JKR

2. Iconic design doesn’t explain, it infers.

Iconography can be quite literal. Both the logos below promote “love”, one self-sacrificing, and the other promiscuous. They are telling a deeper back-story in visual shorthand.

All iconic design acts as a symbol for a brand’s (deeper) attributes, but the most powerful brand icons tend to be non-literal. Their power comes from a visual uniqueness, which in turn expresses the things that make them different rather than relevant to their category.

Bacardi’s bat is both a Spanish symbol of good luck, and a reference to those bats in the distillery roof. None of this is as important as its idiosyncrasy. Using a bat defies contemporary marketing logic. It’s gothic, a bit creepy and could be connected to Batman’s logo. So the fact that it exists at all suggests an authentic provenance. Consumers don’t need to know the exact back-story to deduce this. Iconic design is often irrational; that’s what makes it distinctive and engaging – uniqueness can be more compelling than literal meaning.

When Bacardi made more of a feature of the bat in both packaging and advertising, their consumers quickly started noticing and respecting the brand. jkr had a hand in this work, so we know its true!

Abstract brand icons are empty vessels, ready to be filled with meaning. Marlboro originally targeted women with the line “as mild as May” and a red filter tip that camouflaged lipstick traces. The ad men at Leo Burnett helped relaunch the failing product as a smoke for men, ditching the effete graphics and introducing the bold, angular red chevron. Many cowboys later, the red chevron symbolised rugged masculinity. Values attach themselves to icons like iron filings to a magnet.

Yet even abstract designs can have a relevant tone of voice: the seemingly perpetual forward tumbling of the Nazi Swastika (a subverted Hindu good luck symbol) suggests the relentlessness and quasi spiritual “destiny” of the third Reich. It’s not a logo many of us would fancy sharing a pint with. Similarly CND’s design looks both gently rounded and expansive – it was in part inspired by a Goya painting of a victim of war, and is based on the arm positions that semaphore the letters C.N.D.

It’s the abstract nature of such designs that gives them charisma, but they are generally inspired by and chime with some deeper level of a brands’ personality. The marques are rarely random. But iconic design understands that less is more and that over explaining a set of values is much less interesting than capturing their spirit in a gesture.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7