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In Episode 6, I talk with Paul Lukas, ESPN’s uniform reporter and the host of the UniWatch blog. We discuss classic logo design and what makes classic logo design. Paul digs deep into his repository of design critique to offer some tips to the logo designer about how a business should go about designing a new logo for a new brand.
I discuss how this affects trademark law. Trademarks should be “fanciful” or “arbitrary” to be their strongest. It is easier to protect trademarks that are stronger than ones that are “descriptive“, as consumers should not have a preconceived connectedness between the goods/services behind the brand and the brand itself.
Paul’s conclusions about classic logo design being equivalent to a business’ longevity seem to echo how trademark law works. The best logos work because there is not a relationship between the logos and the business – the business makes that connection in consumers’ minds.
Here is a lightly-edited transcript of the podcast episode:
Anthony Verna:
All right. I have theme music. Sounds really good. Thank you for listening to the Law and Business podcast. This is episode number six. And in it I speak with Paul Lukas, ESPN’s uniform reporter, and we speak about design and what makes design happen and what’s memorable in design. And what are some tips that businesses who are looking at creating new brands can think of when designing those new brands. And a lot of what Paul has to say talks about not overdoing it and that for a lot of businesses, what is iconic extends from longevity. And we certainly have, I think, experienced a lot of marketing advice that says that a logo has to tell the story of the business or that the business name or the branding has to tell the story of the business. And trademark law disagrees with that. And I think what Paul has said in the interview that you’re about to hear really emphasizes what trademark laws says, even though he may not really have that link in mind. And that is in trademark law, marks that are fanciful are easiest to protect. And a fanciful mark is one that has no relationship at all between the product and the mark itself. And it’s created in only for this actual use. And this use in relating to the brand. A fanciful trademark helps because the relationship is created by the business between the brand or the logo and the products, the goods, or services offered by that business. An arbitrary trademark is one that is already in existence and the relationship comes from this particular good, this particular business.
Think of Apple. That really is the traditional arbitrary mark. The word Apple has nothing to do with computers and the design of an apple has nothing to do with computers, but this company has created that particular relationship. So, think about how trademark law relates to these particular design tips. And I think you’ll see that how law is set up is probably how we already perceive a lot of the world around us. Thanks very much for listening. I’m Anthony Verna. You can reach me at anthony@vernalaw.com or at 914-908-6757. Once again, my law practice focuses on intellectual property, trademark, copyright and advertising promotion law. Thanks very much for listening.
Anthony Verna:
So welcome to the Law and Business podcast. I’m joined by Paul Lukas. How are you doing, Paul?
Paul Lukas:
Very good, thanks. Thanks for inviting me on. I’m happy to be here.
Anthony Verna:
Not a problem. Thanks for calling in. And Paul is the… shall we say you’re the uniform reporter for ESPN. How does that sound?
Paul Lukas:
Yeah, yeah.
Anthony Verna:
Wonderful. And your blog is uniwatchblog.com, correct?
Paul Lukas::
Yes. I write a column for ESPN called ”Uni Watch”. And then that column, which runs about once a week, it’s supplemented by a daily blog, also called “Uni Watch” for people who can’t wait a whole week to get their latest uniform news.
Anthony Verna:
Wonder. Yeah, I’m one of those people who …
Paul Lukas:
Yeah, you’d be in the target audience.
Anthony Verna:
Exactly, exactly. And and speaking of uniform issues my Eagles came out looking like, inkblots last night and that was just dreadful. And that hurt me.
Paul Lukas:
Yeah, they, for the first time in team history wearing solid black. And what was interesting was how those dark green helmets, I think, look blacker than usual because the rest of the uniform was black.
Anthony Verna:
I agree with you completely .
Paul Lukas:
Got the jersey and pants sort of subsumed the helmet into their black void.
Anthony Verna:
I agree with you completely, but Paul, you’re also not just a a uniform critic. I mean that extends from design experience in general and in design critique in general.
