Posts Tagged ‘logo’
“You’re gonna need a bigger boat”*…
We’re running out of names; Elizabeth Gibney explains…
By the 2030s, the world will generate around a yottabyte of data per year — that’s 1024 bytes, or the amount that would fit on DVDs stacked all the way to Mars. Now, the booming growth of the data sphere has prompted the governors of the metric system to agree on new prefixes beyond that magnitude, to describe the outrageously big and small.
Representatives from governments worldwide, meeting at the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) outside Paris on 18 November, voted to introduce four new prefixes to the International System of Units (SI) with immediate effect. The prefixes ronna and quetta represent 1027 and 1030, and ronto and quecto signify 10−27 and 10−30. Earth weighs around one ronnagram, and an electron’s mass is about one quectogram.
This is the first update to the prefix system since 1991, when the organization added zetta (1021), zepto (10−21), yotta (1024) and yocto (10−24). In that case, metrologists were adapting to fit the needs of chemists, who wanted a way to express SI units on the scale of Avogadro’s number — the 6 × 1023 units in a mole, a measure of the quantity of substances. The more familiar prefixes peta and exa were added in 1975…
Prolific generation of data drove the need for prefixes that denote 1027 and 1030: “How many yottabytes in a quettabyte? Extreme numbers get new names,” from @LizzieGibney in @Nature.
And in other news from the world of metrics: “Do not adjust your clock: scientists call time on the leap second.”
* Jaws
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As we try to keep up, we might recall that it was on this date in 1968 that 60 Minutes, which had premiered two months earlier, introduced its trademark “ticking stopwatch” opening logo/transition. 60 Minutes is, of course, the most-watched television news show in history.
Since near the show’s inception in 1968, the opening of 60 Minutes features a stopwatch. The Aristo (Heuer) design first appeared in 1978. On October 29, 2006, the background changed to red, the title text color changed to white, and the stopwatch was shifted to the upright position. This version was used from 1992 to 2006 (the Square 721 type was changed in 1998). Source
“A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals to discovery.”*…
Ed Simon on errata (and other errors) in literature…
… The King James Version of the Bible has exactly 783,137 words, but unfortunately for the London print shop of Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, official purveyors to King Charles I, their 1631 edition left out three crucial letters, one crucial word—”not.” As such, their version of Exodus 20:14 read, “Thou shalt commit adultery.” Their royal patron was not amused. This edition was later deemed the “Wicked Bible.”
Literature’s history is a history of mistakes, errors, misapprehensions, simple typos. It’s the shadow narrative of expression—how we fail because of sloppiness, or ignorance, or simple tiredness. Blessed are the copyeditors, for theirs is a war of eternal attrition. Nothing done by humans is untouched by such fallenness, for to err is the universal lot of all of us. Authors make mistakes, as do editors, publishers, printers (and readers).
If error were simply an issue of a wrong comma here or an incorrect word there it wouldn’t be nearly as interesting, but mistakes undergird our lives, even our universe. They can be detrimental, beneficial, neutral. When Lockheed Martin designed the Mars Climate Orbiter using American units and NASA assumed that they’d used the metric system instead, a discrepancy that resulted in that satellite crashing into the red dust of the fourth planet from the sun—that was a mistake. And when the physician Alexander Fleming left out a culture plate which got contaminated, and he noticed the flourishing of a blue mold that turned out to be penicillin—that was a mistake. Errors in how people hear phonemes are what lead to the development of new languages; mistakes in an animal’s DNA propel evolution; getting lost can render new discoveries. Sometimes the flaw is that which is most beautiful.
Certainly, there are no shortage of them…
A wonderfully amusing history, and richly illuminating consideration of literary mistakes through the ages: “How Many Errorrs Are in This Essay?,” from @WithEdSimon in @The_Millions.
Vaguely apposite (and also really fascinating): “Panic at the Library.”
* James Joyce, Ulysses
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As we muse on misprints, we might recall that it was on this date in 1968 that The Beatles’ record label, Apple Records, released its first single, “Hey Jude.”
The label was founded… as a creative outlet for the band and as a way to reduce their tax burden. They choose the name and image of a Granny Smith apple because in Paul McCartney’s mind, a green apple signified creative freedom and independence from commercial interests. The record was unique because it featured the image of a Granny Smith apple on side-A and the same apple sliced in half on side-B. But according to The Independent, the song was almost never released because some record executives thought that the image looked pornagraphic. In a letter sent to Apple boss Ron Kass, it said, “Here’s a wild and unanticipated problem to brighten up your day. I just received a call from a very large and influential jack jobber in the western United States. He opened the conversation by saying, ‘Are you guys serious? Do you know what you’re doing? Do you really intend to sell products bearing the new Apple label?’” He said that the Apple label was completely pornographic and the graphic nature of the art was noticed by all of his employees. He doubted that record store chains would want to stock such a record. Not only was he wrong [the single sold 8 million copies], but there is no evidence that the band had intended using a controversial image.
source
Your correspondent leaves it to the reader to deduce the supposed pornographic image. If, like him, you are stumped, see The Independent article linked in the quote above.
