The Rise and Fall of the Swoosh Logo
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- Опубліковано 1 чер 2024
- Intel killed their iconic swoosh, and with it, one of the last living titans of this logo cliché. So where did it come from, and is it really dead?
0:00 Intel has killed the swoosh
0:30 Non-cliché swooshes: Nike to NASA
1:17 The new breed
1:31 Factor 1) Desktop publishing
2:20 Factor 2) The dot com bubble
3:07 Enter: The Millennium Swoosh
4:10 Good swoosh: Amazon
6:10 Bad swoosh: Capital One
7:47 The death of the swoosh?
9:30 Outro (Easter Egg)
Further reading:
Logo Hell by Steven Lekowicz
lekowicz.com/library/logohell/...
#swoosh #logo #design
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🛒Amazing AI Upscaling topazlabs.com/ref/1205/
Music from Streambeats and Epidemic Sound
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If you give it enough time, every logo will eventually become a sans serif text in pastel shades.
I cannot wait for that super wide, rounded bold font that companies like Discord, Cash App, etc use to die off
@@unicodefox and then we’ll have a new terrible standard everyone hates.
Can't wait until every logo becomes a crab after that.
@@zoomer2965 the unstoppable march of carcinization
@@maverickREAL I like how you just blurt out stuff instead of explaining something. ...Like a toddler that just learned to speak
Finally. Now that I have finally convinced Intel to kill the last swoosh, I can add a swoosh to my own logo, and appear original by default. It's all coming to place.
“Oh yeah, it’s all coming together” ~Kronk
You still have Burger King and Nike left to convince
@@chadsworthgigafuck7076 Dammit! I'll have to take care of them later.
@@chadsworthgigafuck7076 Burger King left the swoosh party months ago! Rejoice
......
Minimalist logos will inevitably fall out of favor at some point.
Yes, PepsiCo still uses a swoosh.
I hope they do fall out of favor, as they do not look good.(in general)
@@Superjump100 Agreed.
Colgate too
@@Mightic nah. I don't like drop shadows all that much although they can be used quite classily if that's a word.
@@Mightic Im fine with minimalism if its similar to the AMD logo, as simple as it looks its a striking logo. Intel's new logo looks like a company selling diet food gimmicks.
And just a few months later, Burger King dropped their swoosh. While Head and Shoulders have now apparently combined the most cliché trends of the 00s and the 10s by having a single colour, flat swoosh logo...
Bro your right wth. Thats so ironic.
The new Burger King logo looks like a bootleg version of the original. It doesn't have the same pizzazz
@@deidara_8598 that what i kinda felt too, until i saw its history and noticed that it’s basically a throwback to the logo that they used for 30 years before it got replaced by the swoosh logo in 2000 which in turn lasted for 21 years
@@jay_dmp It's makes me feel old that there are people who didn't know the "new" BK logo is just the old logo (there is a slight barely perceptible difference to the font). I was happy when BK and Pizza Hut brought back their "real" logos. :P
Burger King went backwards, they went back to the nineties
I would love to hear about current overused trends!
Over simplification and flattening
The newest trend is the literal elimination of everything except the lettering.
Airline eurowhite
@@eli-vu3vb for example???
@mane I'd rather have the swoosh everywhere instead of bold black boring lettering everywhere
I always assumed the swoosh for Nike was also related to the wings of the company's namesake goddess.
That's exactly how the designer thought of the idea behind the logo
The bottom curve of the Amazon "Z" also helps reinforce the smirky smile, like it is altogether being scrunched up slightly. Great video!
Really enjoyable video! I’d love to see a similar rise/fall of 3D effect/gradient logos that were really prevalent in early smartphones!
Great suggestion! It feels like we've moved past the early pseudo-3d, skeuomorphic design, past the backlash flat design and now are seeing the start of something in the middle ground. Could definitely see a couple of videos exploring this in the future. :)
Linus Boman thanks so much for the detailed reply! I’m no designer myself, but you videos have really made the field interesting to me! Whatever you make, I’m sure it’ll be great 👍
I miss skeuomorphism.
@@ikagura it was fun wasn't it
@@BookooZenny At least it gave some "texture" to what you're using.
I hope we'll see a comeback of that aesthetic with haptic feedback so your phone won't be a simple black, smooth slab anymore.
I'm over the super minimalist logos that are all the rage now. It was cool 10 years ago when it started. But now everything is monotone and boring. I want some character back! Lol. Also, juicy fruit still has a swoosh. But it's also a smile.
