loading . . . MY LOGOS A-Z: INTRODUCTION For many years, when asked how many logos I’ve designed, my stock answer was “over 700.” In truth, I wasn’t sure myself, even though I’ve documented a lot of that work on my blog’s Logo Links page and elsewhere. So, I recently spent a few weeks looking through all my image files and payment records to see if I could come up with a more accurate total. At present, that total is about 1,170 logos, though the number goes up and down slightly as I write the articles and look at things more closely. I’ve gathered images of as many as possible (some are nowhere to be found), that took another few weeks, and in a series of blog articles with this overall title I’ll be listing them and talking about them, where there’s anything to say. It will take some time! I’m projecting about 58 articles, which I plan to run twice a week, if I can keep up with the writing.
What qualifies as a logo? Generally, a logo is a distinctive graphic design that appears on the cover of a comic or book (or sometimes inside or elsewhere for non-comics commissions) representing a subject or character or theme. It at least has the potential to be used more than once if the project is successful and more of the same is wanted. That’s the part visible to readers or viewers.
Not visible is how the work was commissioned, produced, and paid for. When asked for a logo, I agree to do it for a higher rate than regular page or cover lettering, my logo rate. That can vary based on the client and situation. Once the price is settled, I Usually do several sketches in pencil, marker, or digitally and submit them to the client. If nothing in the first round is what they want, I will do more. Sometimes I can’t give a client what they want in several attempts, and we agree to stop. A kill fee is paid, usually about a third of my logo rate, for the work done, and we both move on. Or, if they like a certain idea but want changes, I do those. When the client is happy with a design, I produce a final version and send it to them. Originally that was pen and ink, later digital art done in Adobe Illustrator. Nearly all the logos in this series were finalized and paid for, even though I don’t always have a copy of what I did. In some cases I’ve included logos that were essentially finished and paid for, but never used because they went with someone else or decided not to publish the project. And in a very few, I’ve thrown in designs that weren’t paid for, but feel to me like logos that should be on the list based on the look and amount of work involved. I generally did not include designs where all my sketches were rejected. One good thing about designing logos is that it’s most often done early in the creative process, when hopes are high and the client is expecting the project to do well and make money for them, so I almost always got paid, which was not true with other kinds of lettering in every case.
My alphabetical arrangement is somewhat unusual: I ignore spaces and punctuation, so for instance Bat-Thing comes after Batman, and A.S.A.P comes after Art and before Ash. At least that’s the plan, we’ll see if I can keep to it. In this introduction I’ll begin with logos that start with numbers, which are often put first alphabetically. They all use the same number.
_This and all following images © Marvel_
**2099 A.D.** Client: Marvel. Medium: pen and ink. Date: 1994. Marvel editor Joey Cavalieri asked for a new take on this existing property, one for a crossover event that reflected the involvement of Dr. Doom (the A.D. stood for After Doom). I made the A.D. in the style of Doom’s mask with bevels to add thickness. It was used in a one-shot, but other versions were needed.
**2099 additional versions**. The 2099 line had many titles with future versions of Marvel characters. This one went under The Hulk’s logo.
This one matched the curve and angle of Spider-Man.
A third went with the 2099 X-Men logo. Since there was minimal designing involved, I probably did these three versions for the price of one logo, and that’s how I’m counting them. They each appeared on a number of issues. There was also a complete logo done for Punisher 2099 which I will cover when I get to it in the alphabet. More on these HERE.
**2099 A.D. Apocalypse.** Client: Marvel. Medium: digital. Date: 1995. The following year Joey asked for two more complete logos for this event. I was now doing logo designs digitally. This used one of my own digital title fonts for the letters in APOCALYPSE. I’m sure the skull was provided by Marvel.
**2099 A.D. Genesis**. Client: Marvel. Medium: digital. Date: 1995. This one used a commercial font for GENESIS I think, though I don’t recall which one, and I must have changed it quite a bit from the look of it.
**2099 World of Tomorrow.** Client: Marvel. Medium: digital. Date: 1996. A final 2099 logo was requested, and it used numbers from one of my own fonts, with the bottom line being a commercial font that I can’t identify. In the early days of digital design, I grabbed whatever worked from fonts available from Adobe and other online font vendors as well as collections of fonts sold in large lots on inexpensive disks, font books with disks from Dover Publications, and wherever I could find them. Many of those fonts were not ones I could use, but enough were to make the acquisitions worthwhile.
Next time we begin the actual alphabet. More then!
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