Books are dead, long live books!
Counter-Print has just published a beautiful book of Animal Logos. Even if we didn’t feature (ahem… on the spine), we would probably have bought this one anyway. Great design publisher and cute animals — how could we not?
The logo in question is one we created for the wonderful team at Cub Studio, animators supremo.
Most logo jobs nowadays revolve around something less literal and more abstract. We do a lot of type-only logos and even more type-with-a-twist, or type with abstract marques. We often encourage this. It provides companies with the flexibility to grow their services and products without being tied to a literal thing that might become less important over time.
But, when we were asked to create a cute bear logo, we couldn’t resist. In the end, that wee bear works hard carrying the logo, as it also forms the middle letter of the word CUB. Our pals at CUB have since taken our logo to the next and brought it to life with numerous animated 3D logo loops — building in more value to our original critter, but we’re happy to see it still stands up to spec in the printed world.
Buying a printed book often feels like an indulgence these days, but one that we love. When I first started working in design studios, books were the only way to operate. I used them daily. These days our design books are very much more about inspiration.
In O Street HQ, we have a selection spanning creative business theory, through to a curated collection of North Korean government design templates over the last 50 years. I also have a well-thumbed book on colour psychology and a guide on the best way to sharpen a pencil. One book that has not left my office shelf for years is a short novel from 1884 called ‘Flatland’ about a shape introducing a sphere to a 2D world — not an obvious graphic design reference book, but one I have used in presentations a lot!
We continue to design books for our clients (we have two very exciting publications due for release later in the year) and will no doubt be adding others to our inspiration shelf soon.
Books are dead, long live books!
— David
