SPEAKER_03: New, immune-supporting Emergen-C crystals brings you the goodness of Emergen-C and a fun new popping experience. There is no water needed so it's super convenient, just throw it back in your mouth. Feel the pop, hear the fizz, and taste the delicious natural fruit flavors. Emergen-C crystals orange vitality and strawberry burst flavors for ages 9 and up have 500 mg of vitamin C per stick pack. Look for Emergen-C crystals wherever you shop. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Every kid learns differently, so it's really important that your children have the educational support that they need to help them keep up and excel. If your child needs homework help, check out iXcel, the online learning platform for kids. iXcel covers math, language arts, science, and social studies through interactive practice problems from pre-K to 12th grade. As kids practice, they get positive feedback and even awards. With the school year ramping up, now is the best time to get iXcel. Our listeners can get an exclusive 20% off iXcel membership when they sign up today at ixcel.com slash invisible. That's the letters ixcel.com slash invisible. Squarespace is the all-in-one platform for building your brand and growing your business online. Stand out with a beautiful website, engage with your audience, and sell anything. Your products, content you create, and even your time. You can easily display posts from your social profiles on your website or share new blogs or videos to social media. Automatically push website content to your favorite channels so your followers can share it too. Go to squarespace.com slash invisible for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, use the offer code invisible to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars. Logos used to be a thing that people really didn't give much thought to. Over the last decade, the volume and intensity of arguments about logos have increased substantially. A lot of this is just the internet being, you know, the internet. But logo redesigns in particular attract a lot of hyperbolic vitriol. I was wondering what this felt like to a designer, so I talked to one of my favorites. Michael Beirut is an AIGA medalist and partner at the international design consultancy Pentagram, where his work includes brand identity, logos, book design, and packaging. I had such a fun time talking with him, I just thought I'd put our conversation out as its own episode. I hope you dig it. Many of you might be familiar with the logos we discuss, but if you need a little help jogging your memory, this is a great episode to listen to as you scroll through the images on this episode's webpage at 99pi.org. Michael says that for a very long time, no one understood what his job as a graphic designer really meant. But recently, that's changed. I have to admit, now, a lot of times people will say, oh, so do you do logos?
SPEAKER_01: Or they'll outright ask me what I think of some logo that's in the news. And this is entirely new and kind of startling and unnerving.
SPEAKER_03: What is the most recent logo they've asked you about? Have you even asked about your own logo? Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, yeah. No, I was— Like, as if they didn't know? Oh, no. Oh, absolutely. So back in early 2015, I was engaged in a secret project, which was to design a logo for the campaign of, as of yet, undeclared candidate for President Hillary Clinton. And it launched—there was a huge amount of attention to this logo, which became ubiquitous, I think, at the age with the arrow in it. And at one point, before it was widely known that I was a designer of it, I got an email from a magazine saying that they were convening a bunch of designers to volunteer to say how they would have designed the logo, because it was so horrible. And so we'd like to know, how would you have designed it if you could have done anything? And I sort of—I just said, oh, you know, I think I'll pass this time.
SPEAKER_03: So tell me a bit more how the Hillary logo came about.
SPEAKER_01: It used to be that people would run for political office, and they didn't understand that they needed a logo, and maybe they didn't need a logo. Barack Obama changed all that in 2008. He ran, and he had this now-famous O for Obama in blue with sort of red stripes leading into the center of the O, with the O kind of symbolizing a setting, or probably more likely a rising sun. And that symbol was so ubiquitous both in 2008, the fact that he won kind of sealed the deal. It appeared over the next eight years, representing his candidacy. And we'll go on to brand, I assume, his foundation and his library and his post-presidential activities. With that kind of established as a benchmark for political campaigns, by the time 2016 rolled around, every candidate, one way or another, had to unveil a logo. And very early on in 2015, the beginning of the year, I got a call from a team that was consulting with Hillary Clinton. They asked me whether I would volunteer my services to create a logo for Secretary Clinton. And what we wanted to do was exploit some of the characteristics that people had come to appreciate, I think possibly by accident, about the Obama logo, one of which was that it could be adapted into different forms. You could kind of like customize it for different groups of voters or different locations. And so we had this idea, like what if we had a symbol that you could change every day if you wanted? You could make it celebrate LGBT rights one day and celebrate veterans the next day and then modify it for Memorial Day the day after that or Halloween the day after that. That required something very simple. So we came up with this very simple H with an arrow going through it, kind of symbolizing we thought that the candidate was moving the country forward and also giving us a way to kind of point that H at other things, meaning that Hillary is for, or veterans, or for LGBT rights or for me. And it just kind of like proved to be a really interesting, malleable, lively system in the end. You know, it's interesting because it's this sort of device, you know, for one thing, no one really votes. People don't vote for logos. They vote for candidates and they vote for people who they think will improve their lives in some actual way, not people that have flashy logos. But you know, often it's some tangible symbol will crystallize in the voting public's mind, you know, the essence of what a candidate is. And I think just as, you know, Hillary perhaps had that H with an arrow in it. And by the time it was election day, you know, I was seeing it everywhere. And certainly, you know, at the convention center, Javits Convention Center that night for the, what was meant to be the victory party, you know, people had it embroidered on their jackets, you know, temporary tattoos on their faces. It was everywhere. It was interesting. You know, at the same time, her opponent had a red hat with the slogan on the front of it, you know, and that in a way was a logo for that candidacy. So I think there's the substance of what people are promising and there's sort of the tangible bit of shorthand that kind of sums up what that promise is. And I think that in the commercial world, that's what symbols have always done. You know, you're meant to kind of ascribe all sorts of higher transcendent values to things like basketball sneakers and soda and soda pops, you know, and instead the transcended values are then athletic achievement and refreshment respectively. And somehow devices like swooshes or dynamic ribbons or whatever you want to say are kind of meant to be the holders of that meaning that is then kind of reinforced by advertising and by hopefully actual firsthand experience with the product.
