Logomotive: A Review

A few weeks ago, I was looking for friends at the library. I happened upon a shiny red book. I have a preference for shiny things, so I pulled it out. My heart quickened when I found that it was the kind of book with mostly pictures. Huzzah!

The book was called "Logomotive: Railroad Graphics and the American Dream". Logomotive chronicled the visual brands of some of the most most influential companies in the 19th & 20th century: railway companies.?

This book made me realize how pervasive the abstract, minimal aesthetic is in our current century. Apple, Microsoft & Google all have minimal, simplistic branding. The focus is on clean lines & a plethora of white space.?

The minimal aesthetic makes sense for a tech company since much of software engineering is abstraction and the minimization of complexity. It is no surprise that their designers emulate the engineers by stripping away every extraneous detail so that only the essence of the visual brand remains.

In stark contrast, the visual brands in this book exhibited industrial elegance. The logos are intricate, without being gaudy.

It was a breath of fresh air: here were examples of professional, corporate brands that have diverged from the minimal aesthetic I had grown tired of.

It made me think that a new trend in graphic design might be to move away from abstract iconography and move to the industrial elegance that I saw in this book. Clothing brands like Patagonia & Super Dry already have branding that is very similar to the branding I saw in Logomotive.?

It would be interesting to have more diverse brands in the tech world. I see a Steampunk Education redesign in my near future...

Pi pip,

Gabe