[zeveb]

> Instead, the logo is noteworthy precisely because it has achieved critical acclaim despite, or more accurately, because of its failure to communicate.

That, right there, is a damning indictment of the entire modernist project: communication achieves acclaim because it fails to communicate; art achieves acclaim because it fails to be beautiful; life achieves acclaim because it is sterile.

As an aside, I love the dry tone of the piece, with lines like 'However, not only does the new abstract logo break this entire history, but it adds even more potential readings of the logo' — with a demonstration of how the upside-down new logo looks like a hand flipping the bird. The essay's full of bone-dry commentary like that. It's glorious in its restrained vehemence.

[entee]

I think the primary objective of a logo is to be a recognizable symbol for an organization or concept. It's not entirely clear to me that to achieve that objective the logo must fully describe the entity or be some identifiable representation of what that entity does.

For example Apple's logo speaks very little to what it does, and to a greater or lesser extent so do many others including Uber (new and old), Xiaomi, Square and Palantir just to pick a few of the largest startup-style companies in the last few years. Of course the logos come to work as a brand and we identify them with those entities as we get to know the brands.

Under this criteria, isn't the objective of a logo to simply be recognizable? In that case, kind of in a self-fulfilling manner, doesn't even a critical article such as this one make it more successful?

Personally I like the logo, and I found it interesting to hear the logic behind it. Sure it's not to everyone's liking, but is that the point of a logo?

[PKop]

The Apple logo says nothing about what "Apple" does but... it looks like an apple.

Likewise, the letters H and P say nothing about Hewlett Packard's business. That wasn't the criticism though. It was that the letters were unrecognizable as an "h" and a "p".

[TheOtherHobbes]

>communication achieves acclaim because it fails to communicate

I'm not sure that's the point. I think the MITP logo communicates plenty - just not the letters MITP.

But then the MITP itself is redundant. Once you know a book is from MITP, you'll know it's from MITP whenever you see the logo.

Meanwhile the logo includes a selection of visual puns and allusions - machine rhythms, digital precision and predictability, books on a shelf, book pages, and so on.

It's not that modernism is ambiguous, it's that modernism has consistently tried to move past literal single-view single-meaning interpretations to condensed abstractions that suggest multiple views simultaneously.

It's actually about implying and suggesting as much as possible with as little as possible.

This is fine as far as it goes, but you now have a problem - instead of making a single straightforward statement that can be read by almost anyone who's literate, you're relying on a viewer's ability to read an abstraction in a way that makes sense of at least some of the same associations.

If you do this properly, you've packed in a lot more information, at the cost of making it inaccessible to many viewers.

It's now more visual haiku than plain talking, and it only works for some of the potential audience.

What happens next is worse. You have a situation where less adept talents claim to be able to pack in meaning when really they don't. They produce a cargo cult knock-off of a successful design, they decorate it with explanations written in text in a supporting document to sell it, but they don't truly manage to include the allusions they claim to be including.

This is where modernism stops working. You get something that's really just been converted back into a single-view statement or object in a naive and superficial way, and it completely fails to have the depth of a genuine rich abstraction.

It looks minimal, but it's all surface and imitation with no creative compression. That's when the communication stops and you have something that's likely to be annoying and useless, and probably ugly too.

[hiddencost]

Book recommendations? I really appreciated what you have to say.

[resu_nimda]

This author seems to have a very prescriptive stance on what a logo "should be." I see the logo as abstract art. Maybe you don't know that it says MITP or that it vaguely represents books on a shelf until you are told these things, but then you (might) go "oh cool, I can see it now." It achieved critical acclaim because it is clever and ultimately resonated with people, that's it.

I don't see how it "failed" at anything except meeting this author's subjective preferences of what makes a good logo. He even admits, "this became part of the charm of the logo for those in the modern minimalist establishment, for whom ambiguity is a virtue." So, he's free to disagree, but shouldn't act like he's "more correct" for having different values.

[Retra]

The problem here is that this is taking place in the context of design as a profession. If it doesn't matter what your logo looks like because its meaning will be imbued by history, and if the form of the art isn't important, then why do you need professional logo designers? Why would you want the opinion of an 'expert' if an expert's opinion isn't important?

Is the author's opinion an expert opinion? Would you pay for it?

So we can paraphrase Beirut: "I'm a world renowned master logo-smith. I will be heralded as a master communicator. But you could do almost anything. I don't design my logos to communicate, because that's not important." And we're left to work out the values and hypocrisies that are all established into this culture.