SPEAKER_03: It's interesting. I never really thought of the hat being a logo. Could you sort of pull apart some of its qualities as to what it's conveying to you and why it works?
SPEAKER_01: I think what was interesting about Donald Trump's red Make America Great hat was that one, it's very, it's very populous sort of thing. It's clearly not something one associates with coastal elites, you know, who are intellectuals, although I know, hey, I have baseball caps and wear baseball caps. And so maybe I'm not an elite, I'm from Ohio after all, but I mean, it's sort of a, it's definitely not suited for a black tie or a business attire. It's meant to be sort of the kind of thing you associate maybe with, you know, with hard working, salt of the earth Americans. The fact that it's red is sort of making a really clear statement about, you know, red America, let's say, and the slogan, Make America Great Again, all caps, you know, cap locked, yelling aptly, I think kind of reminded people of the candidate's own delivery of those words. And I think most importantly, it wasn't an underground thing. It was very visible. If you sort of were a supporter, you put that thing right on your head, you know, and it was like, if someone's looking at your face, they would look at that hat and they'd read those words, you know, wearable brands like that short of tattoos are sort of the big, you know, big commitment you make to kind of advertising someone else's cause. And so I assume that he had buttons and stickers and signs and stuff like that, but that hat, which was meant to be worn, was like really calling on people to personally identify with that candidate in a really unequivocal way.
SPEAKER_03: So the Hillary H with an arrow logo is released and people will react to it the way they, well, react to any logo right now, which is really active discussion online whenever a new one is done. And it's also in the context of this political campaign where she got an unbelievable amount of criticism, no matter what she did. But I remember people reacting to the H with the arrow really strongly, some of it quite negative. Were you prepared for that in any way?
SPEAKER_01: What had taken me aback and what I should have seen coming is that logo, which I actually personally thought was, and still think was really good. I mean, it was exactly the one that we wanted the campaign to use. We were confident that over the course of the campaign, it would be used in all sorts of ways that would win people over. And I think that was largely proven out. I mean, I think by the time November came around, if you sort of like went on the Pantsuit Nation Facebook page, you would see a million different expressions of it, all homegrown and grassroots and really, really fun. And I remember saying while we were working, while we were looking at all the different options of the logo, I remember saying, I want something that's so simple that a first grader could do it with construction paper, Elmer's glue and kindergarten scissors. I didn't want a fancy thing. You needed to know software programs to create. I wanted something that was as easy to draw as a heart or a peace sign or a smiley face, something that could be that ubiquitous. And I think we got pretty close to it. It's just a very simple piece of geometry in two primary colors. Now really, though, what happens when something like that is launched, put out there into the uncaring world, people treat it as a, it's open-endedness actually at that moment works against it. It's treated as a Rorschach blot and everyone projects things onto it. And this happens with sports teams. It happens with colleges and universities. But I think I underestimated to the degree to which it would happen with a political candidate where someone as well known as Secretary Clinton, there's a lot of people who have opinions about her already. And then suddenly they had this convenient thing upon which to project opinions they may have already had or opinions that they just thought were clever or whatever it was. And so suddenly, I would marvel sometimes, I'd say it's just some straight lines, some 90-degree angles, some 45-degree angles, and two primary colors. It doesn't mean, and people would say, well, what does it mean? I said, well, it's an H because it's, that's the candidate's name because of the H. It's an arrow because she wants to move the country forward. And it's red, white, and blue because of America. And that's really the truth. That's what it meant. And yet, I was kind of taken aback, but I shouldn't have been actually. And I have to commend the campaign who were resolute about their commitment to it and in fact really brought it to life and made it really sing over the subsequent months. In contrast, there was a notorious logo that was unveiled when Donald Trump identified his running mate in the form of Governor Pence. And they had this TP ligature that a lot of people thought they saw unsavory things in and made fun of it and animated it in ways that are kind of salacious. And it was like, it just was made to disappear and kind of blink it. If you unveil a logo and you really are committed to it, the worst thing you can do is sort of blink and sort of say, oops, forget that. We're making that go away. Forget you ever saw that. I think if you stick to it and just act like you really mean it, eventually the world will get used to it. And then eventually, if you wait long enough, people will be outraged if you try to redesign it into something else.
