I’m enjoying Instagram right now, so here is last weekend’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone, through the eyes of my iPhone…

I had a great time, non Instagram users can find these pictures (and more) in the Flickr set here.

Last week I was invited along by Creative Review, to the Pentagram studio, for a talk by one of their partners, Angus Hyland, also the co-author of (relatively) new book Symbol.

Angus took us through ten corporate identity symbols of one kind or another, telling us a bit about their origin and meaning as well as why he liked them.

He started with the play symbol. Clever. And he went on to ask why that was such a recognised symbol for direction. In fact, perhaps arrows are one of the most fundamental symbols, and it must all come from arrowheads somewhere along the line, which we used to be pretty preoccupied by…

…In Angus’s words: “Things haven’t really changed that much.” Angus is a clear devotee of symbols, “SYMBOLS, not logotypes” and despairs of clear symbolic logos which have had the name of the company stamped across them. He quoted Eric Gill:

“Letters are not pictures, but signs for sounds”

We also learned that Bass was the first trademarked symbol in the UK, dating back to 1875, and that Carolyn Davidson designed the Nike swoosh symbol for $35. Blimey.

Angus told us that a symbol is like a bucket which doesn’t leak, it’s something which you can fill up, and over time it will hold much of the brand’s value. He told us that was why he would buy the Coca-cola logo over the secret recipe for the drink itself without hesitation: “That’s where the money is”

And so we went through the ten symbols, pausing every now and then for a quick quiz question, to which a correct (or hilariously incorrect) answer won a badge. Hyland was entertaining and witty, whilst remaining suitably shambolic with a playful glint in his eye which only comes from someone who knows their stuff inside out. He was toying with us. The thought occured to me that he’d make a good Doctor Who…

The first symbol was (of course) Apple. Angus wondered whether you’d covet a MacBook Pro if it had the ASUS logotype (not a symbol) on it, or indeed the original Apple logo: “I guess they figured that didn’t work terribly well.”

Modern branding is so damn clever and immersive, but if you get rid of the thing in the middle, you’re still at the heart of the experience… I’m not so sure…”

We learned that the bite out of the Apple was at Steve Jobs’s request, in order to give it scale – otherwise might it be mistaken for a tomato or a cherry?

He traced the evolution of the Shell symbol, reserving special comment for the”clever dick” who decided in 1955 that “it wasn’t enough to just show a shell” and admitting that as a child from Brighton, he had assumed the brand was all about the seaside.

He brought us to the WWF symbol, admitting a love for animal symbols, and saying gleefully “everyone likes their first teddy bear” and noting that although based on a drawing of a real Panda at London Zoo, it “represented a paradigm shift from illustration to symbol” in its execution.

And that brought him nicely to the Penguin symbol, where he revelled in the fact that it had nothing at all to do with the subject matter:

“Penguins don’t read books”

Angus told us how his more recent work on the Penguin symbol had involved slimming the bird down by 15%, primarily to make it easier to fit onto book spines, but also retaining it’s design quirks.

“Idiosyncrasies are what we associate that brand with.”

He spoke a few times about the tendency for companies to take the safe route when it came to their symbols, and described the woeful process whereby individuality is removed from a mark in the quest for boardroom acceptance:

“…and it enters the wind tunnel, the anodyne focus groups, where all the edges are blown off”

This struck a chord with me, I’ve often myself used a sculptural metaphor for this phenomenon, whereby the designer chips away at a piece of stone to create a beautiful sculpture, only to have a series of well-meaning but unimaginative people apply sandpaper to it, until there are no edges remaining on which anyone can snag their coat. You start out with a masterpiece and no matter what you do, you end up with a ball.

One final thought from Jan Tschicholdon on the inspiration behind the Penguin symbol? “My God, those birds stink!”

Next up was the CBS eye, where Hyland took us to the world of Mad Men corporate America.

Angus liked the “fundamental” aspect of this symbol, made from 4 circles building a pictogram of the human eye. Perhaps it was inspired by Magritte, who knows…

So from the eye to the mouth, and the Rolling Stones symbol, first used on their 1971 album Sticky Fingers.

Hyland told us the story of John Pasche who, while studying at the RCA was asked to design the symbol after Mick Jagger approached the college looking for a bargain basement symbol. The best thing about it? “It’s NOT The Beatles” but an “enduring pop-art symbol” which “encapsulates the time”.

And so that lead us to another zeitgeist-seizing symbol, that of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament…

…which we learned is actually not a trademarked symbol at all, and stems from the Aldermaston march of 1958. Perhaps an early use of a public domain socially powered identity? Why has it endured? In Hyland’s view, perhaps because it’s “so damn easy to make”, unlike other symbols for peace: “try drawing an accurate dove”.

As the symbol appeared almost virally on badges nationwide, it gained a “quasi-religious” status, but what inspired it? Opinion is divided on the matter, but Angus accepts the account which tells us it is made of of the semaphore letters N and D. Clever, huh?

