Opinion BY Armin

SFMTA’s Spec Logo Doesn’t Suck

Established in 1912, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) is responsible for the transit system in the Bay Area, the seventh largest in the United States, that encompasses pedestrians, bicycling, transit, traffic and parking and regulates the taxi industry. SFMTA is responsible for the city’s popular cable cars and Muni. In April of this year, in collaboration with ImproveSF — an initiative sponsored by the City and County of San Francisco that allows anyone to contribute ideas to improve the city’s government — SFMTA launched a contest to redesign its logo as it neared its 100th year. From about 45 submissions, the judges selected a design submitted by Paul Miller, creative director at Method, Inc., one of the leading firms in San Francisco.

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Opinion BY Armin

Human Rights Logo Takes Flight

In early May, the call for entries for A Logo for Human Rights (LHR), a “global creative online competition with cash prizes and open to everyone,” was announced. The goal? To “create a human rights logo ‘by people for people’, thus making a contribution towards the global spread and implementation of human rights with the support of a large public.” The process was your typical contest malarkey: People design, people upload, people vote on uploaded logos, designers e-mail friends and family to vote for their logos, participants complain about the voting process, the top 100 vote getters get presented to the jury (Spiekermann! Ai WeiWie! Jimmy Wales! Jimmy Carter!) and the “experts” (No! Idea! Who! They! Are!), the jurors select their own favorite ten logos, of those top vote getters ten finalists are presented again for online public voting, participants complain about the selection process, finalists designers e-mail friends and family to vote for their logos, a winner is announced. On Friday, LHR announced that Serbian designer Predrag Stakic had been selected as the winner from over 15,000 submissions.

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In Brief BY Armin

In Brief: August Miscellany

This edition of In Brief isn’t particularly uplifting. But it sure is entertaining.

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A B-Side BY Armin

Parques Nacionales de Canarias

Located to the Northwest of Africa, the Canary Islands are a set of Spanish islands with beautiful national parks. The result of a contest, the new logo for Parques Nacionales de Canarias has been designed by Sevilla, Spain-based Pedro Olivares. A PDF with more applications of the logo can be found here.

Thanks to Nora Gummert-Hauser for the tip.

Opinion BY Armin

Bioplastics is the New Recycling

Bioplastics are an environmentally friendly alternative to regular ol’ plastics. Made from renewable resources like vegetable oil, corn starch, or pea starch, or corn, tapioca, potatoes, sugar and algae. Some bioplastics are even designed to biodegrade, which basically means you can toss the thing into your backyard (or better yet, your compost) and it will eventually become not the thing it currently is. Bioplastics got a bit of a public boost when Pepsi announced that it would launch a pilot bottle in 2012 made out of “bio-based raw materials, including switch grass, pine bark and corn husks”. Looking to capitalize on the popularity of this growing trend is Cereplast, a California-based company that designs and manufactures proprietary starch-based, sustainable plastics. In January of this year, Cereplast launched a contest to design a new symbol to represent bioplastics. Yup, you know where this is headed.

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In Brief BY Armin

Make the Logo Suckier

Brand New readers it is time to put your money where your mouth is: Think you know what makes a logo suck? You certainly have no shortage of comments when you see it. It’s time to put theory to practice. In How Low Can Your Logo? design studio Fuzzco is “testing your capacity to willingly create that which you spend your entire life trying not to create: the worst logo ever.” The client is fake, Excellencico, who offers “integrated turn-key solutions to the ever-changing, world-class, international business marketplace.” The brief is fake, asking for “the logo convey the forward-thinking nature of our company without looking too futuristic or flashy but we also don’t want anything too conservative or neutral. ‘Just right’ is the vibe we are looking for.” Yes, it’s fake, but not unrealistic. After the audience votes on the worst, we will be judging along with Chris Erickson, Frank Chimero, Jessica Hische, Mikey Burton, and The Heads of State. (Worst judges ever.) So apply what you’ve learned here on Brand New and create the nastiest logo you can. For inspiration I leave you with my first paid logo (below or after the jump). It’s a good thing I can’t enter, because that would win by a landslide and I was trying to do a good logo.

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