Paul Lukas:
Yeah, I’ve done a lot of writing about various forms of design graphic design, industrial design, package design, brand design, et cetera for a variety of publications, designed publications that as you would expect also for business publications. The sports design thing, the athletic design and the uniforms is where I do the bulk of my work. But I have also written about many other aspects.
Anthony Verna:
It’s a subset. The sports design is a subset of everything that you’ve…
Paul Lukas:
Yeah, yeah. But it’s the big… it’s just one section, but it’s where I do about 80% of my work. So, it sort of feels like it’s big.
Anthony Verna:
So in, in looking at design in general, are there any thoughts that you could have for businesses in designing logos, to make something pop, for lack of a better word, but yet not, but yet feel original? It almost feels as if there’s a lot of derivativeness in today’s business design.
Paul Lukas:
I would agree, although I think it’s easy for anyone at any given moment to feel that way, that it’s hard unless you step back and have some perspective or look back at with distance of a few years, hindsight, to really assess what’s going on at the given moment. You know, is this a derivative time or is this an original time or whatever. I think there has never been a more segmented time and in the consumer landscape, and that’s likely to continue things. We keep getting more and more segmented, more sort of niche markets, niche audiences. And so, everything now tends to be marketed, including logos and design, with that niche appeal in mind. So, things tend to be less broadly appealing and more specific and narrowly targeted.
And so that it’s easier when you see something to say, “Oh, that that doesn’t feel right to me.” Well, it wasn’t intended for you. It wasn’t for an 18 year old Latina or a 60 year old suburban, whomever, and think things are now narrowly pitched in that way, , in a way that they weren’t before. And I think that’s part of the challenge that designers face now. On the one hand you can target something specifically to a narrow, niche audience. But on the other hand, that means that everyone outside that niche may sort of look at what you’re doing and kind of raise an eyebrow.
Anthony Verna:
If there’s one example that comes to my mind, it’s that, as a trademark attorney, we’re always told that something that doesn’t connect to the brand is the strongest. She wants something that what we would call fanciful. And that means there’s just a total disconnect because it’s something that’s totally created for the use of this particular brand. And the classic example there is Kodak. Kodak is a brand name that isn’t a word in English, isn’t even a word in any language whatsoever. So, it doesn’t mean anything. And Eastman Kodak created that name in order to relate it to film. And more and more, I’m finding that names are being created so they straddle this line that it’s basically descriptive of what the company does. And a lot of people are critical of brand name that isn’t related to what the company actually does.
And therefore a lot of people are bringing their logos in tune to that. So that if we’re talking about a company that provides business services or you’ll see just like a globe, cause Hey, we can do stuff around the world or if you’re like us lawyers and then you have to have a gavel or you have to have the scales because that’s just what everybody does. And it feels as if more and more, in business coaching scenarios, a business person is told find a brand name or logo design that tells everybody what you’re doing.
Paul Lukas:
Yeah, I think it certainly part of the logo is to communicate. But it’s interesting, you know, when you first asked me to come on and talk to you about this and you said we might be talking about some classic logos and I was thinking of some, and you know, one that has endured for so long that that immediately came to mind is the CBS logo, the eyeball as it’s known now that has endured for over half a century, and and it’s considered a classic and it’s considered enormously successful. But it strikes me as sort of an odd candidate to achieve that status. It is pleasing, like it has a balance to it. I remember even when I was a kid and I watched a lot more television as a kid than I watch now and and we didn’t have cable when I was growing up.
I’m dating myself now. Cable didn’t exist yet, but like seventies. So we’re watching mainly the three broadcast networks, including CBS and the CBS logo was part of the backdrop of my youth. And there was something appealing about it that I still find appealing about it in terms of just as a piece of design that has this balance that has a certain pleasing this to it. I don’t know how else to put it, but I’m not sure any of that actually communicates anything about a broadcast network or media that… I think it’s actually an odd, somewhat unlikely candidate to be what it has turned out to be. What do you think?
