The Cattery

The Cattery

Droplets

26 October 2005
Filed under Business, Design, Text

A couple of years ago I read this article, which identified 15 then-current trends in logo design. Top of the list was the ‘droplets’ type of logo ��� a design that depicts “two or more droplets caught in the act of merging, usually symbolic of convergence or union”. It’s conceptually pretty lazy (not to mention steeped in evil - see BHP Billiton) - and I anticipated that it would fade away pretty quickly. I was wrong.

For whatever reason – ease of execution, fluidity of meaning – the style lingers. Microsoft has moved some way away from its first OSX Office logo, but this week I’ve seen two new logos that fall into the same category: one for Interacto* and one for the web’s hottest young beta, Flock.

Droplets converging: Flock, Interacto and Microsoft Office logos

To be blunt, Flock needs a new logo. For an apparently ambitious (or at the very least, well-hyped) project to fall back on such a weary trope is disappointing: all that the logo tells us is that this supposed fount of innovation and interestingness is dry when it comes to design, and that ain’t good. It’s particularly irritating because I’m still almost completely oblivious to what Flock DOES or why I’d use it, and solid branding, with a great logo at the forefront, should at least make me want to know. But I just don’t.

Paul Scrivens covers Flock’s problems in more detail in his somewhat cruelly-titled piece ‘Flock never stood a chance’; I disagree to an extent. Flock did - and still does - stand a chance, if only it’s able to articulate its message (‘what is Flock? why do you want it?’) and haul in its intended target audience. But when your intended target audience has been saturated over the last year with really great so-called ‘Web 2.0’ applications – many launched by the masters of the branding/hype combination punch, 37Signals – then the clarity of the message is almost as important as the application itself.

* I’ve got no intention of picking on the little guy here - Interacto’s OSX GUI unifier is excellent, and the company’s logo is one of many, many small-shop IDs I could’ve pointed to as an example.

Views from the Floor

James says:

BHP is evil? They've only ever shown me warmth and kindness!

Virginia says:

No no no! Just their logo is evil! BHP is the very soul of goodness.

James says:

I believe said logo cost millions of pretty pennies to make. Now it's clich?©.. hehe

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