SPEAKER_03: Do you remember the first time there was a public fight about a logo where normal people got involved?
SPEAKER_01: So for years, logo redesigns was a very esoteric thing where people like me who had gone to art school to learn to be graphic designers would sort of say, did you see they changed the UPS logo, the logo for UPS delivery trucks? And I know who designed the original logo. I know who did the redesign. I know what kind of things to say about it. And everyone sort of would talk about it. So there were little chat rooms on websites where people would comment for days on the pros and cons of things like that. The first time I remember going public was the Gap floated a redesign of its logo. It appeared online. And suddenly someone said, oh my god, the Gap, the retail store, the Gap is going to redesign its logo. And to the surprise of the Gap, all these consumers started getting really agitated about it and started saying, save the old Gap logo. Or this new logo is ridiculous. Usually the criticism that's lodged against new logos is that my four-year-old could have designed that new logo. Now I actually think that's a good thing. I like logos that four-year-olds can design, actually. But to most people, they sort of seem like logos are sophisticated things that need to be designed with complicated equipment by skillful people. And they also assumed that a lot of money was spent on logos, too. So how much was someone paid to do this thing? So I remember that the Gap had sort of let this logo float around out there that was not the blue box with the highly condensed serif letters, G-A-P, that we're all familiar with. But it was a lowercase albedo with this superimposed faded blue square kind of put off center on the letters. And for some reason, it just really aggravated people. Even I was surprised by that. And people asked me my opinion of it. And I don't remember a normal person ever asking my opinion about a logo before. But that became something that started happening more and more in the years to follow. So something about social media, something about the internet kind of has enabled all this to happen.
SPEAKER_03: And they definitely blinked on that one. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: They sort of, I think they denied they ever meant it. Oh, that was just something we were experimenting with. Don't worry. We've heard our loyal customers loud and clear. And never fear. We shampy changing the Gap logo. And what's interesting is, of course, that's a logo doing exactly what it's supposed to do. I mean, when people are being sold logos, they're told that they will be the receptacle of all the passion that the consumers have for a brand, which is this kind of weird, hard to express thing otherwise. But now, all of a sudden, this will be the focal object upon which all that love is going to be aimed. And naturally, then, the customers think that they own the logo. And then when the company has the temerity to change it without asking anyone's permission, suddenly the customers who have been told, love this thing, all of a sudden it's changed on them without warning. And they get freaked out.
SPEAKER_03: Do you think that general design awareness in the public has made your job easier or harder?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I think it's made it easier. And it's made it more fun, I would say. I've always thought that what I do isn't the most important thing in the world. But I always thought it was important. I've devoted my life to it. And it's gratifying to have people notice it. And I don't think we can ask people to notice our work and think it's worth talking about and then presume to tell people, but you can only say positive things about it. I mean, if people are going to talk about it, you'll get uninformed people talking about it. You'll get informed people talking about it. And by and large, people, I think negative comments are always more fun to read than positive ones. A rave review is a little dull to read. But I mean, I've never had anyone forward me a positive restaurant review. On the other hand, if the restaurant review of The New York Times takes a restaurant apart, the relish with which that writer will describe every dish is just a sight to behold. So I think criticism is much more fun to write and more fun to read. And unless we want to go back to having no one notice what we're doing and pretending like it doesn't matter at all, we should just get used to criticism. And I have, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, is there a way to get used to criticism? Like, have you figured out, what's your sort of jujitsu method of dealing with it?
