Japanese Logoland

Recently, I have been deep deep in logo land, trying to simplify ideas down to its “essence”. So when a friend passed this along to me, I was inspired and a little bit relieved. When I create logos, I immediately shy away from using the first letter(s) in the name as the mark. I want something more, something more metaphorical I guess.

Which leads me to this post. When a friend sent me this, I was stoked. These Japanese town logos use hiragana and katakana characters to create interesting and solid marks that are extremely unique. They range from super simple to almost puzzle-like, rigid to fluid, however all of them are super accessible and solid. They are modern heraldry, crests that symbolize a community. I would love to design a series of these for towns in the US and replace something like whats below, ugggg. Is that really our logo? Or is it this?

Check out the whole collection here.

The Geography of Design

Here at Highlighter, we are obsessed with process. We are always interested in learning how designers and artists arrive at their final product, and often times the process stories and materials are more interesting than the final product. However, that is not the case in this situation. Here Paula Scher talks about how she found herself making “maps” and the limitations that created the idea. Again, another example of restrictions creating awesomeness.