[IMG MGMT] Squiggles, Trees, Ribbons and Spirals: My Collection of Women’s Health, Beauty and Support Group Logos as the Stages of Life in Semi-Particular Order

Super fascinating! Thank you Shana for researching and compiling this essay. It’s disheartening to see so many women’s organizations using bland and less-than-innovative branding to promote their organizations and causes. I’ll say though, having worked with women’s orgs for years, that many of these groups have little to no funding to allocate to hire premium creative logo/branding designers and often rely either on pro-bono work or even the work of board members or staff.

This isn’t to say that pro-bono work is inherently less creative than paid work, but it’s often difficult for many women’s organizations to get amazing creative work that fits the budget. Hence we get redundant logos and even stock photos used for logos. It would be ideal if either women’s groups could get the funding to hire great branding experts or if more amazing creatives offered up a bit of their time to groups doing good work.

Super fascinating! Thank you Shana for researching and compiling this essay. It’s disheartening to see so many women’s organizations using bland and less-than-innovative branding to promote their organizations and causes. I’ll say though, having worked with women’s orgs for years, that many of these groups have little to no funding to allocate to hire premium creative logo/branding designers and often rely either on pro-bono work or even the work of board members or staff.

This isn’t to say that pro-bono work is inherently less creative than paid work, but it’s often difficult for many women’s organizations to get amazing creative work that fits the budget. Hence we get redundant logos and even stock photos used for logos. It would be ideal if either women’s groups could get the funding to hire great branding experts or if more amazing creatives offered up a bit of their time to groups doing good work.

I’m sorry to say that I did not recognize any of these organizations.

I do agree with Anique in that we can most likely assume that not a whole lot was budgeted for these to be created.

However what I also see here is that less experienced designers, found it easier to tag along on previously established logos, than to think outside of the box with an original, creative idea that demonstrates what the company is actually trying to convey. In other words, copying.

My suggestion? Stop looking at others work for inspiration and draw from your own creativity with your subject matter in mind. Stay away from “Googling” other logos. Payment aside, this should not be so apparent.

This seems a little like seeing a rose for its thorns. I see lots of beautiful images on the Goddess! Did I miss something? How are squiggles depicting gender stereotypes? Is the Coca-Cola logo meant to appeal to women with its swoopy lines?

This post is missing something, an analysis as to why these images are bad. I don’t get a badness vibe here. I don’t get it.

Very interesting. However, I do wonder how many logos for womens organizations you came across that did not fall into this stereotype.

considering that designers work from the concept of an organization and its overall mission/audience, it’s not a surprise that most of these logos represent women (successfully or not). most of the organizations represent women or even explicitly mention women in their name. i think the essay gets at a larger and deeper issue which is that we even need organizations specifically targeted to, representative of, or in the service of women. whether their logo is a soccer ball, or a woman holding a soccer ball is besides the point. i’m with you chelsed… men’s soccer is “soccer.” my concern is not only how do we create good imagery to depict women, but how do we eliminate the need?

considering that designers work from the concept of an organization and its overall mission/audience, it’s not a surprise that most of these logos represent women (successfully or not). most of the organizations represent women or even explicitly mention women in their name. i think the essay gets at a larger and deeper issue which is that we even need organizations specifically targeted to, representative of, or in the service of women. whether their logo is a soccer ball, or a woman holding a soccer ball is besides the point. i’m with you chelsed… men’s soccer is “soccer.” my concern is not only how do we create good imagery to depict women, but how do we eliminate the need?

Just to play devil’s advocate, it seems that a logo looking the same as others isn’t necessarily a bad thing in some circumstances. If your goal is to build a national organization with a uniquely recognizable brand, then this is certainly not the way to go – but if you’re running a small, local organization (say, a maternity clinic or a shelter for abused women) then having your logo look like other women’s organizations’ logos may help people identify you as a women’s organization, too.

The problem with performing pro-bono work can often be the time factor. Everyone’s got to make a living. As a designer, I know that creating a truly good and original logo can eat up a lot of time. Thus the temptation will be to garnish existing ideas and alter, in cases where pro bono time will affect time for billable clients. Not making a judgement call on this strategy, its just a dose of reality.
Nice work on the collection- we’ve noticed this also but weren’t aware of the numbers of examples to be found.

I think it could also be interesting to compare logo styles of today with logo styles of past eras (although I realize that the existence of women-focused groups and products has increased with time, so the amount of material for earlier eras could be much less). In what time frame (years) were these logos shown here created? Would a similar analysis of logos created in different time periods yield such a strong correlation as well? Upon comparing logo mods of different generations, is there a certain trend to be recognized as time progresses? All questions to the artist, and all others who may be interested in researching.

I realized this while I was working on the branding of a genetic research laboratory, NDAL. I like to believe my woman+dna helix logo looks different from any of the above.

http://www.zeoist.com/work/?area=12&project=20

I realized this while I was working on the branding of a genetic research laboratory, NDAL. I like to believe my woman+dna helix logo looks different from any of the above.

http://www.zeoist.com/work/?area=12&project=20

1) pointy-limbed people
2) swooshes

I promise to never head down either of those paths.

Can someone please pass the testosterone?

Can someone please pass the testosterone?

One more @ http://www.yogafit.com/, headed by a woman and serving mostly women.

Fortunately this critique speaks more loudly than Shana Moulton’s attempt to back away from it by saying “I never intended to make a judgment call here; by compiling these images in this post I didn’t mean to say they were necessarily bad or good.”

If mediocre can be considered bad, these logos are mostly bad. A little testosterone might not hurt here, in the critical assertion department.

Fortunately this critique speaks more loudly than Shana Moulton’s attempt to back away from it by saying “I never intended to make a judgment call here; by compiling these images in this post I didn’t mean to say they were necessarily bad or good.”

If mediocre can be considered bad, these logos are mostly bad. A little testosterone might not hurt here, in the critical assertion department.

Showing up late, but I get the benefit of this “focus group” that Mad Men would die for. Great work Shana, I’d love to see this research go into more specific information like: How many of these logos were designed by women? What sources were they cribbing their ideas from (I counted Matisse, Cycladic sculpture, Peter Max, the Three Graces and the Breast Cancer Ribbon, just to start.) Color choices (When did pastel become the sole realm of the feminine?) Sign, symbol, and text, which is more effective?
The responses have also bee enlightening, funny and frightening (A logo can be patronizing? Kinda like saying the letter M is overbearing.)
As someone whose worked in graphic design, it seems that the real questions weren’t even asked. But for fear of offending, I’ll keep those to my testosterone drenched self.

Only a few of these pictures seem to be logos.

I like to think the swooshy ladies are all saying “Yeah!!” as they strike their poses, kind of the way Lil John says “yeah.” It’s funny!

Some of these are definitely better than others; for example, if the the teal swooshy lady near the top is for a Korean women’s organization, as I would surmise from the brush stroke quality and the shapes in general, it’s pretty clever. That said, it’s striking to see the similarities, and how many times we dip back to the same couple of wells (swooshy ladies, Girl Scout-like faces, the state of Nebraska etc.). I think I’ve noticed it subconsciously, but it’s fascinating to see it laid out like this, back to back to back to back… Nice essay. And thanks for letting us draw our own conclusions.