SPEAKER_01: One of my partners and I, Michael Garakey and I, redesigned the logo for the Big Ten football conference. And it needed to be redesigned because it was called the Big Ten, but it had 11 teams in it. And they had this clever logo that combined the words Big Ten written out with the number 11 kind of hiding by the T for 10. So it was sort of like, you would simultaneously read 10 and 11 while looking at it, which I just thought was a neat solution to a problem which actually shouldn't be focused on. I mean, let's not celebrate this weird disconnect between the name of the conference and the number of actual teams that are in it. And they were going to 12 teams and not even more teams. So the whole thing was they decided to kind of just come up with a logo that wasn't based on the actual number of teams in the conference, but just was called the Big Ten Conference. So we did basically a logo that was made out of the letters B-I-G for big. And then we did a treatment of the I in big and the G in big. So it had a double reading as the number 10. And so when that was unveiled, I actually got voicemail about it from people saying, I can't believe you. What's wrong with you people? Those people are the loyal fans. And I remember someone at the Big Ten Conference when this logo launched sort of telling me, this is the passion that kind of makes them sit in those seats when the weather is terrible. And the same passion is going to make them take it personally when you fit it with the logo. But what happens is once people get over the shock, if you can hold on tight, they'll get used to the new logo. And if it's any good at all, it'll soon be the beloved Big Ten logo. And people will sort of like then object the next time it's changed. As long as people still care about the Big Ten, they'll care about it every time it's changed. And I have to admit, we're entering a stage now where I have worked with clients on doing
SPEAKER_01: logos and doing updates to logos where I can tell the worst thing that could happen is if no one reacted at all. The best thing would be if everyone loved it, but the worst thing would be if no one noticed. They're happy to sort of take the outrage just because, wow, people really care about us. It's hard for people to care about a sports team or a university. It's a little bit harder to make people care about a retail brand, but people do feel very faithful to retail stores because they put those garments right on their bodies. And I think it's actually a little bit harder to make people care about financial institutions and more abstract entities that play a more kind of distant role in our lives. But all of them now will get comments on logo updates. And I think the jiu-jitsu that you use to sort of weather it is you just sort of think, well, people are going to react to change strongly sometimes, but the strength of that reaction is actually directly related to the depth of feeling they have about the particular brand that you're representing. So it's a little bit bad news equaling good news, I think.
SPEAKER_03: Have you ever had a one-on-one interaction with a person like a Buckeye fan, just deeply enraged? And how did it go?
SPEAKER_01: Well, this is what's interesting. With those Buckeye fans, for instance, I had this policy of responding. They found out somehow it came out that we had done it, and people found our emails. And I started getting forward with these emails that had a lot of, how dare you, or I don't care how much you charge, or you should be ashamed of yourself, or my father, who is class of 23, is spinning in his grave, or whatever. And I would always write back in this really kind of courteous way saying, one, it's always disappointing to have worked hard on something to know that people don't like it. I can only hope that you, over time, come to at least get used to it, ideally come to like it as much as we do, or at the very least not have it bother you quite as much. But I know that the team values the strong feelings you have about them. And as a fellow fan, that's a thing that we all really focus on. I would write something like that. And I really meant it, too. I really meant every element of that. And then about 2 thirds of the people I would write to would write me back in this chastened sort of tone where they'd say, oh, thanks. I'm sorry. I was going over the top a little bit. I still don't like it. But I was happy to hear explanation. And I'm sorry I kind of fired that off to you in the heat of the moment. Sometimes they wouldn't apologize. But clearly, the one thing that was really obvious was that the thing that really bothered them the most was their sense that giant, impersonal corporate forces were arbitrarily changing things that they cared about personally with no thought of who they were as fans and what the team was or anything like that. And the idea that there was a human being with a name and a voice who might share their feelings in any way whatsoever, you could tell it wasn't what they were picturing. It's a very satisfying target if you just think somewhere up there, horrible people are messing with something that I liked, and now it's ruined. I hate you. And then if all of a sudden that person shows up in person, it's a little bit kind of, oh, I didn't quite mean that. And again, my goal, I'm not trying to convert these people. I'm just like, I mean, I sincerely feel bad. When I design something, I actually am not trying to make people mad. I want people to like the thing I designed. And I'm sort of almost always convinced at the moment that eventually if the thing I've designed is well-crafted and is really appropriate for its purpose, fits the team, fits the audience, eventually will come to play the same role in their lives that the thing did that it replaced. And logos are interesting because I design a lot of things. I design, say, book covers, let's say. And a book cover, it has one moment of truth when you're buying a book in a bookstore, you walk down the aisle and it catches your eye. And then you think, oh, this looks interesting. You pick it up and you decide to buy it. Then your experience thereafter is basically with the book itself and the role that the cover played isn't that consequential. Logos though, they're one of the few things that appreciate in value as they're used. If you picture really simple logos that are iconic in the American commercial landscape now, like the Target logo, say, or the Nike swoosh, these are things that a four-year-old could design are really simple looking, have no inherent meaning. Well, the Target logo has a meaning that people find exasperating. If you're hiring some fancy design firm to do a logo for a company called Target and they come back and they say, we came up with something really great, here it is. And it's a Target. It's like, how long did that take? But I mean, think about how much they've been able to do with the simplicity of that mark. Think about how they've been able to manipulate very simple forms to mean all sorts of different things. And I would argue that that logo now, regardless of if they paid for it back in the sixties when it was commissioned, it's worth a hundred times as much now.
SPEAKER_03: What is your least favorite aspect of the heated discussion around logos or redesigns when they happen publicly? What's the type of criticism where you just like go, eh, that's not, I don't care for that.