Anthony Verna:
I tend to agree with you and I was a, as you’re discussing this, I’m thinking about the NBC peacock, which right now looks like several I don’t know how to describe it, but that logo just kind of has several lines of lines of color. It’s had previous versions with an N in it or with an NBC. And it really has gone through iterations, whereas now….
Paul Lukas:
But again, hearkening back to the era in which I grew up. In the 70s was when America was switching over from black and white to color television. And the peacocks symbolized that, symbolized color TV and the explosion of color that epitomize not just the changes in television, but really throughout America’s visual programming, if you want to call it that. And clothing became much more colorful. And that was in part because of new fabrics that allowed new kinds of color dyes to be used. And so, we had all kinds of like psychedelic and very loud, if you wanna call that loud, colorful clothing. But also, that was the fashion industry responding to the advent of color television because you could now, things could not be seen on television in a colorful way that, you know, didn’t happen before.
So, there was sort of like a chicken and egg issue here, like that TV both responded to and helped, become the impulse for a much more colorful world out there. And so, the peacock I think was a great example of that. But what did the CBS eye really symbolize? They worked for CBS news where they would say eye on this and you know, a CBS eye on America. It looks sort of investigative, arguably even big brotherish, right? The eyeball. But if you’re just putting on All in the Family or other sitcoms or MASH or the other sitcoms CBS had at that time, what does the eyeball stand for? I think a lot of logos, I’m not saying this is always the case, but I think there are plenty of cases and the CBS logo is a good example where a lot of times it’s just a case of the brand or the company is successful and somewhat omnipresent.
And so the logo is omnipresent and therefore assumed to be successful. And I’m not so sure that is a successful logo or if it just has more of endurance going for it. And I think that’s true of a lot of logos. I think a lot of logos sort of are what we make of them, especially in the era before the internet, before social media and before all sorts of ways to analyze and critique and make fun of logos. I think it was much easier to put a logo out there and just have it be, you know, this is it, this is what we’re doing and boom, that’s it. The end. And if a company wants to stick with it for 30 years, well after 30 years, it’s sort of assumed the sort of a kind of institutional, monolithic sense of, of timelessness and, and that is equated with success. And I think there are a lot of logos out there that fall into that category that maybe they’re good or maybe they’re not, but I think they’re sort of assumption of success has more to do with longevity than with anything else.
Anthony Verna:
Looking in the tech industry at Microsoft and Apple for example, Microsoft recently redesigned the Windows logo to be flat and streamlined and therefore what used to be Windows, which was four colors and kind of curvy actually when you think about how it looked, that now feels a little dated and the new logo feels streamlined and Apple has certainly revised its Apple logo. It used to be a rainbow color, and now it’s a silver color.
Paul Lukas:
Apple obviously is one of the more aggressive companies in terms of keeping design at the forefront of what they do, and wanting design to be part of how we think about them. You know, they’re a tech company, but they’re really perceived in many people’s minds to be a design company.
Anthony Verna:
Which actually started early, sorry, sorry to interrupt you. I forget if it was Jobs or Wazniak,it may not have been either of them, said that when they were typing on other computers, they wondered why they couldn’t type in other fonts and that a part of the font was the design. And that seems to have trickled down, for lack of a better phrase, through Apple, in all areas.
Paul Lukas::
Yeah. I think most people would perceive Apple to be as much of a design company, as a tech company. And that’s something that I would say Microsoft does not have that. The people do not perceive them that way. That can be for better or for worse. But Apple has clearly everything from the physical hardware of the gadgets themselves to the interface and how we interact with them. It tells you everything about it says this is a company that thinks about design as it’s designing tech products.
Anthony Verna:
So for smaller businesses. Just out of curiosity, are there any thoughts and ideas for a smaller business when they’re starting from a 0 point for a new brand or to create a brand that they should keep in mind?