[resu_nimda]

The thing is, it's all so subjective. This expert does not appreciate Cooper's logo and the minimalist/Bauhaus style in general. He admits that it has received critical acclaim, and clearly many people do appreciate it, undoubtedly some who are considered experts. Who is right? Who is the true expert, the professional? By what metric is that determined? Experts and critics constantly disagree with each other, often vehemently so. They have different values and different goals.

I would probably not pay for this person's opinion because I don't share his values. I like abstract and minimal. I would rather pay for the opinion of someone whose taste I share and/or whose work I admire (in the context of choosing a logo for my business. In general life I like to be exposed to opposing/different perspectives).

Basically I just wish people would generally act less as if they have a claim to what's right or good or truthful, on such subjective matters, because they are really just sharing an opinion. To this author, communicating the brand identity is an important feature of a logo. No matter how many people agree, nor how many textbooks it's written in, nor how much data shows it drives profitability and brand awareness - it still can't be used to say that a logo is objectively wrong or bad.

[rdancer]

An expert is a child wise beyond his years, who sees the state of emperor's clothing for what it is. An "expert" is anyone who can persuade the presumptively adult fools that he knows something they don't.

Your argument re: experts fails because it reaches for the authority of "experts", while that's exactly what OP lampoons.

[mattcaywood]

Schiff seems to assume a design must always communicate on first glance. However, a design like this has many chances to make an impression.

The multiplicity of nonsense words the logo could encode is irrelevant to its quality. Having seen and correctly interpreted 'mitp' once, top-down visual priming guarantees you will never again see 'imlji,' 'nnlji,' 'uolp,' or 'oulji.'

It's like those "can yeu raed tihs" memes. Of course you can read it. Especially the second time.

(I do think Cooper's original logo is brilliant, and the MIT Media Lab logos are overly systematized.)

[wozniacki]

This is a most pertinent debate to introduce Roger Scruton's most excellent & eminently watchable "Why Beauty Matters"[1]

I don't know how much the readership of HN is versed in contemporary American popular culture's obsession with the round rejection of traditional ideas of beauty.

I would go as far as to say that the current leitmotif seems to be 'embrace ugliness & dullness' for the sake of it and little else.

These general themes are found in all aspects of our current culture.

Perversion for the sake of perversion.

Bawdiness for the sake of bawdiness.

Irony for the sake of irony.

One can speculate on why and to what end this obsession with these revolting themes is so commonly found in these self-professed avant-gardes.

[1] Why Beauty Matters (Por que a beleza importa?) Roger Scruton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHw4MMEnmpc

[nemo1618]

One of the things I love about art is that it is almost defined by its resistance to definition. You say "art has to be beautiful," and art says "no, fuck you, a urinal can be art." You say "well, art at least has to mean something," and art says "no, fuck you, a big red square can be art."

Personally, I'm hoping to see a post-ironic return to traditional values of beauty, purely as a way of flipping the bird to a society that finally embraces the new paradigm.

[rmsrmsrms]

Art expresses something ineffable about the self of the artist. Or at least this works for me, so far.

[jamesdelaneyie]

Interesting video. You might find this account of a debate (that happened the same year as that BBC doc) interesting as well. Roger participated in it. http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/mar/22/national...

[clock_tower]

I'm not surprised that it's a hatchet job, given that it's _The Guardian_ on a conservative position; but even by their standards, it's kind of low to ask one of the principals of a debate to write an article about that debate!

[x5n1]

It's not an indictment of anything except human nature itself. Recently read about a very good looking guy who married an acid attack victim. It's the human spirit, when you can have anything, you can literally have anything. Perfection itself is a flaw if it's easily attainable, imperfection is worth more.

Easy is boring, hard is in charge. Or some other drivel to match the current trend. Because it's hot! hot! hot!

[gonehome]

The entire thing is pretty scathing - it was also hard to believe that the part about the HP logo wasn't tongue-in-cheek satire, but came from a real logo designer.

Feels a lot like an emperor has no clothes types situation and a lot people pretending there's science behind something that might as well be random.

[EliRivers]

Don't forget modern business.

“Yo, dude, success is failure,” Kalanick said, stopping momentarily and bumping his fist against my glass. “He who fails most — wins.”

[bloat]

Conrad's "Modern Times, Modern Places" is a wonderful book about modernism in art in the 20th century, if you're interested in finding out more about the whys and whos and wheres and whats of the whole business.

[randomsearch]

Slight aside, but art does not have to be beautiful to be good art.

[tawpKek]

That, right there, is a damning indictment of your understanding of modernist design and art. Visual communication achieved acclaim because it prioritized functionality over decoration and did so with the tools of reduction and abstraction. Art achieved acclaim because it prioritized the idea over the object.

As an aside, your tone makes you sound like a puerile weasel.