SPEAKER_01: Well, if you design something new, people for some reason are so desperate to reconcile it with something they're already familiar with that they'll say, oh, that looks exactly like this other thing. And sometimes depending on their frame of mind, they'll say that looks exactly like this other thing that could be something vaguely smutty, like male or female anatomy or something like that. There's like so much of that goes around. And no matter what you design, they have this very human need to kind of turn abstract shapes into something figurative that means something. And really, I mean, what logos are meant to be are empty vessels into which meaning is poured and that meaning when they work right is the meaning that your firsthand experience with the thing that's represented by the logo is. And I think when someone just says, oh, that looks like genitalia to me, did you see it? You know, that sort of is tough. Also, I've never actually committed this error all the way, but if you're a practicing graphic designer, if you're a young graphic designer out there, one bit of advice I have is if you're working on a logo that is like a, say it's a quasi, it's a geometric logo with a four-part kind of thing that kind of has a rotational, angular rotational aspect, if someone says, that kind of reminds me of a swastika, that's a signal that that logo will not be presented to anyone. Just put it away, actually. That sort of is like as close to, I mean, you can say it looks like a penis and like you can actually get over that. But I mean, logos that look like swastikas, just like really, I remember I was going to a meeting with a, you know, to a client and I had privately had a little twinge with, I did a logo I really liked and it sort of had these kind of geometric characteristics that depending on how you looked at it, you know, but no, not really. And then, so I was going there and I had this big presentation, I needed someone to help me just carry the thing to the meeting and not even be in the meeting, just carry me in there. It was like an intern and the intern said, this one sort of looked like a swastika to you. And I remember like almost like bursting into tears and saying, now you've ruined everything. And sure enough, I go in the meeting, I said, this one, you know, the client says, well, this one won't work. You know, you see what it looks like, right? And I'm like, oh yeah, I'm sorry. What was I thinking? So I guess I hate that the most. If someone says it looks like an emblem of the most evil political and cultural force of the 20th century, that's not good. And it just goes to show you though, that was, you know, the swastika was this perfectly abstract, harmless, and even kind of benevolent symbol for centuries. It was a spiritual insignia that kind of has a lot of application in Eastern culture and then got hijacked by one guy, a failed artist and his friends, and they turned it into what they turned it into. And this goes to show you.
SPEAKER_00:
SPEAKER_03: I mean, if somebody notices it, that's a good piece of criticism because obviously you're right.
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, I mean, you do want to say, I mean, when you're doing these things, you do want to say, you know, what does this look like? What does this remind you of? And then these days, particularly abstract logo designers have the same problem that people coming up with names for products do, or, you know, where it's, you know, where all the good names are taken and all the good URLs are taken and frequently all the good kind of simple abstract geometric logos are taken. So it's really hard to find one that hasn't been done already. When you do these things, you have to do these, you know, you do these legal searches, you try to make sure that no one else has used it. If you can find one that's nice and simple, that is available, you're just kind of like, Oh my, you feel like you've discovered a new continent. Oh my God. You want to plant your flag on it and declare yourself King.
SPEAKER_03: Have you ever seen a new logo or a redesigned logo and over time had the most change of heart about it, like a real strong reaction and then kind of began to love it? Or do you, do you remember anything like that where your point of view changed either for the more positive or for the more negative?
SPEAKER_01: Partly because of the way I've been trained and having done this for so many years, my snap judgment about logos is probably more refined than it should be. So there are ones that I saw when they were brand new that I didn't like much then and I still don't like, but a lot of times, even if I don't like it, I sort of get what they were going for. There's some that are just outright, I just plain don't like them. Here in New York, we had the longstanding logo of the Metropolitan Museum of Art was replaced with a logo that replaced a drawing of an M with the letters, with letters saying The Met and a lot of people didn't like it partly because it was new and replacing something that they were used to and partly because I would concede it was like really, really idiosyncratic and weird looking. But at the same time I was thinking, you know, but if you go to The Met, you know, it's a big complicated idiosyncratic place. You go there and get lost. It's like really labyrinthine inside. It has so much stuff there to try to represent this thing with something that could look like it was for a pharmaceutical company, something clean and simple, wouldn't be doing it justice. It needs something that kind of feels complicated and idiosyncratic and specific. So I remember I looked at it and I see even now when I see it, it still kind of takes me aback sometimes because I was used to the old one like everyone else was, but I can recognize that in the long run, I think it will, if they stick with it, I think it'll work and come to be as beloved as its predecessor was.
