art instruction and reference

David E. Carter has published shelves full of books on design and creative applications. The New Big Book of Logos is a valuable addition to anyone's swipe file. If you're looking for yet another array of by-gone days in corporate identity, then this is NOT the book for your money. Frankly, I'm tired of books filled with thoroughly worn-out antique icons (clip art) of corporate entities. This book and it's predecessor are fresh and valuable to the creative mind for the wealth of ideas taken from unknown and uncommon identities. For the purpose of looking at others' work as something to analyze, pull-apart, and re-assemble into something new and completely different, this book is a gold mine of creative opportunities. Your money is well-spent on anything David E. Carter produces.

I don't know why anyone would need to buy another logo book after buying this one. It's chock-full of logos. Certainly, they are not all gems...but there's enough good ideas in there to get your own brain stimulated.

In reference to the guy who was disappointed in this book because it didn't have recognizable, big brand logos (Shell, McDonalds, etc..) my question is "why would you want that?" Why would you want a book filled with marks everyone knows so well that they see them in their sleep. Give me fresh stuff! Stuff I haven't seen! And, yes, this means stuff from big markets as well as small. Why is a logo for a small maket any less valid? Why does distribution suddenly equal rellevancy? Maybe you should go back to design school to figure this out.

This could have has SO much potential - it could have dealt with famous brands in the last 100+years such as Shell, BP, Bell, AT&T, IBM, Coke, Pepsi, Sony, Audi, BMW, McDonalds, Procter and Gamble, Microsoft, etc etc - there are so many famous and excellent brands. And they are International we all know them, but it would be nice to have a book covering them all and some more obscure ones.

But this book isn't in that league at all. This is the big book of early 90's clip art. Most of the designs are horribly dated, with sickly pastel colours, overly complex motifs etc. They are all much the same and certainly don't stand out on the page.

Obviously they are all Americentric, but worse they are all small-town Americentric. The cutesy clip art for the 10th Anniverary Snowy Creek Cub Spelling Bee, or Grand Street, Middletown, Nowheresville 3rd Annual Street Parade and the like have no value or merit outside of that institution. And that goes for 90% of the clip art...sorry logos. The work on offer is wholly unprofessional and bland. Managing to fill 400 odd pages with such mediocre work is quite remarkable.

After having read through this book I opted for How to Design Logos, Symbols and Icons - at least it had some quality, recognisable brands in it.