On the surface, and by which I mean, by looking at it on a blog, this identity designed by Michael Bierut looks interesting, but one may quickly pass by it while browsing due to the amount of visual stimulation one receives each day through various design blogs that deliver eye-candy. I completely missed it. Until now when I read about it, and then saw it again.
This to me is a lesson in removing ambiguity from a design solution. There are far too many logos based on abstract forms that are "inspired" by something but communicate something else, if at all, that is, and leave a wide margin for personal interpretation. Perhaps this has to do something with graphic design's current obsession with contemporary art. I have designed some logos like that myself, so I'm as guilty as anyone else.
I'm just starting to think the Pentagram founders were onto something though, and I keep returning back to what they said, especially in a book called Visual Comparisons, by far one of my favorite books on graphic design:
"Unlike painters, who should have a personal handwriting, designers are often anonymous, but their work still achieves a vivid personality. Their identity is maintained by a consistently high standard of problem solving rather then by consistent technique or style.
Ofcourse there are always some impossible clients, but they know that the ultimate responsibility for a bad job rests with the designer and not with the client, however hardheaded and obstreperous. After all, they reason, there are many ways to solve a graphic problem. If one solution is rejected, another must be found.
Each job they do represent a search for new methods of making ideas and images come alive on the printed page; they have enquiring minds and they are not afraid to make mistakes.
They know their craft and use the technologies of the graphic arts creatively, rather than being subdued by it. But above all, they never limit themselves to current tastes, or to formal rules of layout, typography and color."
London, 1963
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