Logo Lounge 6 – 2000 International Identities by Leading Designers by Catharine Fishel and Bill Gardner

Article by Martin Gibson – @embody3d @martingibson – 17.03.2011

Logo Lounge 6 Published by Rockport is another installment in the Logo Lounge series showcasing the greatest logos from around the world. One of the great benefits of Logo Lounge 6 is the larger page size compared to Logo lounge 4 which we have reviewed previously. This larger page size makes each logo far  more comprehensible which is of great benefit, consequently a lot less squinting. A real benefit also of this book compared to Logo lounge 4 was the addition of these really nice feature pages at the start of each chapter. At the start of each chapter there are some black pages which highlight just one logo and its associated branding pack. These pages are extremely effective as you get to see these logos in context, like on buildings and packaging etc. It would almost be worth making the whole book just filled with these feature pages as these are the most entertaining and insightful.

Once again however, Logo Lounge 6 suffers from its funny categorisation like Logo lounge 4. For example chapters include: birds, animals, rather than specific industry sectors. I don’t think designers should be approaching a logo design project looking for a particular feel like “the logo must be an emblem, and must contain a bird”. But rather designers should be approaching design by looking at what the existing logos are in each industry for research purposes. As in “I am designing a logo for a construction company, give me all logos that are related to construction. I want to see stylistic generalisations for industry not a whole bunch of emblems of all different styles and industries. I am sure contrary arguments could be made, but I will leave this debate with the authors another time.

Logo Lounge 6 strikes a great balance between showing logos in context and showing off feature logos to just putting sheer quantity of logos down on each page. This is a great all round book and if it is your job to design logos all day it is an indispensable book of inspiration. However after this 2nd title reviewed from the Logo Lounge series I am starting to get the feeling that once you own one book from Logo Lounge there is diminutive benefit getting the next release as each book has so much logos you will never really get through it. Also the differences stylistically between each edition seems to be getting eerily similar. [rating:4.5]