Tom explains why he chose the red O to give visual distinction to the name: Or, a symbol can help link together many divisions or branches under a single institutional identity-as in the case of the Smithsonian Institution.īut absent a good reason for a symbol, it is always a better idea to start with putting the emphasis on the name and trying to find a simple, focused way-a change of color, an unusual arrangement of letters, a graphic accent or even just a unique lettering style-to make it memorable.Īn early example of this approach is the wordmark Tom Geismar designed with the red O for Mobil Oil exactly 50 years ago. For example, if you have a long name, like in the case of The Chase Manhattan Bank (now simply “Chase”), a symbol may help tie it together as a unit and add visual impact. There are, of course, good reasons to create a symbol as part of an identity program.

We find that people are generally willing to learn as little as possible.

Using a symbol as part of the logo means that there is an additional element that has to be learned. This is because visual identities work through familiarity, so any new visual element has to be learned first in order to be established. We advised that they did not need a symbol and turned down the job.Ĭreating a symbol can be a great design exercise, but we try to be very disciplined about only developing a symbol when there is a compelling strategic reason to do so. For over a decade, this international bank had been using a wordmark for their short four-letter name. Recently a big international bank came to us asking that we design a symbol for them, as Tom Geismar had done many years before for The Chase Manhattan Bank. In this blog series, Sagi Haviv discusses principles of identity design as they manifest in trademarks created by his firm, Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv. Enter your work into the Regional Design Annual today for a chance to be spotlighted in the pages of our milestone annual issue.

Wordmark examples