“My favorite dish to prepare is something on the takeout menu”*…
Who drew that winking chef on your pizza box? Anne Ewbank investigates…
Takeout containers—especially for pizza, Chinese food, and sushi—have an iconic art and style. Granted, it’s not always the most elegant or politically correct, but some of these designs are now instantly recognizable. So, today, we investigate the origins of the smiling chef of pizza-box fame, the ubiquitous red pagoda of American-Chinese takeout, and the surprising elegance of plastic sushi trays…
The iconography of take-out: “The Hidden Histories of To-Go Container Art,” from @AEwbank in @atlasobscura.
* Tyler Perry
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As we forgo the extra cheese, we might send expressive birthday greetings to Ralph Steadman; he was born on this date in 1936. An artist and illustrator renowned for his political and social caricatures, cartoons, and picture books, he is probably best known for his collaborations with Hunter Thompson, especially on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72.
But Steadman also dabbled in comestible labeling; he brought his gonzo sensibility to the art for Flying Dog beer and designed the V logo used on Flying Dog’s packaging since 1995… work that occasioned censorship by the Colorado State Liquor Board, then an appeal by Flying Dog that was, in 2001, settled in Flying Dog’s favor.
“a publisher’s emblem or imprint, especially one on the title page or spine of a book”*…
Knowing a book (or its publisher anyway) by its cover (art)…
Colophons started out as short statements providing a book’s publication info—details like where and who and when. Those statements often included little emblems, logos, which are now also referred to as colophons (from the Greek kolophōn, meaning “summit, final touch”), and they slowly made their way to the spines of books. Like tattoos or mascots, many of these logos depict animals, often fish (or dolphins): FSG, Anchor Doubleday, Aldine Press, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Birds are another well-represented category: Penguin, Bantam, Norton, and Europa Editions, to name a few. So if you’re going to be judging a book by its cover (you’re probably kidding yourself if you think you don’t) then you better start factoring in the colophon as well.
These symbols are often taken for granted because most readers are, understandably, less familiar with publishers than writers or booksellers are, but they have a totemic quality to them that’s worthy of consideration, functioning not just as trademarks but as little windows into the personalities of the publishing houses and the people who run them. The following list is a very unofficial ranking of some of the more interesting colophons, the ones that take risks or have more of an emphasis on design, something unique about them, that offer subtle clues as to what awaits us inside…
“An Unofficial Ranking of Publishing Colophons“: Dylan Brown (@dylanwalsdorf) on the fishes, kangaroos, and borzois that adorn our books.
[With thanks to MK]
* “Colophon” as defined by Oxford Languages
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As we linger over logos, we might recall that in Britain on this date in 1752 absolutely nothing happened. There was no “September 3” (nor September 4-13) in Britain that year, as 1752 was the year that Britain converted from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, which required an adjustment of 11 days. Thus, that year British calendars went from Wednesday, September 2 directly to Thursday, September 14.
Most historians believe that persistent stories of riots in England at the time, demanding “give us our eleven days,” are an urban legend, fueled in part by an over-enthusiastic take on Hogarth’s 1755 painting “An Election Entertainment”:
“When I was a boy the Dead Sea was only sick”*…
Does your local craft brewery’s logo helpfully inform you that the business was “Est. 2019”? Is the sign outside the trendy coffee shop down the street proud to declare it was “Est. 2016”? Logos declaring the year that a company was founded are gaining rapid popularity. In particular, businesses like these seeking to adopt a hipster aesthetic appear to append an “Est.” to their logos just as often as they use crossed objects or mustaches in their trademarks. Why the sudden popularity of this visual quirk?
Before the use of corporate logos or illustrations became common practice in the 20th century, newspaper advertising was largely a typographic exercise. And aside from strategically setting your ad in one of the few typefaces available for use on the paper’s printing press or inserting a snappy slogan, there was little that companies could do to communicate a positive message, or vibe, about themselves. But one way to concisely tout a business’s bona fides was to attach an “Est.” followed by the year the company was founded in. This would show that the firm wasn’t some fly-by-night operation, but that it was trustworthy, legitimate, and, well, “established.”
This convention became widespread, eventually making its way into many company logos themselves, but over time it seemed to acquire an unfashionable air of stodginess.
Analysis of United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) data shows that the use of “Est.” and its variants in American trademarks bottomed out during the heyday of the counterculture movement in the 1970s when it was certainly not considered hip or very relevant to be associated with the establishment in any way.
But the data show that in recent years, “Est.” has made quite a comeback, appearing in trademarks at a rate 17 times higher in 2020 than in 1980. Businesses ranging from car washes to barbeque restaurants to soccer teams are all eager to let you know the year they were founded…
A new wave of company logos all include the same three-letter abbreviation: “Why Nostalgic Logos Are Booming Right Now.”
* George Burns
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As we proclaim our bona fides, we might recall that it was on this date in 1991 that Nirvana’s second album, Nevermind, (their first with drummer Dave Grohl) was released. While their debut album Bleach had done well enough with the relatively few critics who heard it, it had failed to chart. Nevermind, by contrast, became an unexpected commercial success, at its peak selling 300,000 copies per week; cumulatively (so far), over 30 million copies. It was also a critical success, among the most acclaimed albums in the history of music. In all, it was materially responsible for bringing both grunge and alternative rock to a mainstream audience… and for ending a period of dominance by hair metal.
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