Logos are the cornerstone of branding, presenting the uniqueness of a company through its visual representation. Choices in color, font, sizing, etc. are all indicators of the values, services, and type of company the logo is defining, and the difference between a good logo, and one less successful, lies in the visual's ability to accurately convey those traits.
This is important in all industries but especially so for those who work in fields where design ability is a vital part of those services—say, for instance, like architecture. At this point, the logo no longer becomes just an identity mark but a case made for the quality of one's services. While the architecture firms of yesterday may have been able to get by through word of mouth and good work alone, with roughly over 21,000 firms operating in the U.S. today, the field is considerably more competitive. This industry growth has made having a strong visual identity essential for firms vying for the top of the marketplace.
Brand New, a division of the graphic design firm UnderConsideration, is a site displaying opinions on corporate and brand identity work. Edited and written by Armin Vit, we had the co-founder offer up his assessment of the logos for the 10 most popular architecture firms on Archinect, illuminating what they say about their companies and their work.
Perhaps it's because they are number one on the list, they can get away with possibly the least logo-ish of all these logos. It's a super thin sans serif, which takes a lot of confidence to use because it doesn't have a lot of impact, and with most logos, almost every client wants more, not less, impact. It's nice and elegant but ultimately unmemorable, boring, and conveys very little about SOM or the fact that SOM may stand for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill… which goes back to the confidence thing in that they know they are one of the top firms and anyone that matters knows what SOM stands for.
I haven't seen a full-on bitmap-graphic logo — much less a full-on bitmap-graphic website — since the late 1990s, so to me this feels heavily dated, and not in a good way, and gives me the impression that their work will be very blocky, which is perhaps a very literal way of reading a logo, but that's what logos are meant to do: communicate something about the subject at hand and, right now, all I feel like doing is firing up my Atari 2600. One positive thing I can say is that the three blocky letters are well executed, but when you are working with pixel-based letters and only three letters, it would be hard to screw up.
I have a personal dislike for logos typeset in Helvetica that pretend to not care that they are using the most ubiquitous typeface in the world, but they obviously care because they made that choice, and when it comes to famous architects, every design decision is deliberate. The only thing worse about a logo typeset in Helvetica? One typeset in Arial, which, given the typography on their website, seems to be the case. The logo makes more sense in the context of their website where everything is the same boring, bland font.
It's one of the nicest font choices so far. It looks crisp, clean, and its subtle boldness gives it a good corporate vibe. They also do a good job in pushing that red color. Of all the architecture firms I know, I have always associated Gensler with the use of red, even though most architecture firms use red.
A slightly less engaging and warm version than Gensler's but on the same wavelength. The large, thin plus sign is the most graphic thing we've seen so far in this list, but it's really not that interestingly or originally executed. Not that this plus sign has to shoot fireworks or anything, but even as a "cool" substitution for the word "and" or an ampersand, it's pretty mundane.
This is one of the rare logos on this list that matches the work produced. Not so much this static version shown, but if you go to their website (on desktop/laptop) and scroll, you will see the full wordmark that has all these weird, unique characters that shrink and/or mutate. It's pretty interesting, well executed, and, more importantly, it makes me want to see how else they present themselves. In contrast to the plus sign from Foster + Partners, this one has the same thickness as the rest of the letters, so there is a better cohesiveness in the unit. In the static version, the monospace letters — where the D, S, R, and + are the exact same width — gives it a strong presence.
I'm not a big fan of this one. The all-lowercase approach is too off-putting, especially in contrast to how they write it, which is "SHoP". It's such a wide deviation that, in logo form, it comes across as the company being for named as ingeniously as "bread" or "monday". I guess one could say the "o" being shown in the negative space of the "h" and "p" is clever but, well, it's not.
This is kind of interesting because of the long dash and the neat alignment of the two lines. I do wonder why they chose to add a dash on the right side but not on the left, given that their name is not hyphenated. It's a little gratuitous, but at least it made me perk up a little. The type choice is solid, and the orange color is a little different from the rest.
I have never understood their logo. Perhaps there is a logical explanation (or complex back story), but without knowledge of either, this is just a fairly random collection of mountainous shape. However, it does match the idiosyncrasies of their work, so it works well. (Editor's Note: Snøhetta is the tallest mountain in Norway, hence the mountainous logo shape)
I really dislike this logo. It's probably one of the most distinctive out of all this bunch, but to me, it comes across as cheap, and I think the main problem is the "Z" that's not as well resolved as the "H" or "A" where, at least the notches are cut on a curve and makes it somewhat interesting. The full logo they use on their website isn't that much better BUT, and this is a big but, where my personal subjective opinion is rendered moot, the logo has some of the playfulness and curvature of their work.
Paul Petrunia is the founder and director of Archinect, a (mostly) online publication/resource founded in 1997 to establish a more connected community of architects, students, designers and fans of the designed environment. Outside of managing his growing team of writers, editors, designers and ...
Alexander Walter grew up in East Germany with plenty of Bratwurst. He studied Architecture and Media Design at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Germany, and participated in foreign exchange programs with Washington-Alexandria Architecture Consortium in Alexandria, Virginia and Waseda University in ...
9 Comments
Never realized (consciously) how off some of these are. Especially disappointed by SHoP, OMA and Snøhetta because they claim to care about all aspects of design. SHoP would be a fun fix, as would all of these. Am surprised nobody tries any combination of text and abstract graphic, apart from literal mountains. BIG comes closest, with the blocky shape as both abstract ethos as well as summation of their design process. The rest are appropriately corporate. ZHA looks bad.
Loved reading this. Totally true, SHoP spelled out is so much more interesting than their logo. I get that Snøhetta is named after the tallest mountain in Norway, however the mountain icon seems to be too abstract to tie it back to Snøhetta, the firm or the mountain.
if you want to compare logos you need to see them in context.
Not really a rocket science of a Logo, but not entirely random image of a mountain... Pretty straightforward connection... would expect someone with background in brands to see it...
Why would they mirror the N? Your explanation doesn't make any sense at all to me. If anything, the angle of the left slope of "the mountain" has the exact same angle as the "stroke" in the ø...because they are also graphic designers and precise :)
snø means snow by the way, and hetta means cap or hood and Snøhetta is an actual mountain peak in Norway though, there's your straightforward connection: https://goo.gl/maps/k85pYfu2uDA2
I agree with you, and actually, now that you've written it, in in English even sounds close... never thought of it... I like their work, like the logo also. What I meant was - it felt a bit like the author did not spend much time analyzing the logo... more like in the coffee break or something...As for the mirrored N - it was just flow of thought.. next to it is lower caps "n" which was the initial association. My break down was quite primitive and instant and just to show that they obviously have put some thought in the logo and it should not be qualified as random :)
Your assumption about the stroke and the ø is quite interesting and in place :)
Logos have to work in context, but they also have to work on their own. Maybe there is a reason why architects don’t follow the great corporate logos like IBM, MasterCard, Apple, VW, BMW, etc. seems like SOM could.
Part 2 could go deeper into this, seems interesting firms left out like HOK, etc. Not as “popular” but just as influential. Could also do a 10 best and 10 worst list.
A logo should be nothing more than an identification sign. The ideea that the logo should comunicate anything could not be more wrong.
No surprise to see the names Zaha Hadid Architects and Foster+ Partners on this list of the most popular architecture firms on Archinect. But the comments about the company logos are a tadbit surprising. But some of these critics are valid. Great article.
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