Gallery: All Good Logos Are Modernist Logos, Really
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A new book out this month, called *Logo Modernism* catalogs and offers analysis on 6,000 logos, collected by designer Jens Müller.
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All the logos are what Müller has deemed Modernist, meaning they're simple yet functional and expressive. The 6,000 logos are separated into three main categories—geometric, effect, and typographic—within which there are 20 style categories, like dots, grid, or 3-D. This page shows a smattering of logos that combine two letters.
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Massimo Vignelli is often hailed as the quintessential Modernist designer. His now-iconic work for American Airlines neatly embodies the design ideology of the time: the bold but simple lettering served as a flexible communications tool for the airline.
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A hallmark of good Modernist logo design is the mark's ability to work in a system. This 1973 design for Claude Neon, an ad firm made of several other ad firms, splits the letter "C" five ways. Each logo stands on its own yet clearly belongs to the others.
Taschen05Vogt (Armin, CH) für Jean Reiwald Werbeagentur (Basel, CH) 1967
The simple Fiat logo, made in the 1960s, consists only of letters encased in parallelogram boxes.
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Rotation is another visual, geometric trick oft-used by logo designers.
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An entire third of the book's logos are actually wordmarks. They still lean heavily on simplicity and geometry.
