Many have no doubt noticed your local Starbucks coffee cups have been sporting the company’s logo from years past. It’s part of an interesting trend in logo and visual identity nostalgia. Sports teams have been doing the same thing for years with their jerseys and in turn selling much more merchandise. Whether or not Starbucks will see an increase in sales due to the retro logo remains to be seen.

However, from an aesthetic standpoint it is interesting to see the two logos side by side. At first glance it’s obvious that two major factors have changed the logo, technology and corporate growth.

Technology as a form of change is evident in the qualities of each illustration. The former logo is clearly a hand drawing and the more familiar logo surely benefited from the crisp production of Adobe Illustrator (or Freehand).

The original features a bare breasted mermaid. It’s hard to believe that today a multi-national corporation would ever give the green light to such a logo (if not only for nostalgia’s sake). The newer mark is also much easier to reproduce in various formats and far more iconic, both features necessary for a large corporate logo.

Perhaps Starbucks is featuring the old logo to remind people that they are authentic, that they have a history, that they were not always ubiquitous and disposable. Once upon a time they had character.

Tags:   · analysis · authentic · character · coffee · critique · icon · logo · mermaid · starbucksNo Comments.

A wonderful overview of typography. Watch and quickly learn the basics.

Tags:   fonts · kerning · letterforms · letters · tracking · type · typography · video · youtubeNo Comments.

Richard St John’s presentation from from TED is quite inspiring. Can success really be that simple?

The video inpired me to design a graphic that represents not only the various aspects of success but also offers my insight into how the elements that make up success lead to each other. Click the graphic below to see it enlarged.

In my experience I’ve found his words to be true. How about you? Are there other important attributes to becoming successful?

Tags:   chart · Richard St John · self improvement · success · TED · videoNo Comments.

Welcome to jameskurtz.com; thanks for visiting. This will be a space to read about graphic design. Everything from basic design principals and understanding design as a non-designer to in depth design analysis will take place here. Please join the conversation whenever possible by sending me a note or commenting on any of the upcoming posts.

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Tags:   contact · greetings · hello world · intro · planning · under construction · welcomeNo Comments.

Thanks for your patience while jameskurtz.com is under construction. It will be fully functional soon. In the meantime please send e-mail to graphicdesign [at] jameskurtz [dot]com. Thanks!

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