This is a quick post I’ve been thinking about for a while.
A lot has been said about great iconic logos; IBM, American Airlines, Coca-Cola, ect. One of the logos with the most nostalgia for me is the National Geographic magazine cover. It’s a weird one, as it’s not really a logo. Now, they have the official logo with the yellow rectangle and text to the right, which is alright. But the real icon for the brand is the magazine itself. And that’s what I think is great about it.
The first issue had a very non-descript brown cover with thin dark line border. It looked like a very serious scientific journal. Sometime thereafter, before 1910 as far as I can tell, they added the yellow border. That has remained a constant ever since. It’s wonderful. It is something that makes the magazine cross many generations. That yellow border makes an issue from 1930 seem just as informative and interesting as one today. So much of the magazine is about constants. Places that haven’t changed. Mountains. Canyons. People. The cover of National Geographic. The yellow border remains, just as wonder remains.
-Rich
Tags: logo, National geographic, Rich
