Logo 5: The GUST Logo

The final logo I will be talking about is the logo of the university that I have been attending for two years now, GUST. The Gulf University of Science and Technology was established January 1997 by a group of Kuwaiti academicians and businessmen.

The offical GUST logo

While I may not be the best student around, I can say that I’ve learned a great amount of things from the classes I’ve attended and from my professors.

The logo is very true to the Kuwaiti culture while maintaining a modern edge. My interpretation of the logo is that it looks to be a frontal view of a dhow (old Kuwaiti ship). 

Image of a Dhow

This makes the logo appeal to native Kuwaiti students and brings the feeling of pride for the hard work that their ancestors did to set the ground for what they are doing today.

The color scheme is also very appealing. It’s a particular shade of blue and one green part. The blue seems to signify the color of the sea, which is a big part of Kuwait’s economic history. And the green part isn’t very clear to me, what I think is that it represents land, having the dhow get to shore, signifying progress.

 

GUST produces introductory video on youtube 

Logo 4: The Linkin Park Logo

The Linkin Park logo since 2002

The next logo I will be covering is of the widely popular industrial-rock, nu metal band Linkin Park. While I am not the biggest fan of their music, they have one of the most creative and interesting logos out of many rock bands today.

Linkin Park's original logo in 2000

Linkin Park was founded in 1996 by Mike Shinoda, Rob Bourdon, and Brad Delson. They named the band that name as a homage to Lincoln Park, Santa Monica.

 They have met a large amount of success in the form of diamond certification by the Recording Industry Association of America, topping the billboard charts, millions of album sales worldwide and spearheading the nu-metal genre.

Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda performing live in Montreal 2014
(photo credit to Kristina Servant)

Now for the logo. This logo is perfect for this band because it’s exactly the kind of logo you’d expect after listening their music. It’s simple, symmetrical and marketable. It’s a logo that would look great on a t-shirt.

It makes the use of one continuous line drawing a circle and the group’s initials “LP”. The logo is usually white on a black background. This color scheme and design compliments the band’s aggressive, heavy metal sound.

Linkin Park's most recent logo 

This logo is very noteworthy and should be regarded as one of the most iconic band logos of all time. A more recent take on the logo was created that has a hexagon shape instead of a circle to represent the band’s six members.

Sources:

https://www.famouslogos.net/linkin-park-logo/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linkin_Park

Google Images

Logo 3: The Razer Triple-Headed Snake

The next logo we will be looking at is one of the most popular and successful gaming brands, Razer. While this logo isn’t as widely well-known as Twitter or Chevrolet, but it still has a strong following consisting of gamers, or even PC users.

Razer is a company that produces PC peripherals and merchandise. The brand is particularly popular because its target demographic is gamers, specifically PC users.

The Razer Naga Chroma Gaming Mouse

The Razer Deathstalker Gaming Keyboard

Their business model frequently promotes professional gaming and Esports. They market the members or partners of the brand as “Pro-gaming elite”. The gaming market nowadays is thriving, as well as Esports; which has millions of fans and followers throughout many games, such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, FIFA and League of Legends.

Team Razer promotes professional gamers 

I personally use multiple Razer products, and they are top of the line. They are comfortable and near essential for gaming, they will also function well in general.

Now for the logo itself. I must say it is a very creative logo. The design is very sleek and cutting-edge, just like their products. The design is built on an illustration of a snake that is copied and rotated to create somewhat of a kaleidoscopic design.

Snakes are attributed with danger or aggression. Which compliments their business model of being the best at whatever game the customer’s playing.

The color scheme also agrees with this quality. It’s colored green, which is the color of victory and it’s usually placed on a solid black background which makes the green pop out almost in a glowing-like fashion.

Sources:

https://www.razerzone.com/team/logo

Google Images

Logo 2: The Chevrolet Bowtie

Chevrolet is one of the most recognizable car brands in the world. The Detroit-based brand that has been producing and manufacturing different kinds of automobiles since 1911.

The Chevrolet logo, as of 2011.

Cars, trucks, vans, SUV’s. This is the flexibility of their production. I personally drive a Chevrolet Impala. From my experience, it’s a satisfactory car. I’m not a person who’s very knowledgeable about cars, but even I can say for certain that it’s a decent car.  

2017 Chevrolet Impala

First iteration of the "bowtie" logo in 1913,

Original Chevrolet logo in 1911

The Chevrolet logo, sometimes referred to as the “Chevrolet Bowtie” or “Chevrolet Emblem” is somewhat of an enigma. At one point it is not known whether it was inspired by a French wallpaper, or borrowed from a newspaper ad or inspired by the Swiss flag.

In the end it was discovered that the design was borrowed from a 1911 ad from an Atlanta coal company, arguably copied to an extent. As with many different logos, it has gone through changes through its lifetime.

1911 ad inspires Chevrolet logo.

Now to describe the logo itself, it’s basically close to a bowtie, to signify class and high-ranking. So if you drive one of their cars, you will be associated with those attributes.

The logo has been around the same for most of the company’s run until 2004, when they decided to make the logo gold. This further signifies the fact that the company’s cars are intended to be high-class. 
The logo itself, also aesthetically, looks very pleasing on a car. It’s usually found on the grilles and it stands out. The gold color compliments the often gray color of the grilles, having it look like a piece of gold found in the wall of a mine. 

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet

http://jalopnik.com/5797651/the-real-history-of-the-chevrolet-bow-tie

http://www.chevrolet.com/culture/article/bowtie-history.html

Google Images

Logo 1: The Twitter Bird

Twitter's first logo in 2006

Twitter's second logo in 2010

Twitter redesigns their logo in 2012 

Twitter as we all know is a widely used social media platform. It has millions of users posting text, images, videos daily. Overall, the company is very successful and their brand is very recognizable by thousands and thousands of people worldwide. Twitter for me personally is an app that I spend a lot of time on. When I'm on my PC I always have twitter open in a browser tab and I frequently refresh it to see the new tweets. 

What I will be focusing on right now is the ingenious design behind the familiar twitter bird we all know.  The logo has gone through different iterations. It started as just being the word "twitter" in a unique, light blue font. Then they changed the font to black and added a blue bird icon to the right. 
By 2012, twitter has become popular enough to no longer need the text. So they redesigned the bird, gave it a slightly darker color and made it bigger. 
While I think the previous logo was solid, this one was the right move for the company to make, because of how beautifully it strikes you and how memorable it is. 

One basic design element it nails is the use of color. Aside from the fact that this shade of blue is twitter's official color, it is a strong color when it comes to marketing. 
Blue is a cool color. Which means when someone looks at the strong, vibrant color, it puts them at ease. 
Blue is associated with soft, relaxing things such as the ocean, or the sky. In this case, twitter is about connectivity, and bringing people together, bringing an overall sense of union between people from all over the world.

 

Examples of logos which use the same color scheme.

Sources:

http://www.adweek.com/creativity/twitter-redesigns-its-bird-exceedingly-meaningful-new-logo-140959/ 

https://www.colormatters.com/color-and-marketing/color-and-branding

https://www.logaster.com/blog/twitter-logo/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_design_elements_and_principles
Google Images

GUST accounting club creates promotional graphic for an event 

Photo taken by Yousef S. Alkhars, edited with VSCO