Swiss Airlines has a rich history that has been hidden in the archives for quite some time. On March 26th, 1931 when Swissair formed, I doubt anyone at the time really considered the history that they were going to be making with the company’s design. Balair and Ad Astra were the two companies that merged to form Swissair. Throughout the years they’ve changed logos many times but there was one that was most memorable (above). Quite possibly it was the best logo that the company has ever used.
Thanks to SR692 for collecting this information so that we’re able to walk through past logos used by Swissair. Some great, some not so great and a few that were very, very experimental. Hit the jump to see how the company logo changed throughout the years.
I always see those huge drums of ink sitting around when I’m on press for a print job but it rarely occurs to me to ponder where it comes from. Well thanks to The Printing Ink Company, now we know. It’s amazing the time and the attention to detail they put into each step. Beautifully shot; the whole thing really makes me appreciate printed materials all the more.
The votes are in and we have our top three Gap Logo redesigns. A varied bunch to be sure. Congratulations to our winners Roger Schami, Steve Juliano, and Benoit Henken! You will be notified by email with information regarding how to collect your prizes.
Honorable mentions to both Jason Caldeira and Chris Reynolds, who scored fourth and fifth place respectively.
Rocking with the new Deerhunter record is fun but I hate wearing out a record too early so I started digging thru some Atlas Sound and pulled out this gem of an early EP.
Arp has some light synth work that takes some time to grow but that growing time is where you want spend your time listening, soo relaxing.
For those who bought the Matthew Dear album on CD you didn’t get this digital bonus from Matt. Its a new spectrum of that circular sound he does that grabs me.
I’ve noticed i’ve been looking for more tasteful piano music, Eluvium and Peter Broderick have been my go to’s, any more suggestions? I know its a huge can of worms to bust open, I don’t need any BS like Radiohead piano covers or dumb shite like that.
Pictured above are some shots of the various models in Access Music’s Virus TI2 line. Of all the musical equipment manufacturers out there, I’d have to say that the Recklinghausen, Germany based outfit are making some of the most innovative and powerful sound synthesis tools available today. But aside from that, they’re incredibly beautiful and well-crafted machines. I’ve owned several and have to say I’ve always been amazed at the build quality and attention to detail they put into their equipment. I love how they take subtle cues from the past — the perfectly measured application of wood is a perfect example — while still pushing the design forward. As I’ve said before, it doesn’t get any better than stainless steel and wood, and the TI2 KB features a stainless steel/wood sandwich on the endcaps. Sort of like the amazing Jupiter 6 caps, but with wood (I sold a Jupiter 6 once. Worst mistake ever). But none of this comes cheap, these are also some of the most expensive synthesizers out there (probably the most expensive VA’s). I’d have to say they’re well worth the money though, the sound is unmatched and they’re built to last.
What I really admire about what Access is doing is that they’re doing it all from within the festering pit of mediocrity that is the music technology industry, an industry dominated by bad taste and terrible interface design. I don’t know what it is that drives industrial design in music technology, but you’d swear every new keyboard was designed by the backup drummer from Ratt. So I really admire it when a company steps up and chooses quality design over gimmicky superfluousness and nonsensical hyperbole (Tubes? Really? I bet they’re not even in the signal path). Roland is the saddest example of a once great company committing egregious latter day design sins. This is the company that brought us the iconic 808, 909, MSQ-700, SH-5, and Jupiter 8. Music machines with incredibly well thought out interfaces which were also durable and aesthetically pleasing. The best they can muster now are bloated, plastic, messes that look like a cross between a dvd player and a karaoke machine. And they don’t sound any better than they look. Oh yeah, once in a while try to reclaim their former glory with a cheap knockoff of their own product (to be fair, Korg is just as guilty of this as Roland).