SPEAKER_03: When you say that you plain don't like something, just like in general, what are those things that you plain don't like? Is there a way you could articulate those qualities?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I hate to say it, but just like everyone else, I'll look at something and say, oh my goodness, that's rather ugly, isn't it? You know, and like, you know, I mean, some, like, I mean, for instance, if you want to talk about another design, the design for the 2012 Olympics in London were widely criticized and I think right, well, to the degree that it's right to criticize logos, I can really see why people criticize it because I think that was like a darn funny looking logo because it was like really chunky and jaggedy and kind of kooky looking. But again, I have to admit, I sort of got it. It's like, you know, like a presidential campaign logo. It's sort of only, it had to mark a moment in time. It wasn't designed to be this enduring thing that would last forever. It just had to kind of like symbolize what was happening in that specific place at a specific time and would be further associated with all these kind of feats of athleticism that would be the actual real experience of the event, not just the logo. And so in a way, something idiosyncratic and specific could come to stand for all those other things. However, I still think it's ugly. It's just like ugly. It's sort of ungainly. It's like weird looking. And I could never quite, I have to admit, I personally and privately need to make up a story that explains it. Hence, I could make up a lot of stories for the Met logo. I could make up a lot of stories for every logo I've ever designed. To me, it's sort of the same pleasure I used to take as a kid, you know, sitting in my dentist's office looking at Highlights magazine. They have that thing called hidden pictures where it's just this drawing. It's the best, right? It's this drawing. And then it says, in the picture above, can you find a teapot, a hairbrush, a basketball? And then you can't see any of those things. Then you see, oh my god, like the hairbrush is the drapes on that window. And the basketball is that plate that's in the pantry. And then all of a sudden, you're finding all these things. And there's such pleasure in discovering those things. And if you've got a logo that has that bit of pleasure embedded in it, and I think with, for instance, when we embedded the 10 in the I and the G in the big 10 logo, we were trying to do something like that. The most famous instance of it, probably, with contemporary logos is the arrow that's hidden in the FedEx logo. But I think those little surprises just give people so much, they give them a little bit of joy, make them feel smart, and actually make them complete the picture in their own mind. And you have the pleasure of looking at something and making a discovery. And I think if you associate that moment of pleasure with a logo, that really is a great thing. Even if you look at a logo and say, well, all those ligatures are meant to symbolize connection, that's not quite as fun as finding a hairbrush in some window curtains. But it's something. And it works for me these many years later.
SPEAKER_03: So last year, there was a redesign of the Kodak logo. And I interviewed Kira Alexandra of Work Order, who did it. And when I talked to her, she purposely talked about how they just rolled it out kind of low key, and they didn't make a big hullabaloo about it. I mean, it still got criticized in different ways, and largely lauded. But it was kind of a reaction to the brand new thumbs up, thumbs down. What do you think of that? Is that a good idea? Do you feel smearly inclined, or do you like to throw it out there and have it be a bit of a blood sport? What is your take on that?
SPEAKER_01: Well, I used to tell my clients, no one will care when your logo goes out there. Don't take out an ad in the paper and say, bold new look, same great taste. No one cares. I used to joke and say, oh, honey, kids come in. Amalgamated widgets just changed their logo. No one cares. But then we passed through this weird thing where it became this funny kind of social media enabled blood sport where Amalgamated widgets is going to change this logo in three, two, one, game on. And it's like, my four-year-old could do that. How much did they pay for this piece of crap, et cetera. So suddenly it turned to this thing that people did for their own and others' amusement. I still think, though, that these things succeed to the degree that they're actually reflecting something of substance that's really changed in the thing that's represented by the logo. So in the case of Kodak, when they updated that logo, it was meant to mark the rebirth of a beloved American company that to certain generations of photographers really was the gold standard of, or just the ubiquitous kind of element in the photographic process. And it was associated with that five letter word Kodak, especially with the yellow box and with that very simple logo that they had. And when Kira Alexander and her team updated it, they actually were really careful, I thought, and sensitive to extrapolating everything they were doing from examples in the past. And I know what pleasure she took. She did one big bold move, which was instead of writing Kodak horizontally, she writes it vertically. She stacks the five letters one atop each other and is able to make a very neat kind of ready for the 21st century and all the requirements that logos have to have today in terms of reproduction and dissemination. She made a really nice logo with that move and took a great deal of pleasure in finding a couple of examples of the letters being stacked in the same way from deep in the past of the company. So she was able to kind of give the whole thing this imprimatur, this endorsement from almost beyond the grave, from the deep in the history of the company, which I think was really satisfying. And actually very effective for them.
SPEAKER_03: Is there like a fashion right now that you bristle against or maybe one that you think is great? I mean, like Simple, for example, is like... Yeah. I think that's kind of always been somewhat of a goal in logos, but it seems to take on a real guiding principle right now, maybe more than in the time when somebody wrote a Coca-Cola out as a long script. Is there something today that you really love that you think is a fundamental principle? Or do you think of it as a fashion or anything like that?