Same with the corporate clip art style thats in everything these days. I'd rather have no pictures than that lol. Those geometic shapes in primary colors I'd see everywhere as a kid would be more interesting at this point. If I see that clipart style as an intro image to anything I immediately click off whatever it is. Nothing I would get serious education from would use it anyway, its more for content farmers like those who churn out clickbait articles, or internet advertisements, or those infotainment youtube channels that put out hastily thrown together daily videos
@@lj2265 oh! That style hasn't been prevalent for long, like just a few years. Companies see that it works, so then every company wants it. I personally like them, because I like minimal art, but I can see how kiddy it can get
I think the swoosh also needs to be linked to coffee cup rings, something late 90s that was a popular design element that yelled workplace, casual, and deconstructed/messy.
When I think about it, I think the swoosh has its predecessor in the boomerang of the mid-1950s to mid-1960s, as mentioned in Thomas Hine’s 1986 book _Populuxe._ As the _NYT_ book review noted at the time:
_One of the most pervasive images was the boomerang shape (an acute angle turned on its side), a “symbol of dynamism and of flight” that turned up in the old Chrysler Corporation logo, on Speedo bathing suits-and modified, somewhat, in butterfly chairs, McDonald's arches and assorted World's Fair pavilions._
You could find it in Formica’s _Skylark_ pattern and Eero Saarinen’s TWA terminal. Even logo for _The Jetsons_ had a swoosh-like _J_ with the name superimposed over a very Populuxe aqua blue boomerang. The shape felt “dynamic” and “forward moving” but it also felt “space age” and “futuristic.”
McLaren still has the swoosh, very big car company and has a lot of history and heritage.
Haven't they had it since the 80s? May be wrong tho
Edit: I was wrong, they had a more square version in the 80s but switched to the swoosh in 1997
I was going to comment this but you beat me to it
McLaren doesn't have a swoosh, it's a rounder redesign of the Marlboro logo.
I particularly like how it’s a highly stylised kiwi - if you squint hard you can see it as a beak pointing to the left.
The McLaren swoosh is very cool. The rear wing of formula 1 cars produce a vortex, and in the right conditions it sucks the moisture out of the air, and makes a "swoosh" over both ends of the wing. Very cool.
Didnt even notice that was a thing.
Intel just sticking to its wordmark is a bad idea imo. Made it less visuslly striking. (Do you think brands doing the wordmark thing is a growing trend?)
It was striking when the "e" was dropped so the bar was on the baseline.
maybe its because i am a zoomer or maybe its because graphic design is only a hobby for me but i quite like the swoosh. To me its kind of retro, almost like vaporwave in a way where it reminds me of a time where people were super optimistic about tech, its such an iconic symbol from when i was a kid. It was used in so many things that its been permanetly etched into my brain lmao
@@rin_etoware_2989 Except i do like alot of the "oversimplified" stuff. I am super tired of alot of modern design trends tho, "over"simplification is not one of them
If something's devoid of meaning for long enough, someone will eventually give it meaning. I like the "boundless optimism" idea for the swoosh.
@@aitor.online Finally, someone else who doesn't think every logo sucks now just because it's not old, glossy, or is complex
@@stellarx20 yeah. dont get me wrong ive seen alot of absolutely garbage ""minimalist"" logos, but the problem with those isnt the minimalism its that the design lacks something, making minimal logos that are actually good is arguably more difficult than normal logos because they require much more attention to detail with much stricter limitations
90s nostalgia is at an all time high now so I could see it coming back, at least for brands that like making limited editon / throwback campaigns
5:55 What?? I actually believe Nike's swoosh is super meaningful. It is dynamic and well branded but also a great concept: as most of you know, the wings of the victory, the godess Nike (Nique. I don't know exactly how it's spelled in english).
"Nike"
The swoosh logo had it's meaning back in the 90's. You can see it clearly in the video on the "e business solutions". We got a new letter associated with the internet: @. Basicly a lowercase a with a swoosh, so designers put the swoosh around other letters aswell - and words - and everything else. Back then you had the easy connection to that mysterious world of "being online". Then came the addition of dots to logos or even adding ".com" to logos. This was often used for online companies of course but also other brands started to add that to seem more modern. Most swoosh logos were bad when they got made, but today they are so much worse. The amazon logo however is fantastic. That is quality work. It conveys so much. you got the arrow, the a -> z and on top of that you get the smile. It is one of the early friendly (and cute) logos that we see so many today.
some people don't undestand it's impossible to create something perfect. Any logo will not be perfect, even if it seems like one right now. After 2-3 years it will become history of "cliche" and I don't get that "cliche swoosh". It was something cool at that given times. In a few years, so overused minimalism and simple shapes will be as well criticized. There are things that get older faster or slower, but everythign will become old some day.