Paul Lukas:
I would say don’t overthink it. Just come up with something that’s distinctive, that people are going to notice, without it being loud or too aggressive or too confrontational or something like that. But as I said earlier, I think a lot of times, the success of a logo is really just tied to the success of a company. And that obviously you want a good logo, you want a good mark. You want to make a good impression on people. But even the best logo isn’t going to save a bad company or a company with a bad product. And while I think that the reverse could be true, that a good company can save them a bad logo or a logo that is sort of nondescript, because I think ultimately the product and the business, it’s people’s perception of that is much more important, especially for a small business. A community business is more important than the perception of the logo itself.
Anthony Verna:
Whenever I’m talking with a new client or when I’m talking with say their marketing company cause certainly sometimes I need to do that, I always find in today’s world overthinking is the norm because they’re looking for something, something to grasp and everything has to have meaning to it. And it feels as if …
Paul Lukas::
You’ll excuse me for interrupting because everyone thinks now, even people who never heard of this term 10 years ago or never thought of themselves as being in the marketing business, everybody talks about branding, right? It’s like the most overused term. “Oh, I’m going to brand myself as this.” or “We’re going to rebrand as this.” And you know, it used to be in the line of work, I mostly do with the, the uniform writing, it would be a team is getting a new uniform and sometimes you still hear that, but more often you hear a team is rebranding and that notion where I think everybody feels that they are on some level, no matter how small their business or even if it’s just a business of one, if it’s just you yourself as a sole proprietor that somehow you have to assume this sort of corporate level of branding. I think it’s misguided. I think it’s overdone. I mean ultimately I think that obviously you do want to stand for something, you want you and your work and your business to and your design and all that. You want to stand for something. But ultimately the quality of your work and your product is what’s gonna define you more than a scheme or calculated branding.
Anthony Verna:
I’m going to completely agree with you on that. Even though what I do is nothing but protect brands but I also protect businesses.
Paul Lukas:
Obviously it’s important to be protected. I don’t mean to dismiss that. I’m just saying that I think people fixate on this notion almost a buzz term of branding, to the point where they forget what it’s supposed to be. The brand is supposed to support what you do not the other way around. And I think some people get that relationship backwards.
Anthony Verna:
I certainly agree with you on that. There’ve been times when I’ve been looking at say a brand-new fight, whatever that dispute may be in and whatever court it may be. And I look at the client and I say, are you sure it’s worth the fight? Because branding and in general, trademark law is all optional for business. And that option can easily be changed. Now for some businesses it’s harder than others, but I’ve certainly negotiated changes where the one side will say, look, we’ll let you go and, and just use everything that you have right now, but make sure there’s the new logo on the new batch. It feels as if a lot of people fall in love with a particular logo that they’ve designed the first time and don’t necessarily go for a change. They become latched onto…
Paul Lukas:
Well, it’s understandable. Sometimes you feel that can an emotional connection to something that you’re the first iteration of something. And so I understand, I understand that impulse, but obviously sometimes you have to think more with your head than with your heart in these situations.
Anthony Verna:
No doubt, no doubt about that. So, what else when we’re thinking iconic design, what else comes into your mind?
Paul Lukas:
About it? Examples of?
Anthony Verna:
Yes, sorry. Yes, yes. Example. Yes. Examples of iconic design. Sorry.
Paul Lukas:
You know a lot of times, again, I don’t mean to harp on this theme, but sometimes longevity or perception of what’s iconic can trump what’s, you know, something that under closer scrutiny, it doesn’t really hold up. And I’ll give you a great example, again from the world where I do most of my work, which is sports design. I think most people would agree that nothing is more iconic in the world of sports than or sports visual than the New York Yankees in their visual program.
Anthony Verna:
They have one?
Paul Lukas:
Oh well clearly. I mean their uniforms, their caps. They hadn’t changed very much if that’s what you need. They don’t go all out with all sorts of crazy designs, but they certainly have, I think what most people would consider to be something very iconic. But what’s interesting is that probably the cornerstone of that, the so called or supposedly iconic program is the interlocking NY logo that appears on their jerseys and their caps and their batting helmets and so on. And what’s interesting is that if you look closely, and I’ve certainly looked very closely, the one on the Jersey, the NY on the Jersey is not the same as the NY on the cap. And that is not the same as the one on the batting helmet. And then, I get mixed up now which of the three is used on the grass behind home plate, but they mix and match some very, if you overlay them, if you were to take the N Y and sort of lay them over, you’d see very clearly that the contours of the letter forms are quite distinct.