But I digress… If you’ve caught some of my posts on the studio or seen the live show you may have noticed that I’m quite fond of my Virus C synthesizers. Of all the VA (virtual analog) synthesizers out there, I’d say the Virus has the most warm and unique sound. When it comes to VA’s, I think it’s all about the converters. The modeling can be dead-on but if you’re running through some space-age, 24-bit converters, the sound is going to be cold and rigid. That’s the thing that (used to) set the Virus line apart from the rest, the converters. They were warm and gritty, you could really feel the sound, it was authentic. First came the Virus A, which many still consider the best sounding of the Virus line (I wouldn’t know, I’ve only used the C line and on). Then came the B, which I heard had a little cleaner converters (read: worse). And right around the time I became aware of the Virus they came out with the C line. I was sold the first time I played one. They come shipped with the bucket full of useless euro-trance trash patches that are apparently legally required to preload on a new synth, but once you get past those and start digging in and programming, you can make them sing.
A couple years later they came out with the TI line and I got a TI Polar. To tell the truth, I was pretty disappointed by the sound. It was just too sterile, too pristine. They had apparently implemented the new 24-bit converters and you could hear it. I ended up selling the Polar and sticking with my C KB and Indigo Redback. Which was unfortunate, because the TI’s are just so beautiful. And also because Access no longer makes the mainboards for the C models. One bad power setup at a show and my Indigo is toast, for good.
Well it looks as though Gapgate is over as quickly as it appeared. After all the speculation, they did indeed pull a Tropicana. And what started out as a fun little experiment for us, quickly swelled far beyond our expectations. We received hundreds of submissions, so many that we had trouble keeping up. So now it’s time to sort through all of them and choose the winners. But before we do, I wanted talk a little about the contest in general and what we’ve learned during the past week.
As we mentioned in the previous post, the contest is not affiliated with Gap in any way. We are not crowd sourcing a new logo for Gap. To think that we are is to misunderstand the concept of crowd sourcing as well as our intentions. This contest was designed to give people an opportunity to put themselves in the shoes of Laird + Partners; to see what they would do if tasked with the (apparently) impossible mission of rebranding Gap. These mega-rebrands are always hit with a wave of inevitable criticism, but rarely do you see designers offering viable alternatives in addition to their critiques. It’s harder than it looks. I wanted to challenge our readers to not just criticize the new logo, but provide an alternative solution. The contest was an exercise — like a school project — and had nothing to do with Gap’s ludicrous (thankfully temporary) decision to engage in crowd sourcing.
The entries were interesting to say the least. Submissions ran the gamut from tongue-in-cheek innuendo to well executed contenders to the original logo. What filled the space between was a raft of subtle variations and incremental evolutions that all seemed to rely heavily on the original brand. But I suppose that’s what’s at the core of this whole argument: people apparently love the blue square.
So now we leave it up to you again. Please refer to the submissions on the original post, noting the number of the submission (directly below the image on the left) and place your vote here. Voting will be open until 11:59 PM Wednesday October 13th. (Update: Voting is now closed, winners posted soon)
Thanks to everyone who submitted a logo, good luck!
The new Deerhunter is everywhere, you probably already listened to it but its well worth posting, when Bradford starts singing slower in Helicopter it grabs my ear, probably my favorite moment in the record.
Seams put up a free download recently, its beautiful, Four Tet-ish with whirlwind kind of feel, highly recommend you download.
I’m always excited for new Apparat, I expect him to always deliver epic speedy melodic material tastefully and he did just that, everything thats underlaying in the song gorgeous too, needs to be heard more than once, I could go with out the marching band breakdown though.
I don’t need to file Copy under any genre its not worth the hassle to place him somewhere because its not going to help explain how much I love this tune.
CDM is reporting on a new iOS based Moog product called Filtatron, “an iPhone Filtering, Effects, and Sampling App”, basically Moogerfoogers on your phone. This is looking pretty amazing interface-wise; very true to the signature Moog aesthetic with the Little Phatty style rotary encoders and soft buttons. From a strictly user experience perspective this must have been a lot of fun to design. It will be interesting to see how it actually sounds compared to the real thing though — I’m going to take a wild guess and say it sounds nothing like a MoogerFooger. Software analog modeling is an imperfect art (or perhaps too perfect); it’s best to think of it as it’s own beast entirely than a faithful representation of the sonic characteristics of a true analog circuit. At any rate it’s interesting to see music technology makers pushing the capabilities of mobile devices. Software like this can may never replace analog hardware, but it would be nice to have the portability and power when you’re away from the studio, even if it comes with a healthy dose of compromise. See also: iRig