The next symbol Angus talked about was the perpetual designers’ favourite, the Woolmark…

…with the most infamous aspect being who actually designed it? The symbol was the result of a competition in 1963, with the true designer to this day being somewhat unclear.

Hyland showed us how it was based on a Möbius strip, actually cutting one up in front of us, Blue Peter style.

Influenced by commercial op-art of the day, the Woolmark was agreed to be the direct ancestor of the ubiquitous recycle symbol.

Next, on to that monument of corporate identity, the Deutsche Bank logo.

I hadn’t realised that this was another symbol resulting from a competition, but crucially in this case, the entrants were shortlisted designers, judged by a panel of design experts, rather than the clients themselves. The result is an iconic symbol which would surely not have survived the “wind tunnel” if the client had intervened. Interesting stuff.

The symbol is a square you can’t penetrate “with profit inside” which is the sort of rooted abstraction many designers aspire to in mark-making. Finally, Angus reminded us that the symbol had been allowed to endure also, because it was at the heart of a well managed brand, the absence of which can be the slow death of an equally great symbol.

And so, to the final symbol Angus showed us, British Rail.

He told us this was the result of “proper design” by the Design Research Unit, the first generation of British multi-discipline design agencies, sitting around “stroking their chins”. And it’s certainly an enduring symbol, becoming the de facto icon for transport in the UK long after the demise of British Rail, as well as being emulated elsewhere in the world.

After this tenth symbol, Angus left us with an Alan Fletcher quote:

Commercial symbols are like people. Some are reasonably put together but lack personality, others are aggressive, or pompous, or merely unpleasant. Occasionally one encounters an interesting character. Whatever the case, to be effective, a trademark must meet a set of criteria: the utilitarian values of being relevant, appropriate and practical and the intangible qualities of being memorable and distinctive; and that something extra, the visual tweak which creates a unique personality.

Which seemed to sum it all up nicely.

And that was it. Ten symbols from the book, from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. The talk was entertaining and engaging, and Angus was fun to watch as well as learn from. He made a point of going into exhaustive detail about the origins of each symbol and went to great pains to credit the correct people (something which I wasn’t fast enough to write down all of for this post I’m afraid!) I didn’t win a badge, but I did pick up a copy of the book on the night which is full of this kind of detail, as well as the endless pages of pure symbols which designers crave.

There were some questions afterwards, mostly fixating on the origin of the CND symbol, with some frankly ludicrous rationalisations of its meaning. In the end Angus conceded that “you load your own reasons on to it” but I’m happy saying I’m pretty sure it isn’t anything to do with unborn children or the crucifixion of our lord Jesus Christ.

After that, Angus stepped back into his TARDIS and disappeared. The whole thing was brisk, making my note-writing somewhat chaotic, as it was obviously a cut-down version of the same talk he has given elsewhere. Like at the Design Museum for instance, where Amanda Jahn had the luxury of time to compile this impressively succinct summary of the talk. So if you haven’t managed to follow my rambling, you can simply glance at that to get the gist of it:

In fact I should probably just have shown that image at the start really.

Oh well, Symbol the book is available to buy now.

No posts on the blog for a week or so as I was at Glastonbury, so here, by way of an appeasement are some Instagrams I took instead…

Last week was judging week at D&AD, the week where the great and the good in the design industry get together and pass judgement on the work sent in by all the hopeful designers looking to gain their yellow-pencil-shaped approval.

Normally this is a closed process, but this year in addition to encouraging the judges to tweet their thoughts and publishing live lists of shortlisted work on their website, D&AD also offered to show groups round on judging day. Needless to say, I jumped at the chance and promptly invited myself.

I’ve been really glad to see this sort of openness finally coming from the D&AD. In the past, I wasn’t sure what to make of them. I was first introduced to the organisation as a student, and I diligently entered the student awards without really understanding the relevance of it all. There wasn’t as much information around back then, it felt like it was a mysterious private members club for the design elite, and not one a student designer who had come from a job on a trading estate in the West Midlands had any chance of ever belonging to.

Over the years I attended many of the lectures, and my various workplaces occasionally entered a project I had worked on, but the D&AD and I comprehensively failed to make any sort of impression on each other. It remained something out of my reach, the doors to the private members club stayed closed.

And then a couple of things happened. Firstly, a project I worked on, Vodafone Music, made it into the 2009 Annual. This was a big deal and seeing my name in the book alongside those of revered and respected practitioners was very satisfying. As a reward, I was given a year’s membership to the D&AD, and so little by little those austere doors started to open to me. (metaphorically of course). Things like Twitter had opened up design conversations too, and for the first time I found myself ‘talking’ to my design heroes directly, getting an insight into what lay inside the club, and a sense of the guts of my industry. I scoured eBay and started collecting the Annuals (at the time of writing I have every one from 1994 to present, plus a few others), studying the projects that made it – and those that won the coveted pencil – trying to figure out what they had in common. What was the formula for gaining entry to the winners’ hexagon, what was I up against?

