[music playing] STEVEN HELLER: A logo is an extension of who you are or what you do.

GERARD HUERTA: There has to be a reason for it.

It should be something that someone is drawn to.

SAGI HAVIV: A successful logo can almost nothing.

We think of a logo as something that can hold everything.

KELLI ANDERSON: It's informed and reinforced by the things that we see every day.

And it's important to acknowledge that entire invisible vocabulary.

STEVEN HELLER: Logos go back to deep antiquity.

It was a single image of something that was used as an expression of the individual.

It represented a thought, an idea, or even a product perhaps.

Aristocracy, for example, would have shields.

And those are basically complex logos.

And not everybody was literate, so pictorial means were ways of getting around that illiteracy.

In ancient Rome, you'll find mosaics, and those mosaics are pictures tradesmen.

So you'd see an elephant, which would mean somebody has been to Africa.

Or you'd see dolphins, which means somebody's probably dealing in fish.

So all of these things indicated who the merchant was.

And I think that's the beginning of the logo.

Logos increased exponentially as commerce increased, industry increased, as technology increased, and there was more and more competition.

Logos have gone from being very Victorian looking to very modern looking, meaning they're more economical.

So logo designers have to have a sense of what the company wants its personality to be.

And then it manufactures this mask, and the logo is essentially a mask.

It's an identifier, but it's also something that stands in for who you are.

SAGI HAVIV: A great logo is memorable.

It's appropriate to the brand.

And it's simple, so it can work everywhere and look the same in every situation.

So diversity and simplicity.

And in today's media realities, it means if it could be as tiny 16 by 16 pixels to work favicon and for big signs on the sides of buildings, that's tremendous.

The second thing is that it would be appropriate in the character, in the feeling.

If you look at the Smithsonian sun and you say, is that appropriate for an institution that has all these different galleries and museums?

And then you start thinking, OK, does it look to corporate?

No, it doesn't.

Does it look to commercial?

No, it doesn't.

That is kind of what we ask ourselves when we look at a mark and say, is this right for them?

And then, the last thing, it should be memorable.

And often, it's something awkward.

Often, it's something that throws off a balance.

And a good example is Mobile that was done by Tom Geismar, my partner.

He designed these letters that are based on geometry.

And the simple change of the O to red made it just burn into your mind.

When a design fulfills these parameters, with time, it will build equity and will build recognition.

And we're looking for something that will look fresh for a long time.

KELLI ANDERSON: Logo design is not like math.

1 plus 1 equals 2, but blue plus square, you don't know what it's going to equal until you get in there and start doing it.

I like to have one idea that I really believe in and the client really believes in.

And I like to iterate the hell out it.

For example, in the "Off Book" project, we probably ended up making 40 different versions of the logo before we ended up with the final set.

Starting out, I took all these little pieces of paper, and I printed the words, "off book" on it and just folded it into different shapes.

It was interesting because you have this very ordered system of type that's always in a grid.

But then, where you had the bend in the paper, there was this interesting little interruption.

So I brought these printouts into my scanner and started emulating that little interruption and sort of move it or wiggle it.

And so the resulting image would have these different lines and distortions in it.

And once I had all these varieties of shapes, we were able to look at them and assess them and try to figure out which one seemed the most interesting and pleasing.

And then the process from there was just a process of choosing colors, choosing different transparency levels and relationships between the different elements.

And it was just a matter of refining it.

And so this seemed like a perfect opportunity to reference this larger metaphor that "Off Book" is creating about nontraditional and fringe culture and art.

The victory of getting the idea and then the victory of having something physical that represents the idea, those are two very good moments.

GERARD HUERTA: Logo design should be timeless.

The classic thing is Coca-Cola.

We know that script.

And that script really came out of the 1890s.

But it's such a part of our culture that it probably always will be contemporary.

Back in 1975, I took Gutenberg Bible lettering and made it look like a car mark, put a bevel on it-- and it looked very sinister-- with an album I had done for Blue Oyster Cult.

So when I was asked to do the AC/DC logo, one of the versions I came up with was based on that Blue Oyster Cult lettering.

And it kind of became the cliche for the heavy metal thing.

When I use the word "cliche," I'm really thinking of it more in terms of appropriateness.

It could be just the obvious, that is, just the right thing.

There's nothing wrong with that.

Now, it just is part of our culture.

If a logo has been working and is recognizable and a company has spend millions of dollars to promote it, there's probably very little reason to redesign that logo.

It is a fashion business.

There are styles that change and typography that changes, and images that change.

But what you want is you want your audience to see this, and it will remind you of that entity.

That's when a logo works.

That's when it comes timeless.

STEVEN HELLER: We need the logo so that people will be cued into who we are and what we do.

SAGI HAVIV: The world has involved.

The technology has evolved.

But in fact, our approach has been constant.

GERARD HUERTA: It should be simple.

It should be well drawn.

And it should be interesting.

KELLI ANDERSON: A logo can't express everything, but it should definitely express the thing that's the most important, the thing that needs to be expressed.

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