I still cringe at new online buissnesses putting "24" at the end of their names.
We are long used to the lack of closing hours online. You can stop waving it over our heads now.
I agree, it also made me think "oh that just means online"
@@ArturOleszczuk1991 People (me included) are already getting tired of oversimplified logos.
"and on top of that you get the smile."
To me, it looks more like a smirk than just a smile.
I always laugh so hard when anyone mentions Nike's logo design. When I was in art school, Italy, our design professor kept telling us a friend of his designed the logo and took inspiration from a banana.
I don't know why he kept telling that story, it's not like anyone believed him, we were in art school after all 😅
*Designer:* "So what can I do for you?"
*AAA:* "Give us the exact same logo but with a swoosh."
Intels “swoosh” was a full circle like the loading circles present in computers. But it was fast and only went 1 time on display.
I thought this was showing how intel makes loading faster.
Can't wait for the day when you'll be able to make "the rise and fall of minimalist logos"
This is crazy specific and I am ALL FOR IT
The swoosh was probably popular because it's distracting enough to make someone glance at the logo but not distracting enough to make someone continue looking at the swoosh itself, so that whomever sees the logo, is remembers the brand's name. That may be why it feel out of favor with big budget companies while smaller ones keep using it, if you're a well established company you don't need attract more attention to your main brand, instead you need something that is easly recognizable as yours, whilst start-up comapnies need every bit of visibility they can get.
I heard the Nike swoosh described as an abstraction of a wing, which recalls the ancient mythology namesake. So I see some meaning there.
personally, i like the Swishes more then the Generic bland font logos we have now
When I get my company up and running, it will have a swoosh, regardless of the brand, will be hugely detailed, while still looking good on small resolution and this is non-negotiable.
based
In my opinion, Boeing's swoosh not only fits the company well, but it's also kind of timeless... Though it was made in 1997 (inherited from McDonnell Douglas swoosh-like logo from the 60s!), it still looks modern...
The swoosh in Capital One symbolises the amount of McLarens sitting in the garage of the CEO
'Is the swoosh dead?'
*intro rolls with 'Linus' written with a massive swoosh*
7:37 "completely pucking stupid" *swoosh*
I died.
Great research, presentation, and script!
But the Amazon arrow-swoosh is pointing at the O.
There's simply no getting around this.
The Emperor has no clothes!
SpaceX too.
you've been trolled guy
Do you think it was a mistake for Intel to remove the swoosh? On one hand it is cliched, but on the other hand it is extremely iconic and their new logo is arguably even more generic.
Definitely - it's a misstep for a few reasons 1. "Reblanding" has been a poor trend, minimalist to a fault where brands lose their distinctive features to the point of being forgettably generic. 2. There's s backlash against minimalist/flat design going on now, even Apple have moved in the other direction with Big Sur recently, but clean sans serif type is going out of style, so I think this will age poorly very quickly. The old swoosh logo for all its faults was memorable!
@@LinusBoman Upon further reflection I realise how much worse the change was. The old Intel logo swoosh was meaningful. It meant "Intel inside", which is meaningful, witty and very suitable since Intel makes micro-components that are inside your devices.
The new Intel logo technically is meaningful: The logo change is meant to say they as a company has transformed, and the similarity to their original 1968 logo is meant to say they still remain true to their roots. The new logo is meant to say that we have transformed while remaining true to our roots.
They went from a visually witty and meaningful logo that was easy to understand to a logo that is literally just a word unless you already know their company history.
@@LinusBoman Jesus Christ! Someone that knows their stuff about logos, yet has a sense of style? This sure is a rarity!
Boeing’s swoosh logo looks good, and it actually makes sense (the whole Aircraft and Spacecraft thing that they’re kinda known for), lovely job including it at the start of the video!
The "pucking stupid" line made me immediate reach for the subscribe button. This is a man that knows how to give the people what they want!
Loved this, couldn’t have said it better. This is why it always blows me away when designers want to be ‘on trend’, that’s just about the worst thing you could do for an identity!
I came to your channel for the Papyrus video. I stayed for the clipart and other great videos. I love them. You have become one of my favorite channels in this past week. Keep up the great work. It so accessible and gives great overviews.
intels swosh fit though, it was "intel inside" and intel was inside the swosh
The Hilton rebranding is the perfect symbol for how the Hilton family went from Conrad to Paris.
Up until now I didn't even notice swooshes before. I watched this video while riding the bus and saw like a dozen small business logos with swooshes in them. Great video!
