As part of CITY POOL's respectful foray into the world of branding we've been taking a look around. For ourselves and others we've made a little compendium as an entry point into the world of branding via some basic info about of the best know firms. We chose the following 13 firms: Arnell group, The Brand Union, Chermayeff & Geismar, Futurebrand, Interbrand, Landor, Lippincott, Minale Tattersfield, Sterling Brands, Saffron Consultants, Siegel+Gale, vsa Partners, Wolff Olins, and compared the basic facts of:

1. When they were started and by whom.
2. How many people they employ.
3. How many locations they have.

For each firm we also included a great sample identity, and a sample identity that we feel is not so great. Some interesting realizations that came about while researching:

>A sizable proportion of firm founders came to USA from London.
>Most firms are headquartered in New York.
>Most, but not all, companies were started by one or two guys who have since passed away, or left the firm, often times leaving after the firms were purchased by the Omnicom's of the world. That's not to suggest that the firms aren't still doing good work, but we do find it interesting that the leaders who built the firms and good reputations over multiple decades aren't around anymore. 

View and Download the PDF here, in the PDF the firm logos link to there respectful sites,
and there are some Easter egg links in there as well.

I know I know, this logo is old and there are lots of interesting and cool projects going on now like Landor's City of Melbourne re-branding or Wolff Olins' of AOL. But those are well covered. Plus I've never been to Melbourne. I have however taken the train to New Haven many times. I think when I was a little younger I dismissed Herbert Matter's logo as simplistic, but I changed my mind long ago and now I think it's great. I love how stacking the letters vertically, and the fact that they have wide horizontal serifs, suggest railroad ties and the cause the logo to invoke train tracks. Not in a hit you over the head way, but in a beautifully simple and subtle way.

The Identity previous to Matter's
was beautiful in it's own right:

But since people often referred to the train company as the New Haven Railroad (the headquarters were in NH for one thing) the obvious route was to simplify the name. An ambitious executive named Patrick B. McGinnis hired Matter for the redesign in 1955. Less than two years later McGinnis was gone, leaving the Railroad in bad financial shape. For all McGinnis' failings the redesign was at least successful. And even though by 1961 The N.H.R. went into bankruptcy, You can still occasionally see a train in Grand Central with the NH logo on the side.

Below Herbert's exploration:

And as it turns out there a Herbert Matter Documentary coming out this spring Summer. Count me in.
.

There are many things to be jealous about when it comes to Europe. One thing I'm jealous of are the awesome symbols most European cites have. Many have been adapted from coat of arms to become simplified icons, while others retain and older feel. Many also have back stories such as Valencia's (top left) supposedly during the night an army was preparing for a secret invasion of Valencia when a bat awoke the king, after waking the king could somehow see the invading army in the distance and was able to fight and save the city from being sacked. And so the bat was a hero. That's at least how one legend goes.

It's to bad American cities don't really have an equivalent, we do have seals but they are mostly poor quality. There are a few nice ones but they're the exception, not the rule. New York city has a seal but It seems obvious the unofficial NYC symbol is Milton Glaser's I (HEART) NY logo. I don't know of any other US city that has a unofficial logo in the same way New York does, but hopefully the day will come when US cities won't have to be jealous of European ones and will have have some cool official city symbols of our own.

top: Valencia and Florence. bottom: Bilbao, Frankfurt, Copenhagen, Hamburg.

These sketches were for the electronic music label Kid Without Radio. Nothing ended up happening with them, but City Pool is still fan of the artists. for a taste check out this, or sigh visit their myspace.

This graphic was for a City Pool canoe trip taken last summer. I never made it past cub scouts, but even I know you gotta be prepared and have a ski mask and glock handy.

As logotypes go this one from ESPN is kind of complex, but a limited color pallet and the USA map made up of abstract squares saves it and makes it pretty cool. On air and where appropriate the squares are extruded to give it some nice depth, but when it's tiny and flat the squares still work, giving it a web-friendly pixel feel. I feel a lot sports related graphics are overdone, but I think a good balance has been struck here.

This lovely little logo is for Octopus Books, I discovered it on a book entitled "Popular Chinese Cookery" from 1974. The company still exists in the form of the London based Octopus Publishing group. Their logo is decidedly more boring, an Oprahrrific "O". Anyway I have a soft spot for publisher logos and for me this one stands out, it maybe just the time that it was done but if feels a lot more hand done and fun then a lot of publisher logos around today. The tendency towards blander and more formal publisher logos may have something to do with how the industry has merged over and over again to leave mostly large powerful players in the past couple of decades. The bigger the company is, the less personality it seems they project. Oh well at least the penguin has survived.

This beautifully simple mark is for the Metro system of Guangzhou, China. at first glance one can easily recognize the suggestion of subway lines coming together, or the suggestion of rail lines themselves. But Guanzhou is also known as “the ram city” because of a legend involving 5 rams. There is a famous statue depicting the 5 rams and rams are often used as a symbol for the city. So, the GZ metro logo doubles as a pair of ram horns!

They don’t use the logo enough in my opinion and I wish they would be a little more consistent in how they used it; some times it’s in a circle some times thrown in a square. But often it stands alone without any text or enclosing shape and that’s how I think it looks best. As I mentioned before I love the simplicity, and that’s because it gives it a timeless quality. Years from now I don’t think this will look dated, the same can not be said for a lot of logotypes out there.

For a well organized collection of Metro Logos check out this page.