Heidelberg’s New Logo

How inspiring — makes me want to be a Pearl pressman even more.

Bob

Fritz,

There’s a full write up here:

http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo_and_identit...

Brad.

Brad—I had seen that site before and that’s where I lifted the picture of the logo on a shirt—but I also have the corporate book that sets out all the uses of the logo, on what equipment, etc which I haven’t had time to dig into other than get the explanation for the logo. Heidelberg used to furnish their sales people with lots of branded merchandise to hand out to clients, and that’s how I got my hats and T shirts, but they have dropped that practice.

Yikes! This reminds me of when the Cooper Union decided they needed a new logotype. I hope they didn’t pay too much for it, but they probably did. Can you spot the C and/or the U? All I see is a box kite that would render horribly on a black and white printer.

I’ve always preferred the one below by Tom Carnase.

DGM

Cooper Union new logotype

Classic Tom Carnase design

What a mess.

Winfred Reed
Black Diamond Press (Kentucky)

I would like a Sharp Logo of the Original Heidelberg on the guard for my windmill. Anyone have one they care to share?

Bradley Hutchinson shared with me an interesting look at the old Heidelberg logo vs. the new one:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/53177163@N00/24441423361/in/dateposted-pub...

Oh the insanity. The new Cooper Union logo (properly pronounced log-o, not low-go) absolutely sucks.

It does remind me of a printing story that I witnessed with my own eyes. When Apple Computer started up and some “genius” came up with the multi-color apple with the bite out of it, Apple sent out bids for their stationery, business cards, etc.

Ewell Grossberg, President of George Rice & Sons, one of the most prestigious offset printers in Los Angeles, really wanted to get Apple for a client and decided to bid the business cards. An unbelievable quantity would be needed and Ewell figured he was very cleaver. Apple insisted that everything absolutely had to be printed in 6 colors, using PMS inks and not 4-color process on their logos. His plan was to print vast quanities of them on a large 2-color press that was idle a lot and not very expensive (for him) to operate instead of using a 6-color press. As I recall the sheet size was indeed very large. Anyway, they print one run and then start printing the second run. Registration is a real bitch because the little logos have to be dead-on and they can get everything in the middle of the sheet in register but the edges are a real mess.

They had a room full of skids with the first pass already printed and nothing was working for the second pass. He had practically everyone in his office trying to get to the bottom of the problem. I could overhear all of this from the customer lounge next to his office.

I finally walked over to the door and said it was NEVER going to work. The sheet was too large, and uncoated, and that the slightest variation in temperature and/or humidity from day-to-day and run-to-run was going to change the dimensionality of the sheets, especially in the heat and humidity of a Los Angeles summer.

They ended up stopping and throwing away what must have been a truckload or two of paper, and going back to do the job in one-pass on a 6-color press with a MUCH smaller sheet size.

This had to have been back in the 70s.

Rick

Well, it depends where you’re coming from; clearly we’re all used to looking at things from a more distilled, craft based perspective. We see the logo from a printer’s perspective; and perhaps that is OK, because this is a printing company. BUT, this is a company which is reinventing itself and compressing it’s identity in comparison to most of the logos of this current very digital age.

This is a matter of tasting the dish- your palettes have all drank the wine of the past; compare this to the youngsters, pre-millenials and twitter digital generation of today, who are already drinking the coffee and their tongues are used to this. Their eyes are used to polychromatic digital logos.

If you go from your tongue dipped in wine, to coffee of today- sure, it’s going to be shocking.
But if you already have an acclimated palette, and you’re more used to shitty new over digitized polychromatic logos, this is going to actually seem restrained and even possibly tasteful.

I still don’t like it, but… At least there’s some perspective to consider there? It must have been an interesting problem for the designers and agency people to consider.

Also, I doubt if most of you are the clients Heidelberg is even after. Likely, they did a shit ton of market research before their creative group thought of this as a potential. They’re trying to frame themselves into the present moment rather than be of the past. I get it.

Now, just think about bootlegging all those shirts and you’ll be fine. Just do it on the hush hush.