The biggest differences between the one on the cap, which is sort of streamlined and narrow compared to the one on the jersey, which is more kind of loopy and wide. So here we have an obvious inconsistency and in the middle of this program that is thought of as being iconic and everybody talks about, Oh, the interlocking NY is that this singular thing, the symbol of perfection that, that will never be changed, has never been changed. And it’s not even consistent with, you know, when Derek Jeter was standing up there during his career, standing at home plate, or standing at shortstop, never once did the NY on his chest matched the NY on his cap or his helmet. And that’s something that I think just doesn’t matter to people if they’re even aware of it.
And if you pointed out to them, they say, Oh, well that’s interesting, but they don’t really care because the Yankees have this perception of iconicity or iconicness. And obviously part of that perception is bound up in their considerable history of success on the field. But it’s also, I think another case, sort of like the CBS example where it has to do with longevity and if you sort of say something often enough, people accept it as the truth and then you point out well, actually there’s a little flaw here, or maybe kind of a big flaw. And people were like, Oh, Oh, okay. But it’s still iconic though, and they go off. It’s sort of a case of iconic is as iconic does, or as iconic is perceived. And I think I read an interview once with Paul Rand, probably the greatest American graphic designer of the last century, who did so many important logos, corporate logos.
In the 19 hundreds, he did the classic ABC logo of the three letters in the circle. He did the UPS logo. He did many corporate logos. And, they asked him what would you change if you could do something differently? And he went into some detail about some aspects of the UPS logo that he felt were flawed. And ever since I read that interview, I can no longer look at the UPS logo without seeing these flaws. And I’m not going to spell them out in part because they’re pretty detailed, but also because I would ruin it for you and anyone else listening to this. But the point is that once you accept that something’s iconic, you tend to stop scrutinizing it. And in fact, under scrutiny, a lot of things have a lot of flaws or inconsistencies or cracks in the facade and even Paul Rand himself had regrets and things he would go back and do differently.
like these details of the ups logo that I mentioned. And so, I think this notion of iconic has a lot more to do with kind of a perception and almost a herd mentality where everybody just sort of nods and says, yep, that’s how it is. And that’s not to say there are no great logos or designs out there, but that maybe we need to think a little harder sometimes, and think for ourselves and not just agree with everybody that this is the way it is. One person’s iconic, may be somebody else’s garbage and vice versa. Uh, and, and it’s really just a matter of what works for you.
Anthony Verna:
Well, it’s funny that you said that. When I think of the ABC logo, I just kind of look at it and I said, well, all it is ABC in a circle. It doesn’t tell me anything about what’s behind it. You know, the CBS works for at least news because we have the eye on a particular subject and we’re going to go deep and discuss the topic in depth, then the ABC logo just tells me…and NBC was great for the peacock is great for color. The ABC logo tells me nothing about the company whatsoever. That’s funny…
Paul Lukas:
You could even argue that it presents this notion of a kind of childish or childlike perception because now I know my ABCs, like a child’s reader.
Anthony Verna:
I never thought of that before.
Paul Lukas:
I’ve always wondered with Paul Rand, how many iterations of that did he do? What other concepts did he explore before he said, I’ll take the three letters and put them in a circle? That’s genius?
)
I’m not saying it isn’t a good logo. I’m saying that, sometimes in the case of that logo, I think part of it is that Paul Rand himself is perceived to be iconic and that everything he touched therefore is considered to be gold. I think that that again, a lot of this I think has to do with perceptions and a good logo, I think, is often just a logo for a good company and that the company makes it good if the company’s successful and keeps the logo for a long time like ABC did. I think that’s another case where like longevity and durability can just sort of translate to the perception of success.
