The Amiga Brand (and Logo)

[takemehomegrandma]

(I moved this post to a new thread, since it no longer follow the topic of whether the "Amiga Boing Ball" is Gay or not. Original thread is here.)


@ uncharted

uncharted wrote:

takemehomegrandma wrote:

 And which logo you saw also depended on in which part of the world you lived in. Have you seen the "Amiga" text on the boxes of the A500's Redrumloa sold? Not much semi-serif there ...

Those A500s were pre-semiserif era, the semiserif was commissioned by Escom.  If you want a design that 99.999% of all Amiga users recognise then go for the embossed Italic "Amiga" that was stamped on every model ever made.

Well, you might find that design among these (who are all in use at this moment):






:-o ;-)

IMO, the identity of the Amiga brand has been damaged in two ways,
 
1) The brand values (what does "Amiga" really stand for?) have been blurred out. The current owners of the brand has proven that anything and everything can be called "Amiga", thus destroying the previously clear values of the brand. The brand has lost it's meaning and purpose.

2) Inconcistency in appearance, as shown above. This is the visual part, the shape that the eyes see and the brain recognizes and connects to the above (blurred) values.

The final assult on the brand would be to change the spelling. "Amigo", "Chica", "Bahia" or whatever.

(BTW, has that butterfly problems with gas? ;-))

Nah it's just rocket propelled :-D

Pegs in space!  :-o   :-P  :-D

[Miffo]

I like the one to the most right best! That is the most Amiga to me! :-)

[lorddef]

Verry good point!

[Miffo]

The Un-United Kingdom

LOL! :-)

[TheMagicM]

The only REAL Amiga brand is on the far left... classic Amiga logo but without the "one" underneath it..as a REAL AMIGA is the classic series.  The far right reminds me of QuikPak (  :-x  ), Gateway, new Amino/Amiga Inc etc..not good times.

[alx]

@takemehomegrandma

I agree about the look ok the logos.  The "Amiga Anywhere" logo uses a completely new typeface.  Then there's the "Official" logo from the Escom era, "AmigaOS" uses the C= Italic typeface (though IMO it really doesn't look good enough) and "amiga support network" appears to be a mismash of styles.

To be fair on A inc, I don't think that they designed the "AmigaONE" logo, but that's part of the problem - they need an official logo for everyone to use :roll:

I wonder if the "Amiga Power Platform" site will give an idea of what they're aiming at for branding?

[SHADES]

I think that one thing still remains constant throughout. Pretty obvious too really, they all feature AMIGA somwhere yep even printed (amiga) is still AMIGA. That's the name they bought. I have seen countless changes in Boing Balls, coloured checks, backgrounds 3d effects. It really doesn't matter. It's amazing, the common ground hasn't changed. They could have mind you. the name AMIGA carries 4 takeovers in it's name, not a most stable "tag" to prmote under. They could have changed the name and kept the OS, called it Zorro or something.

I have seen countless changes in Microsoft's windows  
OS from Version 1 to now XP. Lots of disfferent backgrounds etc.  Gee they even went as far as to completly re define the way it looks. Just look at win 3x to 9x then go xp it all changed.

I think it's irrelevent.  I think They have remained very constant and to once again take the name AMIGA forward is not only a gutsy move (in light of it's history) but a smart one as lots of people KNOW what an AmIgA is no matter how it's printed. As a Mascot or side marketing logo, I still love the coloured check mark. A symbol of the AMIGAS roots as a very good Colour computer. :-)

[Targhan]

For the most part I agree.  The emblem on the left, not including the text "one", is the most "Amiga" to me.  I do disagree about the one on the right, it still seems very recognizable as Amiga (even with the QuikPak connotaions).

The one in the middle is not just laughable, but really waters down the identity of "Amiga."

[Floid]

I agree with the new guy.  The polymorphism :-D  is itself a representation of the 'platform' as a whole.  'Amiga' has never taken a single road; it's always tried to do 'what's better,' whatever 'better' that particular day is.

That's part of the spirit.  It's also what's made it so g-dawfully hard to actually produce a product out of the mess.

Now, as long as they don't break logotype among individual product lines, I think I'm willing to weather the diversity.  

4.0 itself is a special case, given the reliance on the contributions set for backgrounds...  Yes, that dilutes the branding -- none of the most eye-popping designs follow the One True Logotype -- but it's also a celebration.  It's 4, it's 'finally here' -- or so we'll say when it ever hits shelves :-P -- it's still somewhat 'believer-targeted' at this point, so collateral damage from the lack of an Apple-strength brand-of-the-week is minimized, and the whole thing becomes a representation of... As James Earl Jones (or whoever's doing the voiceovers for the UPS ads) might say, "What does 'boing' mean to you?"