SPEAKER_01: I have to admit, I like simplicity of form, but I kind of... Sometimes I'm a little suspicious of simplicity and typography. So I love this typeface called Helvetica, which some people would argue is among... It's a very simple, clean, and ubiquitous typeface that has represented over the years everything from American Apparel to American Airlines. Chances are no matter where you are, there's some Helvetica on something that you can see from where you're sitting. And if not, just take out your wallet. And if you have any American paper currency, that big number five on your $5 bill is in Helvetica. So there it is. And I think there was a time back in the late 60s where you could take any logo, reset it in Helvetica, and it would look modern, contemporary, and kind of like ready for the molecularity of the millennium. And then it fell out of favor. And I think oddly, it's come back a little bit. So among other things, very recently, Diane von Furstenberg's been redesigned. So instead of the idiosyncratic DVF monogram that they had before, now it's the words Diane von Furstenberg in Helvetica. And it looks clean. It looks neutral. It looks smart. It looks kind of at its worst, not necessarily in this case, but I mean sort of has that same sort of glum and impassive and kind of I am really, I'm too cool even to acknowledge you exist kind of face that supermodels will have in certain fashion shoots where they just are expressionless and kind of almost zombie-like. I am so cool. Don't look at me. No, please look at me. Not like that. I don't know who you are. Go away. I'm not going to go away. And so Helvetica kind of can have that quality. And I just think it can be a mean withholding sort of typeface.
SPEAKER_03: So I have a bunch of listeners. They're design aware. They're design engaged. And as a person who puts things out in the world and makes logos and makes new logo systems for people, what would you want them to know when they interact with you? Like what type of criticism would you like to hear or not like to hear?
SPEAKER_01: I sort of deal in a field where almost like a lot of the things that define what I do kind of comes down to really boring sort of sayings like don't judge a book by its cover or on the other hand, you only get one chance to make a first impression. And so they all kind of contradict each other. And the advice I give is that at the end of the day, graphic design is really important. But it's also kind of one of the most cosmetic things in the world. If you can read an exit sign, you're going to get out the door. If the door doesn't have a doorknob on it, if it's nailed closed, these are all things that are real impediments. But that exit sign can be in any typeface you want, and you're still going to find the door. And so I think you can make a handsome exit sign that actually fits the architecture around it. You can make one that's hard to read, and that one is going to be dysfunctional. But there's a lot of different ways to do it, and usually it's not a life or death thing. I think there's a lot of things that are like really life and death matters in the world and really important and worth getting agitated about. I think that probably logo design shouldn't be one of them. There's people that are paid a lot of money to care desperately about the way logos look. And I aspire to be one of those people. I think that if you're not getting paid to do it, like try not to do it too much, only do it to the degree it entertains you, but then move on to more important things.
SPEAKER_03: Michael Beirut is a partner at Pentagram. I'm the proud owner of a signed copy of his book, How to Use Graphic Design to Sell Things, Explain Things, Make Things Look Better, Make People Laugh, Make People Cry, and every once in a while, Change the World. Plus, he's the co-host, along with Jessica Helfand, of the podcast, The Design of Business, The Business of Design. It's really good. If you're looking for insights into the world of design and designers, you need to subscribe to it and its sister podcast, Debbie Millman's Design Matters, which is like the OG of design podcasts. They're essential listening. So I have to do the credits and some very important announcements first, but we have a special bonus interview at the end of the episode, which is a clip of a live event I did with my friend Kevin Smokeler about the places both real and imagined from your favorite 80s movies. Kevin's new book is called Brat Pack America. It's super fun, especially for anyone who grew up on those movies where places like Shermer, Illinois, Hill Valley, the Goon Docks, Sherwood, Ohio, were characters in and of themselves. So stay tuned for that. 99% Invisible is Emmett Fitzgerald, Delaney Hall, Kurt Kohlstedt, Taron Mazza, Katie Mingle, Sean Riel, Avery Tuffelman, Sharif Yousif, and me, Roman Mars. Astute listeners from over the years might notice a name missing from that list, Sam Greenspan. Sam started out on the show as a remote intern based in Baltimore when it was just me in my apartment in Richmond, California. He was the very first person I hired for the show. Actually, you guys hired him during the first Kickstarter in 2012 and he's been a critical part of our team over the years. He is moving on to do his very own project, which we're all really excited about. It's too soon to tell you anything about it yet, but I want you to remember this word, bellwether. You can be one of the first to know what he's up to by following him on Twitter at Sam Listens and signing up for his tiny letter email newsletter at samgreenspan.org. Good luck, Sam. We at 99PIHQ and the listening audience will miss hearing you on our show. We are a project of 91.7 KALW in San Francisco and produced on Radio Row in beautiful downtown Oakland California. So a few weeks ago I had a conversation in front of a live audience at Spur in Oakland with my pal Kevin Smokeler about his book Brat Pack America, which is this like 300 page love letter to all the places where your favorite 80s teen movies were set. I really enjoyed the book and our conversation, but after I recorded it, I learned that if you aren't as well versed in the 80s movie genre as I am, you might get a little lost and the conversation just worked way better on the website. We could embed all the pictures of the places that we're talking about in the trailers from the movie, along with the audio of the event is one of the coolest web features we've ever done. So I hope you check it out. Here's a little clip of our conversation.
