The secret life of logos or What do logos do after dark? (2021)

Logos are symbols or graphics meant to represent something, but how do they come to life? How are they imagined? Graphic designers look at the object to be logofy* and bring their own baggage to the drawing board, but often ideas from other brands become part, knowingly or not, of the new entity. These Frankensteinian objects have always fascinated me.

Recently, I was struck by the resemblance of the old Alberta College of Art and the Assomption-Vie logos. If the ACA logo, born I was told in the 1960s, is a brother or sister to the Penrose Triangle, the Assomption logo created in the mid-seventies, is certainly one of its cousins, but is also a descendent of the 1964 Woolmark Logo of the International Wool Textile Organisation.

‘Logofy’ in the same construction as in ‘Liquefy’.

Top left: Penrose Triangle, top right: Alberta College of Art, bottom left: Woolmark Logo and bottom right: Assomption-vie.

Thanks to Marion Garden, Alberta University of the Arts, and to Charles Cousins and Don Mabie for assistance in retracing the lineage of these logos.