After going through a successful weight-loss experience, Riyadh-based designer Adelbanfeel decided to add a few extra pixels to some of the most well known fast food logos in the world, all in order to help him avoid eating in those places again. The series was more than appropriately entitled "That's How I See It", and the logos of McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut, amongst others where fattened, metaphorically giving them a taste of their...

There was a time, not so long ago, when flying was considered a glamorous experience, something people aspire to do, a rite of passage, something you had to do before you die. The American Airlines brand has taken an active role in helping to shape this image since the company's formation back in 1930, when it was know as American Airways. Popular belief had it, that in those golden days, working for the company was a privilege of a very few, having...

As strange as this may sound for some, not every designer is a good logo designer. I've met many highly talented designers who are terrible at designing logos. Actually, some of the best designers I know are so aware of that, that they even prefer to not take on this type of project. The process of creating a logo, at least on a professional level, can easily become a long series of complex tasks that don't necessarily have anything to do with designing,...

When I start telling people about the importance of a favicon to their overall online branding strategy, they usually say the same thing: "Aren't you taking this branding thing a little bit too far?" My answer usually goes: "Not if you're serious about your own branding efforts!" It's true, favicons are very little things, probably the least important bit of a site, but it's attention to detail that makes a site stand out; and even if it sounds...

This is the logo you may be soon looking at whenever you point your browser to yahoo.com The Internet giant have not yet made an official announcement about any change on their identity, but a TechCrunch reader was asked to give a feedback on a new Yahoo! logo while answering an online survey. Besides the change of color from purple to a deep blue, which actually still has a lot of purple in it, the most noticeable feature change is the choice for a...

What if we lived in a world where the only available typeface was Comic-Sans? That's the idea, or at least must have been what the Russian Belgorod-based designer Oleg Tarasov was thinking when he decided to re-design some of the most well know brands of our time using the usually frowned upon Comic-Sans type. Oleg posted his designs over on his Behance profile. The comments there ranged from the very common "this looks funny" — well,...

One feature that can make a logo shine more than any other is hidden meaning. Remember the last time you saw a logo that made you go 'Ahaaa!'? So, that's what I'm going to approach in this article, the cherry on the top of the logo cake. There are plenty of articles that skirt around this topic on the web, but too many think that hidden meaning is just about negative space; that's wrong. There's much more to hidden meaning than just using negative space....

Some people think that branding is a highly expensive marketing activity that can only be pursued by multinationals with million dollar budgets while others regard branding as a highly complex strategy that only those well trained are able to use efficiently. These statements are not false, but they are only a small part of a bigger picture. There's at least one aspect of branding which is so simple that even a child could do it, as easy as pie,...

Every now and then I’m approached by design students and clients asking me to critique their logos. While I’m not particularly fond of critiquing anyone’s work, especially when it's hard to find something positive to say, I’m happy to help students raise their game and charge a consultancy fee to any client looking for a professional opinion. Specializing in the creation of identities allows me to easily identify —no pun intended...

The psychology of logo design is one of the most oversimplified aspects behind the process of creating a logo. It's usually associated exclusively with the choice of colors but is actually much more than that. While "logo design" refers to the activity of creating a logo, and the term "logo" is used to refer to any symbol created for the purpose of identification, the "psychology of logo design" is the study of any meaning that can be seen in a logo...

The 2012 Olympic Games are soon to start, and there are a growing number of bloggers and websites, especially those from the social media sphere, raising awareness to the controversial role branding is playing in London 2012. The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, or LOCOG for short, have put in place some really aggressive guidelines to protect the interests of the official sponsors. I personally believe...