Anthony Verna:
No, I do agree with you on some of that, that the company that’s behind the logo needs to be good in order for that perception to actually come through. Because a bad company with a good logo isn’t going to be around for a long time. Then people that really aren’t…
Paul Lukas:
Also, there are things where, now this shit may just be me. I remember when Under Armour was starting up. And again, to go back to sports, right. That’s where I do most of my work. They’ve got that logo where it’s sort of…
Anthony Verna:
It’s supposed to be a UAA…
Paul Lukas:
It’s a vertical symmetry where the U and the A sort of mirror each other.
Anthony Verna:
But it looks like an X to a lot of people.
Paul Lukas:
Oh, you know, honestly, I’d never thought of that. All right, well now what I was going to say is, when they started up, I perceived that to be sort of a scrappy logo as sort of a logo for an upstart company because that’s what they were. Now I’m not sure how much of it is because that’s how I already perceived the company. Therefore, that’s how I perceived the logo. Or if the logo truly what did capture that feeling. But, of course, they’re not such an upstart anymore. And I think that’s something small companies need to think about too. If you’ve got big plans and big dreams, you don’t want a logo that looks too much… Like if you’re planning to go corporate, you don’t want to look too Indy at the start because maybe you won’t be indy for very long. And so, I think that’s something to keep in mind as well. But you need something to kind of works across all classes and platforms and things like that. Even though I said earlier that you nail everybody narrow targets, but in terms of size and sort of scope of your business, you want something that can work as your company grows that the logo can grow with.
Anthony Verna:
It’s interesting that you say that. I just, I want to say it was yesterday, could have been a couple of days ago, but anyway, saw a sign for a marketing company that promised to be edgy and part of the design in the sign was what was supposed to look like graffiti. And I thought to myself, well, is that really edgy in 2014 to begin with? And two, if I’m building a business, I can’t always be edgy because I need people to come in the door.
Paul Lukas:
Yeah. At some point, if you’re successful, you’re not going to be edgy anymore. Right? You’re going to be like sort of part of the mainstream we’re getting, whether by design or whether by cause you’ve been co-opted and the mainstream sort of caught up with you or whatever. But, yeah, basically you don’t want to look too much like an outsider if your goal is to eventually become an insider.
Anthony Verna:
I very, very wise advice. It feels as if a lot of there’s just a lot of segmentation as well as a lot of promises of edginess. But, of course, a lot of us are really trying to build businesses that don’t segment. And you know, we want more than one particular demographic coming in and people who are building businesses want various people just to keep coming in and therefore you can’t be too edgy or too segmented.
Paul Lukas:
Yeah. You know, the thing about edgy is it’s sort of a synonym for, like a proxy for the notion of the renegade, right? And that’s very popular in business. They’re like, “Oh, I don’t do it the way the other guy does.”, or “We’re outside the box.” or “They zig, we zag.” or any of these cliches, but they all come down to this notion of the renegade that you do it your way. Just the way everybody else does it and that’s what distinguishes your business. But at some point, this notion of the… First of all, not everyone can be a renegade. If there’s like a million businesses on the block where they’re all renegades come on, even though it sometimes seems that way, that that’s sort of how people try to market and present themselves. But also, if you’re going to be successful, at some point, you’re not going to be the renegade anymore. You’re going to be, again, you won’t be the outsider. You’re gonna end up being an insider. And so, you have to come up with an approach for your business and for your logo and your brand that can grow as you and your business grow.
Anthony Verna:
Paul, thank you so much. I know that you need to run because you’ve got other work to do and so I won’t keep you. Thank you so much for coming. How can people find you again?
Paul Lukas:
They can go to the Uni Watch blog at uni-watch.com. That’s U N I, hyphen W A T C H dot com. And then once they’re there they can find my other work on ESPN and other places and they can also find me on Twitter @uniwatch so the hyphen is in the website URL, but not in the Twitter handle, which I know is confusing. Great example of bad branding yet everybody seems to find you.
Paul Lukas:
I hope. Thanks so much for having me on.
Anthony Verna:
Paul, thank you so much. Take care.