This was the year that Matt Dent won the almost mythical black pencil for his UK Royal Mint coin designs. Something clicked. I had assumed these people were Dan Brown’s Illuminati, and I was going to have to learn their handshakes, but in actual fact you didn’t have to have studied at a legendary design school, have worked in a world-famous studio, or hang out on the yachts of monied industry figures to win a pencil. You just had to have a great idea and do it well. Matt was proof. That’s what all the winners had in common. (well, most of them anyway) Although both the Illuminati and graphic designers do share a love of ambigrams…

So flash forward to the present day, and there I am walking around in the Grand Hall at Olympia, looking at the work through the eyes of a D&AD judge (metaphorically of course). Some of it was already famous from the blogosphere, some was new and some things you could tell weren’t going to make it (including a poster of mine, but that’s another story). The judges were all debating the merits of things and there was an atmosphere of warm sincerity to the whole thing. Everyone was taking their duty very seriously. Work was laid out anonymously and each piece got an equal shot at greatness. It was inspiring, some of the work was phenomenal. I did genuinely feel welcome (even if I comprehensively failed to find the courage to talk to anyone important), and it seemed that newcomers with a good idea can get noticed in such an open forum. It’s tough, but possible.

I was left with a renewed sense of possibility and the feeling that the D&AD was there for me if I wanted it (and had the money of course) and that all it really was, was a bunch of nice people who all loved design as much as I do. Perhaps I had judged it unfairly, perhaps if I stopped feeling intimidated by it all I could get involved.

I managed to hang around, to be present at the launch of the new White Pencil, which was quite a moment. A selfless award? An award which it’s promised will recognise a good solution be it large or small? An award which only costs £25 to enter? £25 for a shot at making the world a better place? That sounds like real progress. I’m in.

The evening ended at the pub, which, outside of the studio, I guess is the natural habitat of any designer. It was a warm spring evening and the beer tasted good, but of course it wasn’t the real world. Not the real world of clients, deadlines, briefs and budgets, and not the world I live in during working hours. So as welcoming as the D&AD are, and as tempting as it is to get drawn into – it seems to me that the best course of action is to stay in the real world. To look past the famous names, familiar JPGs and talismanic pencils, and focus on doing the best work possible. To win my own and my clients’ belief first and just hope somewhere along the way, some people stood around in the epic Olympia Grand Hall of the future see something they like. If they do, great, and if they don’t? Well I can come back sharper next year.

So it’s business as usual then, but somehow now after seeing it all from the inside, anything feels possible. And the door’s ajar…

I’m a bit late posting this, but I went along to the Design Museum a couple of weeks ago, for the private view of Dalton Maag’s type installation entitled Shape My Language.

The centrepiece installation is a cascade of glyphs from typefaces, which gives you a real sense of the generosity of forms in typography, as well as their structural basis (and their Unicode number). Well, whatever it means, it’s lovely. It was there to announce the Ubuntu project, which is a very intriguing attempt to build an open source typeface containing every necessary character in the world, for the Ubuntu flavoured Linux operating system. If you don’t believe me, it said so on the wall:

And if any of that went over your head, you could still just play hunt-the-letter-r instead…

You can read more about it here, or go and see it at the Design Museum London.

Ben Casey of The Chase came in to work yesterday, and instead of the usual career synopsis, which most visitors choose to relate, he chose to talk about something “more interesting”, just one project. This was to be his work for Preston North End football club, a project which he described as “the perfect self initiated project”, encompassing design, art and football.

And I have to admit, at that point I was worried, not being a fanatical football lover, and having attended the talk in order to see some great ideas-driven graphic design from a company who have featured in D&AD every year for 23 years, I wasn’t sure I was up for a lot of football anecdotes and personal indulgences.

But I was too hasty, because Ben went on to tell us how his childhood love of Preston North End football club led from him redesigning their logo and stationery…

…to actually designing their STADIUM with no prior architectural knowledge…

“…it was just working on a grid system, similar to type really…”

If you let a graphic designer loose on a football stadium, then this is what you’re going to get:

Amazing. Seats as pixels. I have to say, that football or no football, this was right up my street, and exactly the sort of thing I struggled to inspire various meeting rooms of people with for England United. It was that sort of moment when you see something you wish you’d thought of first, except it was worse, because I had thought of it, and had it discarded.

Here’s his logo for The Great Room, the stadium’s hospitality suite:

Another shot dead on target. And what about a gift bag for the ajoining National Football Museum?

Bang. A hat-trick. The crowd go wild.

The talk predictably went into extra time. Despite there being only one project to discuss, Ben’s love for it shone through and that sort of dedication to the fabric of a brief always results in special things.