[...] A few months ago I was reading one of my favorite blogs, Logo Design Love, and in a very short post the author posed the question “Are Iconic Logos Designed, or Bought?” [...]

How cool, I’ve just found this site and was having a similar conversation recently with a colleague of mine. I concluded the following.

For anything to be iconic it must have a certain amount of “exposure” If I designed the worlds greatest logo and I was the only person to see it, it could never be considered iconic. Therefore an iconic logo must have exposure. In our global village money is required to succeed in any venture, therefore the answer is YES, money does buy exposure and that intern can lead to iconic status.

However great movements can also emerge and when coupled with a great logo design they can succeed organically and achieve iconic status. This is however quite rare and having money is much more of a guarantee of exposure, so Iconic logos are mostly bought but not always.

The greatest confusion arises when we mixup Quantity with Quality. Spending time with my 7 year old nephew clearly illustrates how we are programmed to beleive biggest, fastest, tallest…. is best. The primary reason we consider these logos to be iconic is because we rate them not just according to their aesthetic merit but on the level of exposure. When the oil runs out will the graphic designers of tomorrow be saying “What Shell Logo?”

It is much easier to quantify and qualify which is the biggest company than it is to quantify and qualify which is the best design. Whist there are many agreed criteria for judging the aesthetic merits of one logo against another it ultimately comes down taste and we all know how quickly tastes change.

Time is the crucial factor here. The greater length of time a logo is in circulation the greater exposure it gets. The key thing is a logo designed for today must meet the needs of tomorrow. An iconic logo design must remain relevant for the same period of time that it is receiving a high level of exposure. Or at least be tweakable, like the shell and coke logos, so the public at large will not see a discernable difference.

Finally the more people who say a thing is iconic the more it does in perception become iconic, regardless of how qualified a person is to make such a remark and how accurate their remarks are. If everyone says the earth is flat, is it not flat?

T: Time E: Exposure O: Organic Q:Quality PP: People Perception $ = MANY$$$$$

A logo can become memorable for its low design quality or for its genius design. A good example would be the London 2012 Olympics Games, a very controversial issue that can give to this terrible logo a place in history.

Another example of how important is the technical level of the logo itself and that not always big budgets do the trick is in the chinese market. Chinese companies have huge budgets behind their brands but their logos are so lame and so terrible designed that they could never get the level of memorability and iconography of Nike, Apple, CocaCola, etc.

So yes a big budget is important but also a good design is essential.

But having a small marketing budget is the best argument for creating a good logotype, since it will have to get the most bang for the buck.

Can it become “iconic?” I would have said no 10 years ago, but considering the huge influence of the internet, hell yes!

I don’t know how much money Google spends in media other than internet based, but I’d wager it’s a fraction of what Coaca-Cola or Nike spends in mass advertising.

Most of the logos mentioned there have all had huge marketing spend (and thus visability) for at least a generation. Nike, Shell, IBM, Macdonalds, Coca-Cola etc.. all have strong logos but its the epic amount of money that gets makes them highly visible and keeps them visible.

Therefore I would have to say no. You can have a logo that has the potential to be “iconic” but without the money to put it somewhere, and keep it there, that’s all it will ever be.

What the logo symbolizes and what drives its popularity (a corporation, a religious entity, a mass movement, a product) would decide whether it getting bought is a factor.

Standing the test of time, and somehow being able to evoke more than just what the product or idea itself is, seems to be indicative of iconic nature.

I hope whoever it was that designed the heart shape got paid handsomely.