magazines which had covered the company’s logo design. He also found some court documents which recorded what the “Koke” trial of 1914 in which Coca-Cola sought to prevent one of a multitude of other operators from trading on what had become its best known nickname.

One of the highlights of the whole period of research was establishing what really happened in the creation of the Woolmark, through contacting the Italian designer Franco Grignani’s daughter. Manuela Grignani explained how her father had designed the symbol while at dinner one evening, on a tablecloth. But then what emerged was how Grignani had also been a judge on the very competition to choose the logo in the first place – so it was important to find out why he had entered his work into the competition, and also why he was never credited with it. A lot of that was trying to properly explain a very complex story.

Logo design is very hotly-debated now in online forums and comment sections etc. Is this a healthy development for the industry? What effect has it had on designers, if any?

I think generating debate is very healthy for any industry. There’s some great, insightful opinion in the comments on many design blogs these days – it’s an important thing to moderate of course but I think reader contributions are integral to stories about new work. What has perhaps changed more swiftly than in previous years is that public opinion, facilitated by the internet, can change the direction of projects quite considerably, sometimes perhaps not for the right reasons. The outrage surrounding the University of California’s new logo from a couple of years ago is a case in point.

I think designers are well aware of the fact that new work will be commented on and shared around more than ever before so I’m sure that makes some feel a little uneasy. But at the same time they are designing work that will in some sense take up “visual” space in people’s lives and represent things they use or even care about, so some will naturally have an interest in that.

The most recent example in the book is the Perú (2010); why did you only include one example from this century?

To a certain extent most of the logos in the book have proved their success through staying power, relevance and people’s affection for them. Also many of them have evolved over time; as a result of social changes – like the Michelin man who started out as a cigar-smoking drinker – or technological advances, as with the V&A logo which despite being 30-years-old still looks fresh and was turned into a kinetic sculpture by Troika a few years ago (for the museum’s subway entrance). They have had time to bed in and do their job.

How they were created can also tell us about the design climate of the time. NASA’s “worm” (1974) is very much of its time but interestingly the decision to scrap it and revert back to the Dan Dare-esque “meatball” design also says a lot about the way the organisation saw itself in the early 1990s, or at least the way that the people at the top perceived it.

So while there are many great logos from the last 20 years or so, I was more interested in charting how some of the classic examples had been brought about – had changed and adapted – and working out why they had lasted so long. I would have included the Apple logo I’m staring at right now had they allowed us to use any images of its early incarnations!

What overriding conclusions could you draw about logo design having studied these examples so carefully?

That creating something graphically simple is rarely a simple task. A lot of work goes into designing something that not only feels right but works with both an audience and a client. A lot of factors are involved in the creation of a logo; they have to be memorable, distinctive, easy to understand, sometimes even emotive – really they’re visual shortcuts for something much bigger than themselves.

But they’re also part of our lives, they help us to navigate our way around as we do with millions of other signs and symbols. And far from being indicative of the world of business, they can be shorthand for many of the things – from places to causes – that we really care about.