A project of mine required a comparison of the world’s most well-known sports brand logos. They’re shown together below in case the quick reference might be useful for you.

Adidas — the trefoil logo is still used on the heritage product division

Asics

Champion

Diadora

Ellesse

Fila

Head

K-Swiss

Lacoste

Lotto Sport Italia

Mitre

Mizuno

New Balance

Nike — 1971 by Carolyn Davidson, modified in 1978 and 1985 by Nike

Prince

Puma

Rbk — designed in 2001 by Arnell Group

Russell Corporation

Umbro — view the Umbro logo evolution

Wilson

Should you know the name of the designer responsible, or the year of creation, I’d very much appreciate you leaving details in a comment.

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Today saw the launch of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games logo.

Glasgow design agency Marque is responsible for the identity design project, said to have cost £95,000. This fee covers such elements as brand guidelines, animated work, visual language, typography, photographic style, and art direction.

Developing a specific logo for the event is a requirement made by the the Commonwealth Games Federation as part of the contract for hosting the games.

Having a logo allows the organisers the best possible chance to earn additional revenue because they can sell the use of the design to sponsors.

The horizontal bar and emblem at the foot of the logo are required elements, and you’ll see them used in designs for other recent Commonwealth Games (Delhi 2010 for example).

About the design, from the Glasgow 2014 website:

1. The Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games will be the 20th Games. This is a landmark number that adds to Glasgow’s pride in being its host. The outer ring, that encompasses the others, is a strong, vibrant red — the official “True Red” of the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) palette.
2. There will be 17 sports on the programme at Glasgow 2014. The next ring of the brand identity, in “Triumph Yellow” from the CGF palette, represents the number of sports. It’s exactly 17/20ths of the full circle.
3. Glasgow 2014 will host 11 days of competition, which are represented in the third ring of the brand identity, rendered in the CGF’s “Heritage blue”, and making up 11/20ths of the circle.
4. At the heart of our brand identity is 1 Host City, represented by “G” for Glasgow, meaning “Dear Green Place” in Gaelic, and is in a suitably vibrant green.

Mark Noe, Managing Director of Marque said:

“We are privileged to have had the opportunity to create the brand identity for such a significant event as the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. The identity is one which is grounded in integrity and design rigour and we are proud of the legacy that it will leave behind for Glasgow and Scotland. We hope that the identity will become an iconic symbol celebrating a very special moment in time – and will become synonymous with quality, achievement and vision.”

You can view a short digital animation of the logo here.

In the embedded YouTube video below you’ll see John Donnelly, director of marketing and sponsorship for the Games, talking to The Drum about the process of designing the identity, the appointment procedure and explaining how it will be used to promote and market Glasgow’s event over the course of the next four years.

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The Logorama movie is a short animation by H5. It has been nominated won at the 2010 Oscars in the short film category. Full movie below.

In a world made up entirely of trademarks and brand names, Michelin Man cops pursue a criminal Ronald McDonald.

“Spectacular car chases, an intense hostage crisis, wild animals rampaging through the city… and even more in LOGORAMA!”

All 16 minutes (taking an incredible six years to make) are shown in the embedded video panel below.

Best viewed full-screen. Contains profanity.

Logorama on IMDB. Via @debbiemillman (thanks!).

Update: 08 March 2010
Watch the Oscar acceptance speech.

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7×7 – Future Focus was the fourth in a series of lectures from the Design Institute of Australia, held during The Melbourne Design Festival in 2009. Luminaries from seven design disciplines presented their top seven future industry trends and predictions to an audience of creatives from all design sectors.

The visual identity, created by Landor’s Sydney office, reflected the idea of looking beyond the obvious, to seeing more than is immediately visible, and reading between the lines.

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“So we looked at the history, the people, and this place for inspiration. Digging through the museum’s artifacts, we found this map of William Penn’s original plan for the city.

“It was a tight, orderly grid with interspersed parks — Penn’s vision was for a “Greene Country Towne.” That street plan still exists in what is now called Center City between Vine and South Streets.

“So the project’s designer, Adam Garcia, began sketching versions of Philadelphia’s grid.

“We all liked this hand drawn version, as it echoed Penn’s original map while also containing the slight imperfections that make Philadelphia so unique and interesting. The final piece was adding type. And just like Philadelphia itself, that confining grid ended up giving the logo its distinctive character. Here’s the final product:”

Read a more detailed explanation on the 160over90 blog, or you can view the case study in 160over90’s online portfolio.

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And so it is decided, The Greater London Authority has confirmed that Saffron Brand Consultants has won the Brand for London tender to create a visual identity for the capital.

