Using Cubism in Logo Design
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, which is closely associated with Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. This art style revolutionized European painting and sculpture.
In cubist artworks, and as we’ll see in the case of the logos featured, objects are broken up, and re-assembled in a very abstract and somewhat disconcerting form. The cubist artist depicts objects from more than one viewpoint, with surfaces intersecting at random angles. A normal sense of depth in an object is removed.
Today, identity designers are using this fine art style for inspiration for their logo work. The cubist style reduces images down to a level of simplicity, and simplicity is one of the more important features of a good logo. Many of the logos have an illustrated hand-drawn feel about them which is eye-catching and aesthetically pleasing, moving away from the very clean, computerized look of some vector-based logos.
So for your viewing pleasure and design inspiration, here’s a small collection of cubist style logos.
Cubist Coffee by James Strange
Vanguard by Karmesi
Toro by Van Paul
Melbourne City Logo
U.S. