Don’t know who Rian Hughes is? If you’re into comics, you’ve seen his work on both your books, and in animation.
Observe:
There are dozens and dozens more on Hughes’ website.
So with that established, Hughes posted on his Facebook page some well reasoned thoughts from a place of unique experience on the new DC logo.
Here’s the thing – a comic book logo has got to fulfill two quite different criteria that often pull the design in different directions.
It has to represent a forward-looking professional and modern company. It also has to communicate what the comics are all about.
My main comment on the last DC Comics logo reboot was that it looked too… well, a bit too *comicy*. Outside of the comic ghetto, in the wider real world of design, it looks distinctly cheesy.
This one I applaud for taking a more clean and modern approach. More legitimate and, well, more *designed*.
What I would say, however, is that it’s not the most iconic and memorable logo I’ve ever seen. It’s OK. Not bad. But not “YES! Perfect!”, which is what one aims for in an identity mark.
I also question how well it’ll work in context on covers, where it may jar uncomfortably with the art styles.
The perfect logo, I believe, would have two things:
First, a sense of punchy dynamism and excitement – a reference to the action/adventure core values of comics, WITHOUT being a derivative pastiche of some kind of so-called *comic style* (read: no dot screens, sound effect style lettering, speech balloons, explosions).
Secondly, it should work on screen and print, be relevant to comics in the iPad digital realm, and able to stand next to other high-end publisher’s logos without embarrassment. Legitimate, modern, clean, without being too dull and corporate.
I think DC has tried to move the logo from the first category (the swoosh one) to the second category (this Landor version). The swoosh version was too comicy, this one just looks too corporate. Dull, Lacking in dynamism and punch. On the covers, it reminds me of a logo from a blander umbrella corporation that just happens to have a comics division. What we really need is a mark that somehow covers *both* categories.
The variations – the versions with the imagery in – lift the design, but I know that in practice these versions, nice as they are, rarely get used. The fall-back logo – the basic, no-frills version we’ll see on spines, and covers – has to stand on it’s own without these fancy polishes.
A logo has to work “bare”, as it were, stripped of colour, stripped of fancy Photoshop effects. That’s the measure of an iconic logo. This one fails in that respect.
Not an easy brief, I know.
So, an interesting effort that I can understand the reasoning behind, but feel it’s not iconic and punchy enough to hit the mark. Two steps forward, one step back.
I think his critique is spot on, and the point on the use of the uplifting variations is a good one too. In the quick and dirty world of putting out comics, things happen fast, and customization might be a little less of a priority than you’d think. Their task wasn’t easy, and they didn’t fail, but could it have been done better? Probably.
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What I really want is an explanation for what a “comic ‘ghetto'” is lol
also, there needs to be an ongoing title called “Comic Ghetto”
The “Comic Ghetto”, or really any metaphorical ghetto, is any insular community that is known and acknowledged by the mainstream but kept separate from it by it’s preconceived notions of it.
I’m pretty sure most people just call it the internet
Very fair comments from Rian but the question this article really raises for me is: was Wednesday Comics 2 just a rumour, then? I do hope not.
Hughes Website link is broken.
the only thing I would say about Hughes’ comments regarding the logo is that he comes at it from the perspective that this is a comic book logo. It isn’t – it is a entertainment company logo.
True, but it is going to be in the comic books.
I took a minute to go see the rest of the logos this guy has designed and he has done a crap-ton. And you know what? They all look good because they encapsulate the meanings of their characters/organizations instantly.
The new DC logo does not.
Take a second and look at the above logos without looking at the words or try not to envision the words at all:
Archaia – Egyptian/Mythical-based Graphic, possibly a company involved with games or fiction.
Batman & Robin – With a highly-stylized bat graphic with those eyes I am going to hazard a guess that it has something to do with Batman…?
Wednesday Comics – Kinda cheating since it is almost all words but the choice of color, size and font are reminiscent to the comics section of the newspaper from back in the day (which WAS a Wednesday…)
New DC Comics – Stickers? Cellophane? It’s definitely not reminiscent of a comic book page because no comic reader would ever treat the page that way, folding it over like that. Whatever it is I would not be able to tell that it has anything to do with comics without reading ‘DC Comics’ below it.
FAIL.
BTW – direct link to his other logos:
http://www.devicefonts.co.uk/cgi-bin/device3.cgi?action=logos
Archaia’s logo could easily be for a band or high-spa or someplace; doesn’t immediately say “Comics Company”
Rian has some great points and really hits it home when he mentioned it has to work “Bare”. I really do believe that the best brand marks have to work as a simple, one color (printed in black-ink) “object” first and foremost. Then go nuts with applications after you’ve solved that problem.
I will give the Landor guys credit..this is a bit of an experimental move and it’ll be interesting to see how they really implement it.
Some of the best and most honest criticism of this new brand system has come from those designers/brand experts working outside of comics. Worth googling if you care to read it…
It’s not too promising when they have to put the words “DC Comics” below the logo so people know what it is.
This guy has designed practically every comics logo in existence, why didn’t DC just hire him to come up with their new logo?
Because the DC Comics didn’t; DC Entertainment did.
its not really ‘just a logo’…its a brand identity system, strategy etc. You hire a branding firm for that kinda stuff.
That’s the first time I’ve seen Landor identified as the designers. Those guys were great once upon a time — when all an identity was was a logo lockup and a tagline — but we’ve moved beyond that point thanks in large part to digital. Today you experience brands through their user interfaces more than anything else (e.g. think of things like Windows or iOS, etc.).
Does DC’s logo *really* matter? It’s not bad, it’s not terrific… it’s what’s inside that counts. Such a non-issue.
QFT
Yes it matters. You want to entice people to find out what IS inside by any and all possible means.
But that’s accomplished by the cover not the logo
BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.
Don’t you think the logo is such a tiny part of a comic? it’s the ego of the corporation. “oh, this comic book has a logo I just can’t identify with… I’ll pass”. No one has said that, ever.
Logos won’t sell comics, unless its a brand new title and a fan of a certain company picks it up because they can easily identify said company on the cover.
I still don’t understand why, if they are re-branding, why did they stick with Detective Comics Comics as their brand name?
DC Entertainment, DC Media, DC Books, etc. all would have been better choices. This plus the fact they are redoing the logo less than a year after the whole universe reboot show what a cluster&@&^ DC is.
Because DC Comics didn’t decide to change their logo – the higher ups at DC Entertainment decided to rebrand the entire company. They’re not going to change their name because they’re still the comics branch of the company. DC Media would be the TV/Movie side and DC Books would be the actual books they put out if they started doing that. It’s not like Dan Didio’s been sitting around waiting to change the logo after they already did that for the company six years ago – this a much bigger change than that.
Then the higher ups at Warner Bros. should have had their stuff together before they totally overhauled their comic line. It just adds to the shortsightedness of a lot of decisions at DC/Time Warner/Whatever you want to call it.
too comicy?? But they *are* comics.
Well it communicates “sticker company” to me DC. Am i getting a free sticker with my books now?
That logo stinks. Unless you squint. Then it looks like a pac-man skull in a hoodie. To each their own, I guess.