I HIGHLY prefer the "Swoosh" over all the "simplified and minimalist" logos nowadays.
Those are just ugly and lazy.
a lot of them (or at least, the good ones like Intel's) I feel also help provide a kind of framing for the logo, without which it would just be plain text
@@andrewzheng4038 indeed.
I just finished graphic design school and I love this kind of content!
Thanks - glad you enjoy it! 😄
First time viewer here, your content helps me appreciate graphic design's importance even more as I'm currently studying multimedia arts. Subbed!
Wish you would make more videos, just found this gem of a channel! It's brilliant!
The thing is, only graphic designers are aware that swooshes feel dated and/or are cliched. Nobody else really cares.
they might not 'care' but i think most people feel it on a subconscious level
@@sleepCircle That seems doubtful. Is there any evidence to support this?
@@isodoublet do i have evidence on-hand? no. it's just how it seems like it'd be, to me, based on what i know of how human beings get desensitized to repetitive things. people might see swooshes and not mind them, but also they won't really remember them as distinct when it's just another word with some swooshes, you know? it won't mean anything to them. it's just some swooshes.
also i've seen comments (edit: like, people talking around the internet, not just youtube comments) complaining about Corporate Memphis art before, where it seems like they're not graphic designers because they don't really know what it's called, and they don't know what's wrong with it, they just hate the "advertising art that's everywhere."
"regular people" do have less sensitivity to stuff than trained artists, or are less able to articulate it, but we're all humans, they have the same faculties on some level. bad kerning makes letters genuinely harder to read, makes type less visible-cluttered design chases the eye away, stuff like that.
maybe i'm wrong and ONLY graphic designers notice or care, but it doesn't make sense to me that it'd be the case.
Harsh but true.
@@sleepCircle you’re right that people know what they do and don’t like even if they have no way to articulate it. As a graphic designer, it’s one of my foremost considerations and frustrations: I endeavor to create what the general consensus subconsciously appreciates, but I’ll inevitably run into a client that wants a thing they have no idea how to describe and therefore guide me into creating. I also encounter this as a publisher, particularly when editing. I tell folk all the time: the general public may not be able to explain why a thing is bad, but they dern sure know that it IS bad; it’s my job to keep them from getting that far.
I don't care how many times the swoosh was used. That cliche never gets old. It's awesome.
Your style of editing and visual storytelling is great man.
Hey Linus! Love these videos - have you ever thought about making an episode about the horrific attempt at changing their logo that Gap made about 11 years ago?
Friends of mine in marketing sometimes throw it around when something is executed terribly whether a campaign or element of branding.
Keep up the good work!
how did i forget about that ugly thing
The swoosh was overused, but i prefer it much more than some basic simplified logo that could've been designed by a 5 year olds
Back in the late 90's my high school decided that the best way to celebrate its centenary would be to ditch its crest for a corporate logo comprised entirely of swooshes.
What a beautiful day, I hope no one turns me into an oversimplified swoosh logo.
I just discovered you 2 days ago and i'm binge watching your vids. very Informative and the presentation gets me hooked to the end.
I used to know them as "millennium swirls". Kinda glad they're gone from everywhere, but it's nice to see one every now and again.
An orthodontist I knew had a swoosh logo, but it worked because it consciously invoked a smile, which works in two ways: one, orthodontics tend to brand services at fixing or improving one's smile, and two, braces etc. are widely understood to be uncomfortable (and a lot of modern orthodontics advertisements go out of their way to show how much more comfortable than traditional alternatives), so the friendly smile logo implies that orthodontia is friendly/happy/nonthreatening/not uncomfortable.
Why haven’t I been recommended this channel before? Great content and great editing! Subbed
"From A to Zed," can't get away from those Germanic origins.
As much as it was overused, it's better than the simplification of visual design seen in the late 2010s and 2020s. At least the swoosh made sense for some things.
I’m not a professional designer nor amateur. But I enjoy dabbling in photoshop, illustrator, typography, and so on. I’ll be zoomed in 1600% to ensure every pixel is correct and I’ll make sure my documents are PDFs with vector art so when it’s zoomed 1600% it doesn’t look like crap. That said thank you for this video. You have a new subscriber!
I work with graphic design and this channel is one of few that I can watch with a clean conscience when I should be working 😁
We need more undersimplified logos
Oh my god this video has so high quality in every aspect from transitions and music to narration and editing I can't really believe it. This is by far the most underrated channel I have ever seen on the youtube. I hope that your channel will blow up and you'll get what you deserve sooner than later :) Thanks for an amazing content!
