Mangled Visual Metaphors.

Everyone wants their logo to mean something – to represent some vital part of the company, product or service. Fair enough – that’s usually the point of the exericise, though often easier said than done. Creating a graphic image that tells a specific story about a sometimes fairly specialized business activity can be a daunting task and always runs the risk of becoming a mangled visual metaphor. Especially if the logo is designed in a ‘closed loop’ and even more so if created as part of a do-it-yourself project by someone without any real experience in design. Mangled visual metaphors often feature pictograms of human figures (the ubiquitous character with a circle for a head and a three-pointed graphic indicating his/her body) and often the activity being illustrated can very easily be interpreted as something else. This often involves logos that end up looking like naughty bits, or characters participating in activities that are much less than G-rated. As with many aspects of design, it’s always best to show you, rather than tell you. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at these (very real) logos -

Roh-oh. Now, we know that the pediatrics logo (1) is supposed to represent a caring physician offering comfort to a child (though that ain’t exactly what it looks like) and despite looking like the pair has been caught in flagrante delicto, we can sorta figure out that the top right image (2) depicts some sort of dental procedure. While (3) is meant to illustrate an oriental house set against a rising sun, it looks, ahm, almost pornographic, The computer services logo (4) is supposed to feature a mouse but can easily be confused with a certain part of the male anatomy, and while I understand that the dance instruction pictograms (5) are supposed to show a happy couple dancing the night away – can’t see anything but an image that would be better suited as an ad for a topless beach (look again). No doubt the designers of all these logos started out with only the best intentions, but somehow, somewhere, went seriously off the tracks and the mangled metaphors weren’t caught until the logo was in wide circulation.

Source: The logo Factor