[Hammer]

II have seen countless changes in Microsoft's windows
OS from Version 1 to now XP. Lots of disfferent backgrounds etc. Gee they even went as far as to completly re define the way it looks. Just look at win 3x to 9x then go xp it all changed.

Most “MS Windows logos” still shares the critical Windows flag logo.

A better example is the “Intel Inside” logo.  It also undergoes some changes but the critical elements didn’t change i.e. from “Intel Inside Pentium” classic era to “Intel Inside Pentium 4 Extreme Edition” era.

Other successful media savvy logos are;
1. NVIDIA’s “meant to be played”, nForce and Sound Storm logo (NVIDIA’s eye abstract drawing is common across the labelling schemes).
2. Dolby Lab’s Dolby Digital logo, (i.e. the common double DD logo).
3. Intel Inside logo (i.e. oval shape drawings). Also consider the Intel’s corporate logo.  
4. AMD’s Green Arrow logo and the "AMD" label (i.e. unified across its products) .
5. ATI’s Powered by ATI logo.

The Amiga label could have shared some of the design elements of AMIGA** while enabling some changes. **It’s the AMIGA label on the mass marketed A500 class machines.

[Opi-Poi]

I would agree that logos are not important (at the moment).
What is needed is product! Which is primarly aimed at current and ex-amiga
users.Not at general public.

However if you have to appear on CNN, advertise in a newspaper or
hosting a conference with IBM,Cissco etc., it will matter.

Hopefully by that time Amiga Inc. will organised.
But it may happen very quickly.

I still believe Amiga  Inc will need a single defined font and logo throughout their
product range and advertising.

Other people will adapt it to suit there web site,backdrop or change it for whatever reason, thats fine.
But a company must stick to an strong identity to remain credible.


Here's an idea.
Print out the various styles and show them to friends / colleagues
and see which ones they prefer,and why.They don't have any baggage.
Report back see what they say.
It would be interesting to see what someone outside of Amiga
community thinks of them.

At the end of the day there are more difficult tasks ahead for Amiga than
just this.

But I do feel quiet passionate about it.

For the record I like the classic stant in "Amiga OS", but I prefer the the modern "Amiga Anywhere" style.
And I dislike the Escom font.Yuk! Always have.

I've finally realised what the Escom font reminds me of.
Vogue,Elle . . . . or another woman's fashion magazine or boutique!
Yves Saint Laurent's "Jazz", the eau de toilette. He-he!!

[that_punk_guy]

I really consider the italic 'AMIGA' to be the most enduring of the logotypes above. It's appeared on every bit of Amiga hardware I can think of...

Amiga 1000
Amiga 2000
Amiga 3000
Amiga 4000
Amiga 500
Amiga 600
Amiga 1200
CD32

Even the external diskdrive for this CDTV (basically a black 1011) has that italic 'AMIGA' embossed just above the disk slot. The old 1010, despite only sporting a rainbow tick on the front, does have the italic Amiga writing on it.

Edit: You can also see it here on Chelsea Football Club's old shirt.

It's always seemed to me that part of having an Amiga (given my experience only with the 'wedge' models) was that embossed 'AMIGA' just above the disk drive, next to the power / disk access LEDs.

[takemehomegrandma]

@ all

Thank you for your comments! :-)

Think about this situation, you are driving a car in a foriegn country. You are getting hungry. At the side of the road you see a fast food restaurant that you have never heard of, and at the same time you see McDonalds golden arches on a sign that says it's only 2 km away. You are familiar with McDonalds, and you are familiar with it's values. McDonalds stand for Fast food, Safe food (you won't get any strange deseases), Un-espensive food, and some fun for your children while you are drinking coffee after your meal. The same instant you see that yellow "M" you know what you will get, and chanses are big that you drive pass that local unknown place to the familiar, safe, place. All thanks to you recognizing the "M" and connects it to those clear values. Well, imagine a situation where each restaruant have it's own unique design on that "M", and that McDonalds changes the whole "McDonalds concept" once every year ...

[LP]

Hmm...

Go to Burger King instead :-D

(sorry couldn't help it)

[uncharted]

I think you have made some very good points grandma.

I think that brand identity was lost somewhere between C= dieing and Amino buying Amiga.  The thing is that the italic logo (and also to a lesser extent the tick) were the amiga's identity.  Companies spend millions when they change brand identity, partially because they need to inform the public of the change.  With Amiga this was never done.  Also the changes were never solidified properly, and inconsistancy has crept in.  It also didn't help that there were numerous different designers all giving the brand ID erm different IDs.

There is also the issue that individual product lines and the company itself have no distiguishing identies, its a blur of typefaces and boingballs.

Last year I posted on here a set of ideas for unifying the identity of the brand, whilst distinguising company and products. see http://deadlock.netdork.net/Amiga2002/

Looking back, it's a bit messed up, but hopefully you can see what I was trying to achieve and where I was heading design wise particularly with the boxes and the website.