AisleOne. A visual journal on design, photography, film, music and culture.
Walter Ballmer was a Swiss graphic designer who is best known for designing the Olivetti logo. He recently passed away, so it’s only fitting that I mention him here. He amassed an incredible body of work. There’s a great post on Thinking Form featuring some of his great work.
When Paul Rand designed the NeXT logo in 1986 he developed a proposal book for Steve Jobs, that explained the process that led him to the final design. I’m not a fan of the logo, but reading about Rand’s thinking and thought process, and what influenced his decisions, is pretty damn interesting. Damn smart designer, he was.
You can see and read scans of the booklet on Imprint. You can also find some better photos of the book on Paul Rand’s site under “Identity presentations”. Thanks Andrea for the heads-up!
I love looking at logo specs like this one for the VW logo, which is one of my favorite marks. It gives you some insight into how the logo was created. Graham Smith took the time to recreate this sheet into a downloaded file.
Other personal favorites include the specs for the 1976 Montreal Olympics logo, and the Braun logo.
A great write up by Shelby White on the evolution of the Swissair logo starting in 1931, up until the company ceased operations in 2002.
Burton Kramer is a graphic designer living in Toronto that played an important role in bringing the International Typographic Style to Canadian design during the 60s and 70s. He’s most famous for the excellent logo that he designed for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1974, which is pictured here. You can see some more examples of the logo use as well as a video of the logo sequence seen on TV. The Center for Contemporary Canadian Art has an excellent online archive of Kramer’s work.
I love finding gems like this.
Anton Stankowski was a Germany designer and teacher who pioneered constructive graphic design and is probably best known for designing the wonderful Deutsche Bank logo, which makes excellent use of a grid. I also love how he used basic geometric shapes to create the visuals.
David has some hi-res images of Stankowski’s work. Beautiful.