Fill/Stroke.com
Questions for identity designers: Michael Bierut
To preface this series of interviews, here are the questions I originally asked:
How do you approach a new branding project?
What does your research include?
Would you describe your process?
What do you feel is the most successful brand you’ve designed? Why?
How do you test an idea?
The first response I received was from Michael Bierut, partner at Pentagram.
Michael wrote:
Tanner,
Rather than answering the questions, I refer you to a few places that may give you a more complete answer:
This is My Process
The Mysterious Power of Context
New Work: Museum of Arts and Design
Moving to the Big Citi
New Work: Saks Fifth AvenueIf you have specific questions about anything you see here, I’d be happy to help you.
Michael
I quickly realized I may have written boring questions and decided to take Michael up on his offer to ask a more specific question.
Michael: thank you for sending me links to your articles.
In “the mysterious power of context,” you write about the importance of a brand’s context. You also admit that much of a brand’s context is out of our hands.
Since without context a logo is merely a mark with little to no meaning, how do you know when you’ve reached a proper solution? In different terms, how do you sell a design, before its been put into context?
Tanner
And this is when I became very glad that he gave me an opportunity for a followup question.
Dear Tanner,
Paul Rand has a great quote somewhere in which he says that a good logo has “the pleasure of recognition and the promise of meaning.”
I always liked that “promise of meaning” part, which reminds me of the “pursuit of happiness” mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. A good logo doesn’t necessarily mean everything — or anything — the day it’s born. Instead, it’s like an empty vessel into which meaning is poured. Some vessels are well suited to the things they are destined to contain. Some are not. A good designer tries to make well-shaped vessels.
This is a subtle point to make but I try to make it to clients when I’m taking them through the logo design process. It usually works.
Hope this helps.
Michael
Since Michael sent me this advice, its sort of always been in the back of my mind. Hopefully you find it useful. You can find more information about Michael here.
Check back next Monday to see what Chermayeff and Geismar had to say.
_
This post is part of a series about identity design. Further reading is below.
Previously
I observed 1,035 identities today.
Steve Jobs quote in enlarged TextEdit icon
A clock for identity designers
Responses from Chermayeff and Geismar
Responses from David Rengifo
Responses from Armin Vit
A Poster for Identity Designers
Posted by tanner in branding, clock project on 22 December 2008.
[...] Read the rest of the article here [...]
1. Fill/Stroke + Michael Bei&hellip. 27 February 2009.
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