It looks like they got the guy who designed the new Air Force logo. I think it’s supposed to represent a shield. I have no idea why they’d choose that, but that’s how it appears to me.
I absolutely hated logos like that when I was a trade mark examiner in the UK Patent Office in the late 80’s, before the days of computerised device searching.
They fell into the extremely vague category known as “Curvilinear - various” and the worst was an application Class 9, which covers all electrical and electronic instruments and apparatus. Effing nightmare.
Speaking as someone who once created just such a logo for his own company, I can say that the reasons for me were:
- Easy to do
- Sorta techno-future-modern looking
- Easy to do
All I had was a copy of paint shop pro and a budget of zero. So I made this:
Fnord It’s pretty!
There’s this bar/lounge/club/whatever in this city that is called @tmosphere. It drives me crazy. If they were going to use the commercial “at” symbol, and use it correctly, wouldn’t it be “@mosphere”? At present, isn’t it really “attmosphere”?
I feel like a jackass for complaining about this.
::slinks away::
Kevin Pease did a three strip long arc on that very topic in his comic Absurd Notions, and with reader help compiled an alphabet of “things in at signs other than an ‘a’”. The only missing letters are j, l, q, t, and y.
The first two comics and the alphabet are on this page:
http://www.absurdnotions.org/page70.html#ats
Then there’s the classic “meatball” from 1959. Swooshy, sinuous ribbon/arrow thingie? Check. Futuristic ellipse? Check. Suggestion of movement? Yep, both kinds – rotational and linear! Yet it’s grounded (no pun intended) in a certain retro charm. Check out that short, chunky serif-laden font and the earnestly overdetailed visual busyness of the image… almost as if it was designed by a rocket scientist who couldn’t wait to return to his “real” job in the Mercury program.
NASA. The *sine qua non * of swooshy, elliptical, dynamic and yet somewhat cheesy logos.
I was gonna say, I think it’s Arabic for “fnord”.
I believe you are incorrect. I’ll check the next time I’m on the Clark Street bus, but my girlfriend recalls noticing the sign and remarking on how they did it right.
Also, the Andersonville Chamber of Commerce listing has the name listed correctly.
Designers move in packs–funny, given that their job is to move apart from the pack. The swoosh is just one trend. See also: the “Se7en” look (highly distressed, barely legible) and the Flash look (very simple, clinically clean, lots of outline elements and late-90’s colors).
Lately I’m noticing a lot of vaguely carnival-like design, using aged browns and ornate typefaces, maybe brought about by Carnivale on HBO. Not sure if it’s a full-blown trend just yet. Once it shows up in local news promos or a Ditech spot, it’s officially ubiquitous.
Nike’s swoosh logo is a different animal from the dot com swooshes all around. It’s much older, more original in its day, and unique. It’s not just a couple of ellipses overlapping, it’s a form of its own. The rest is hack work, inspired by client demands or creative laziness.
Actually, I’ve seen t used as well, by a friend of mine. He started up a short-lived web design company called Tariax, and used the t in a circle for the logo. But they’re long since defunct, so it’s not online anymore.
Hey, thanks! :dubious:
My company has a double orbit swooshy thingie, and a planet. The planet dots an “i.”
I’m actually kind of proud if we’ve managed to be even moderately with it for once. Of course, we’ll keep this logo until way past the time we should’ve changed, but hey, you can’t have everything.
I just noticed that the shirt I’m wearing right now has this logo. Yep, two crescents and a circle. At least it fits the application. (It’s less jaggedy on the shirt.)
No offense intended there. I’ve used this technique myself, many times. Just 'cause it’s hack work doesn’t mean it doesn’t pay the bills! 
Actually, I’ve been in that joint, and it ought to be @MO’sphere.
it’s a gay bar, see. and I didn’t know that when i went in, plus i was with my wife, and we…oh nevermind
I beliebe these arcs can be defined as “oblate cresents”.
The wave logo is worse for lack of imagination.
The “swoosh” and “oblate cresent” are used more in technical products. The wave logo (a sine wave of one wavelength) is even more ubiquitous, with the focus seeming to be on food products. There are many logos that use this exact wave shape.
Did Coca Cola call it the “power wave”?
You didn’t do this one too, did you?