Which comes first? The logo or the brand?

Best practice tells us that the brand should come first. A new company from the outset must first decide on it’s ethos, it’s intended behaviour, it’s target market, how it’s going to reach that market and with what marketing messages (ie it’s brand) before even thinking about designing an image to match said brand.

However it doesn’t always happen that way in practice, even with the ‘big boys’…

Most of you will be aware that Nike paid just £35.00 for their logo design, which is now one of the most recognised logos in the world to the extent that Nike no longer needs to even add their company name to the famous ’swoosh’ to be recognised. But the question is although the cost was low, how much thought and consideration was put into the direction of the brand before the design was created?

Did the design help make the brand, or did the brand behaviour and products make the design? I personally feel that the brand behaviour and products made the design on the whole. Lets look over the evidence;

In 1971 Nike founder Phil Knight decided not to hire a professional designer, but instead a low cost design student called Carolyn Davidson to design his company branding, it appears offering no more design guidance about the brand that the logo was to represent other than that it should ‘convey movement’.

On sight of the designs provided by Davidson, Nike founder Phil Knight was up against a deadline - shoe boxes were waiting to be printed in Mexico, and whilst he admitted that none of the designs ‘captivated his imagination’ he settled on the famous swoosh emblem declaring that it would grow on him despite not loving it at the time.

From this moment onwards the company experienced huge growth and after a length of time handling the design needs of Nike, Davidson conceded that it was in everyone’s best interest that Nike moved over to a full-service ad agency better able to cope with the workload.

The evidence points to the following facts;

- Little thought was put into what exactly Nike was going to be terms of a brand, and what the logo was meant to represent. Outside of the basic concept of movement of course.

- The logo was considered as something of minor importance …a designer was plucked from the floor of a corridor after all (Knight saw her drawing and decided to ask her to do some work for him), almost on a whim.

-The decision process of which design to proceed with was hastly made.
At the end of the day only Knight and Davidson can answer the question as to whether much thought was put into the design of the Nike brand indentity, or whether it was all rather accidental.

What do you think?

Author
Amanda Vlahakis is the designer behind popular graphic design service Truly Ace Design and Truly Ace Design Blog
www.trulyace.com

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