Barring the apparent use of a translation engine (the English portion of the website is barely readable), 11 Designer for Germany is a very good attempt at saving face in regards to the atrocious design by committee World Cup logo that somehow emerged. Covered previously here and again here when Spiekermann voiced his opinion about it. Sadly many of them are indeed better than the official logo, such a shame that none of them got to represent Germany's World Cup. Below are my quick takes on the 11 designs, feel free to disagree.
- I can't believe this was passed off as a design, perhaps something is missing in the translation, they were trying to go for something deep and totally missed the target. Concept plays a large role, but so does execution.
- Whimsical, it has a terrific human feel to it, not as sterile as most contemporary designs.
- The elements aren't cohesive enough. As an image it works because everyone can see the 'photograph' that was used as a base, but the three elements are still too disjointed and too busy as a real logo. For a poster it may work, but not as a logo. The usage of 2006 as a ball moving through the air is great, wish there was a way to make just that portion the logo. See #5.
- Doesn't work as a logo, interesting concept, ahead of its time. Appreciated by designers and artists but probably not for the general public.
- Would have been a winner if the first square (black) could have been made into a 2. Or is there some deeper meaning behind the two or three rectangles? It gets a bit confusing when you think about it. Are they using the three rectangles for Germany's colors and then attaching a 6 to the end of it? Or is it two rectangles and then an '06. Doesn't work when you mix two different meanings like that. I guess they didn't do their research on Adidas' new ball, going forward that hexagon may not be very relevant anymore.
- This could be a logo for anything.
- Not bad, not many designers dare use photographs in a logo design. But with the focus on green energy, this would have been very relevant to our time. Would have been more interested in seeing a designed texture that would have been more scalable.
- Not bad, it's hard to see a coherent theme at first, but there is a slight connection and the logo or branding in this case is very malleable.
- Probably my second favorite because it's traditional with a slight modern touch, takes a page out of the Olympics and it's packed with action. Would have LOVED to see this as the official World Cup branding. It doesn't fill the criteria of what the organisers were looking for but perhaps they were asking for too much. They should have distilled the criteria since it was obvious many of the designers were unable to do that.
- A nice Illustrator drawing does not mean it's fit to be a logo. And the concept behind it, a heart and a soccer ball? COME ON...
- This is my favorite of the bunch and though it speaks well to the various countries participating it might be too out there for the conservatives in the world. Very creative use of typography (though I've seen it done before) and the concept behind it is very relevant.
Update: Link added here, sorry about that, CMS is giving me fits.
1. Care to provide with a link? THX
Posted at 10:04AM on Jul 20th 2006 by JT