One of the blogosphere's best kept secrets: Brand New

by phil on Tuesday Jan 13, 2009 4:01 PM
dlog, mainfeed, thinking about design

I had 25 unread items in my Google Reader, and I was about to click "Mark All As Read," when I noticed myself zooming in on one item. It was a post on Brand New, a blog that does before-and-after analysis of logos. Noticing my behavior made me realize that Brand New is one of the blogosphere's best kept secrets.

One of their best articles is their Best & Worst of 2008 roundup.

It's really cool to see how logos evolve. I think it's the same feeling I get when I see the evolution of Homer Simpson:

Often companies keep their logo design changes quiet, so as not to disrupt their brand value. Brand New, therefore, sort of has a constant "gotcha moment" for style. It's like how we never really imagine current fashion as on-the-way-to-retro. For example, wearing bell bottoms in the 70s and 80s just looked "good" at the time, while as now it's associated with a certain attitude, like blaxploitation funk. Likewise, 10 years from now our logosphere will be substantially different, and yet we won't have noticed the change.

Someone once said that architecture is the most important art form, because we experience it everyday. But I wonder if nowadays, it's logos. I wonder if the average person knows more logos than words. (Here's a fun link to a guess-that-logo game).

(Cross-posted on Drunk Log, where you can see keystrokes it took to make this post)