Tuesday, October 21, 2008

The lighter side of logo design

Every now and then I run across stories where someone's logo or slogan "turns bad". 

Case in point: in England, the Office of Government Commerce had a bold logo designed. "According to insiders, the graphic was already proudly etched on mouse-pads and pens before it was unveiled for employees who spotted the clanger within seconds"

The "clanger" was that when the logo was viewed vertically (like on the pens) it looked like a stylized man with an erection. www.telegraph.co.uk/news 1901756/OGC-unveils-new-logo-to-red-faces.html

My other favorite was when a school board handed out thousands of pencils to students with the following message embossed in big bold letters for kids: Don't Do Drugs!

Sounds harmless... but when the kids used their pencil sharpeners the message changed to "Do Drugs!" 

I did a project for a major cereal brand...

They were offering one of those animated flip books.. you know the kind you flip the pages really fast and it looks like an animated cartoon.

They asked me what I thought of the name that they were giving to their free gift inside... they were going to call it a FLICKER BOOK.

I said to them... you are in for a BIG problem if you use that name. The letters LI when spaced together look like a letter U. You might have people thinking that you are offering for free a F_CKER BOOK!

Bottom line, look at your designs up, down and inside out... to be a successful freelancer you don't want your client or yourself associated with a public relations disaster.. it could FLICK you up.

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