My high school graphic design teacher called it the “I don’t know what I’m doing” swoosh
Your videos are so well put together and interesting! Im binging all of them right now, thanks for making them! Also - you have a very nice voice :)
Thank you - too kind! Great avatar by the way. :)
It would be interesting to see the history of logos like Lowe's and others that use the a little house/building outline there's a more of them than you'd think at first glance
This video is absolutely fantastic. Perceptive, well worded and so funny. Kudos!
Your channel never ceases to amaze me. Great content!
I really appreciate you having real subtitles!
I thought I was on a channel with a lot more subscribers than what you have right now. Your videos are very well made!
4:45 not to mention that it could also represent your package being delivered
Swoosh! you got my subscribe! I like talks about logos, fonts, typography, this looks like the place to be!
Also the fact that previous to the arrival of computer tools the making of ellipses was difficult
I strongly associate the Nike "swoosh" as a checkmark, and therefore the slogan "Just do it." Thus, efficiency/speed. It just makes sense!
Interesting analysis, the swoosh has definitely been outdated but still isn't terrible imo. Way better than the trend we used to have of full on puke gradient logos in front of random shapes in the early 2000s (had to design several)
Here in Canada, one of our big 5 banks, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), dropped the swoosh from its logo as recently as October this year!
I can’t wait until bright neon Jokerman font text in size 76 is the standard for all products
This was so well made!
As a visual identity designer, I love your content
You missed one huge one, the BNSF swoosh. They adopted it in 2005, replacing the "wagon wheel" and "cigar band" logos derived from the ATSF. I guess it actually kind of works for a railroad company because with the slanted text, it makes it kind of look like the logo is zooming along like a domestic intermodal train highballing through the Southwest at 70 mph.
I love this channel, keep going please!
This channel is a Hidden gem for everyone doing design
I'd love to see a video on political party logos sometime in the future. It'd be a touchy subject haha, but at least in my country they vary from slick and meaningful, to reminiscent of an early 2000s shopping centre logo. There's almost always an interesting story behind them.
😂 ☢️ 💀 ☢️ 😂
I agree they're interesting for sure, but I think there are many other topics equally as interesting that won't turn this comments section into a river of sewerage! It really is a shame, but yeah, it's probably not going to happen until politics becomes a topic people on the internet can discuss in good faith with civility. So don't hold your breath! ;)
@@LinusBoman very true.
Just discovered your channel. Gonna watch more
Interesting! Great vid
Now I feel bad; I made a logo for our car club back in the early 2000's and I put a swoosh on it (also drop shadows and embossing, but hey, who's counting)
it's still in use today...
The "flag" in the Lambeth borough logo always looks more like three swooshes to me! In a phrase, "[i]t's baffling, and it's terrible, and it makes me want to cry."
Hah! Hoisted by my own petard. 😂
i love the fact that you credit the designers
very cool background music
Linus have you considered a video ranking nba logo fonts in a similar way to your London borough video? I think that could bang views, especially with his varied they are
Hey Hamzah - I get quite a few comments asking about sports logos. I definitely do want to do some in the future, but I think I need someone to be a guest collab, or just a knowledgable friend on that particular sport. I pretty much don't follow any sports, and an outside perspective is good, but I feel I'm likely to reveal my ignorance quickly by missing something about the background of the club/team that factors into the logo design. Happy to reveal my ignorance, but rather have a collaborator point it out than get inundated with corrections in the comments! But yes, one day I will be doing team roundups! But not for a while. :)
@@LinusBoman that's awesome, thanks for the detailed answer mate, totally understand the logic behind that,
The Capital One logo looks great
Thanks for the logo tips, Linus
Awesome retrospective!
The "swoosh" is dope & boosts-up up nostalgia sometimes.
Nice glasses man, looking fresh 👌
YT ha been relentlessly recommending me your videos over the past few days, from the look of it, I'm not the only one.
Surprised to not see Internet Explorer in this one
I bet same kind of mindset is responsible for logos becoming super simplified nowadays. "Look how bold we are"
1:54 Omg I used to have that TV set in the 90s 👍
You can crap on the swoosh logo all you want, but it won't stop me feeling nostalgic for the 90s and 00s.
:`( damn, that cut deep. Now do the trend of lower case sans-serif words for logos!
You have to be lightning fast to catch it, but in the embedded Amazon commercial at 4:37, I caught another logo that uses a swoosh: the Blu-Ray logo.
added this to my watch later, next day i started getting ads that are using the swoosh
And now BK removed the swoosh logo and went back to their classic one. Wow
What is this, the 1980s?
Another interesting episode! 💫
Glad you enjoyed it!