SPEAKER_02: The locations in Ferris Bueller are all within the downtown loop and Wrigley Field. And I mean, that's one of the things that struck me.
SPEAKER_03: I watched Ferris Bueller again a couple of nights ago and they kind of have a lame sense of Chicago. Oh, they sure do. It's really like, it's really touristy. Like they're not there because they really know Chicago. They're there doing the exact same things that a literal field trip from school would take them to.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah. I mean, they, for kids who live like three train stops away from Chicago, they act like they're there from Cody, Wyoming or something. I mean, all they need to do is like get a slice of deep dish pizza. And they've completed their sort of day of touristing around Chicago. And to be fair, and this is only very slightly so, John Hughes was a White Sox, not a Cubs fan. And so he wanted to shoot the Wrigley Field scene at Comiskey Park, which would have at least taken them to the south side of Chicago. But the Sox were not in town that weekend. And so they had to film it much to his chagrin at Wrigley Field. So yeah, it's a really like not adventurous day off. And the funny thing is John Hughes himself, even though he was very aware of himself as a dweller in the north suburbs of Chicago, went all the heck all over the place. Like I spent a lot of time with one of his kids. And John Hughes wrote everything down. And he used to write down like all the concerts he would go to and the art exhibits he would go to as a teenager. The guy mapped all of Chicago on foot. And somehow we get this very myopic parochial picture of Chicago in Ferris.
SPEAKER_03: Hear the full interview, trailers, pics, and links to Kevin's book, Rat Pack America, on our website, 99pi.org. When you're working on the go, how can you make sure the confidential information on your laptop screen is safe from wandering eyes? 3M has the answer with the new 3M BrightScreen Privacy Filter. Using Nanoluver technology, 3M BrightScreen Privacy Filters deter visual hackers while providing a 25% brighter experience over other privacy filters. In fact, it's 3M's brightest privacy filter yet. The perfect balance of screen clarity and visual privacy. It's a new type of privacy filter built for an era where our screens are wherever we go. Try the new 3M BrightScreen Privacy Filter and stop worrying about confidential or personal information escaping your computer screen. Everything that appears on your screen is for your eyes only. Visit 3mscreens.com slash brighter to get your new 3M BrightScreen Privacy Filter today and work like no one is watching. 3mscreens.com slash brighter. If you need to design visuals for your brand, you know how important it is to stay on brand. Brands need to use their logos, colors, and fonts in order to stay consistent. It's what makes them stand out. The online design platform Canva makes it easy for everyone to stay on brand. With Canva, you can keep your brand's fonts, logos, colors, and graphics right where you design presentations, websites, videos, and more. Drag and drop your logo into a website design or click to get your social post colors on brand. Create brand templates to give anyone on your team a design head start. You can save time resizing social posts with Canva Magic Resize. If your company decides to rebrand, replace your logo and other brand imagery across all your designs in just a few clicks. If you're a designer, Canva will save you time on the repetitive tasks. And if you don't have a design resource at your fingertips, just design it yourself. With Canva, you don't need to be a designer to design visuals that stand out and stay on brand. Start designing today at Canva.com, the home for every brand. Chances are you're listening to 99% Invisible on your phone, probably while you're on the go. You're getting all that you do on your phone the moment you leave your front door, whether it's looking up directions, scrolling social media, or listening to your favorite podcast. It requires an amazing network. That's why you should switch to T-Mobile. T-Mobile covers more highway miles with 5G than anyone else and helps keep you connected with 5G from the driveway to the highway and the miles in between. Because your phone should just work where you are, it's your lifeline to pretty much everything you didn't bring with you. So next time you head out, whether you're taking a trip or going to work or just running errands, remember T-Mobile has got you covered. Find out more at T-Mobile.com slash network and switch to the network that covers more highway miles with 5G than anyone else. Coverage is not available in some areas. See 5G details at T-Mobile.com. You can find this show and like the show on Facebook. All of us are on Twitter, Instagram, and Spotify, but to find out more about this story, including cool pictures and links, and listen to all the episodes of 99% Invisible, you must go to 99pi.org.
SPEAKER_03: Gate sleep can be hard to come by these days and finding the right mattress feels totally overwhelming. Serta's new and improved Perfect Sleeper is a simple solution designed to support all sleep positions. With zoned comfort, memory foam, and a cool to the touch cover, the Serta Perfect Sleeper means more restful nights and more rested days. Find your comfort at Serta.com.
SPEAKER_00: Gatorade Zero has all the electrolytes and all the flavor of Gatorade with zero sugar to help you get more out of your workout routine. How much more? It helps you feel more hydrated through every mile, every set, and every song in your fitness routine. No matter how you choose to move, Gatorade Zero got your back. From yoga to kickboxing and everything in between, Gatorade Zero is the perfect partner for whatever workout comes your way, helping you get more, do more, and be more with zero. Get more out of zero.
SPEAKER_04:
