There are posters where I work for an improvement program. The symbol is three meshed gears. I’m sure thyat the graphic designer wanted to convey a sense of an integrated system all meshing together and working propery.
But, as an engineer, my immediate thought when I look at those three gears, each touching the other two, is that none of the damned gears will turn if you put them together that way. It’sd the worst symbol you could possibly use to depict something meant to convey the idea of Progress, since it actually shows each of the parts getting in the way of the other two.
And this place is full of Engineers. I’ll bet they all think the same thing.
Of course, the point is that they went with Pretty, rather than Logical. And this logo is not alone. There seems to be a long history of symbols and logos that, taken literally, imply incompetance rather than excellence, but they’ve survived because they Look Cool:
– At an optics company I used to work for, the corporate symbol was an optical effect. Most people probably weren’t awar o it, but when you get a focal spoty that looks like that, it indicates severe optical aberratiion. If your lens produced spot like that, you’d throw it out. But it looked cool.
– The classic example is the “Fouled Anchor” used by the US Navy and Marines. It supposedly traces its lineage back to the British Navy in the 16th century, and is still used in Royal Navy seals and the like. (A fouled anchor is one where the line or chain loops around the anchor. If you actually had that situation, the line or chain would pull the anchor by the wronmg point, and it wouldn’t function properly, and whoever let things get into that situation would probably get a chewing out. But the design Looks Cool, with the rope or chain weaving artfully around the flukes and shaft of the anchor.)
http://www.usskawishiwi.org/Clothing.html
Any others?