Logo Love

Posted by Laura Bergells

November 6, 2006

Here are two situation where I particularly dislike seeing little corporate logos at the bottom right corner of a screen:

I dislike them when I see a presenter speak, and she is using a front-projection system. As she stood on stage, her corporate logo was unwittingly emblazoned on her chest about 75% of the time.
I dislike them when I watch TV, and the little logo suddenly morphs into a full-fledged animation that takes over about 25% of the screen real estate. Similarly, I don’t like it when the logo otherwise blocks a significant part of the on-screen content.

Distracting, those annoying not-so-little logos.

But there are two situations when I like the logo in the lower right hand corner:

I like the logo when I am in a hotel room in a strange city. As I flip the channels on the TV remote, I can understand rather quickly which channel or network product I am viewing.
I like the logo when I am online, and I am watching a PowerPoint presentation out of context — when the presentation is on YouTube or SlideShare, for example, and I want to know who originally produced the content so that I can visit the creator’s website.

As syndicated content explodes online in the coming years, expect to see more little logos embedded into video and PowerPoint. Until someone has a better idea, the little logo is a part of our communication evolution.

In the meantime, can we keep the little logos more subtle?

Reign in the idea that an exploding logo has more power and deserves more weight than the actual presentation content!

Watermarks, for example, are less distracting than a logo that suddenly bursts into flames and spins around the screen.

Dontcha think so?