Saffron principal Ian Stephens says that the London marque’s launch will not come ‘much later’ than the GLA’s original deadline of next month.

Hot on the heels of the announcement, New York-based brand developer Prescott Perez-Fox published his own pitch.

Perez-Fox said, “One of the main criticisms for the whole [tendering] effort was the fact that only a handful of design firms were allowed to bid in the first place. You could almost name them before the competition started. City officials determined a minimum standard of size, billings, compliance, insurance, health & safety, and other criteria which immediately ruled out so many of the very talented 3-person agencies in the UK. (For example, how many design firms have a policy of community outreach for LGBT people, or have calculated their carbon footprint accurately?)

“My effort takes advantage of London’s graphic DNA, consisting of bright colours, simple shapes, clean typography, whitespace, and the general notion that you can combine anything,” Perez-Fox continued. “My motivation, as I imagined others felt, was to create something expandable from the start, something that creates a system, rather than one beautiful symbol crowbarred into every application.”

“The identity is hinged on an updated version of the classic British typeface Gill Sans. This new version, which I’m temporarily calling ‘Giww’ has simplified some of the characters, especially those with curves.”

View the full Perez-Fox project on his page for the London brand. He finishes the post by asking, “What do you think? Could it work in practice? What would critics have to say about it? Following the backlash of London 2012 Olympics Logo, are the British welcoming for such a design scheme? Is it recognisable, unique, ownable enough for your tastes?”

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1Place Patent Attorneys

Candy Cranks

Minds Wanted

Ripple

More identity and branding work on the Effektive website.

Stellar work, Greig. And a great example of how to use the Cargo web publishing platform.

Effektive on Twitter // the Effektive blog.

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Too good not to share. View the full set on Flickr.

Via @BlairThomson.

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Fairly new from Pentagram is this identity for Urban Green.

“The graphic identity evokes the density of urban life and the city blocks of Midtown Manhattan.”

Project Team: Michael Bierut, partner-in-charge and art director; Jennifer Kinon, designer.

I enjoy viewing the work of designers at the top of their game.

More images and info on the Pentagram blog.

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The logo and slogan of next European football championships, EURO 2012, were unveiled yesterday at a ceremony in Ukraine’s capital.

UEFA President Michel Platini (centre), Poland Soccer Federation President Grzegorz Lato (left) and Ukrainian FA president Grigoriy Surkis (right) took part in the official presentation in downtown Kiev.

The logo is shows the stalk of a flower with three branches. A ball is depicted around the central flower, with the left flower being red and white (the colors of Poland’s flag) and the right flower being yellow and blue (the colors of Ukraine’s flag).

“The vivid colors of the logo are a perfect fit with the image that Poland and Ukraine want to give to the world,” said Platini at the ceremony.

“The symbolism of a plant that grows is fully in line with the aspirations of the two host countries, and I am sure that we will be creating history together, with the staging of the UEFA European Football Championship in central and eastern Europe for the first time,” he said.

Quoted from People’s Daily Online.

The following is excerpted from the UEFA website.

Visual identity
The purpose of the logo is to give UEFA EURO 2012™ a personality of its own, with the visual identity to be applied across a range of promotional applications from tickets to web banners. The objective is to help promote the tournament – one of the world’s biggest sporting events – by providing an easily recognisable identity with a flavour of the host nations. The logo takes its visual lead from ‘wycinanka’, the traditional art of paper cutting practised in rural areas of Poland and Ukraine, as a tribute to the fauna and flora of the region.

EURO bloom
The ‘bloom’ logo has a flower representing each of the co-host nations and a central ball symbolising the emotion and passion of the competition, while the stem denotes the structural aspect of the competition, UEFA and European football. Nature has inspired other features of the visual identity, with woodland green, sun yellow, aqua blue, sky blue and blackberry purple being the crucial tones of the palette of colours to figure in official tournament branding.

Uniting ethos
The event slogan, meanwhile, is ‘Creating History Together’. The staging of the UEFA European Championship finals in Poland and Ukraine, a first for Central and Eastern Europe, will have a place in the history books, with everyone involved in UEFA EURO 2012™ – organisers, host countries, host cities, players and fans – contributing to another exciting chapter of European football.

I’d love it if the organisers moved back to a style of design similar to the ‘84, ‘88, and ‘92 championships.

They weren’t perfect, but I reckon they’re stronger than the cartoon designs that have followed since.

Lovely video, though.

Update: 15 December 2009
As stated on Creative Review, the design is by Portuguese group Brandia Central, with strategy and creative direction by Futurebrand who worked alone on the project (thanks, João).

A video of the unveiling presentation can be viewed here.

Image credit: Daylife

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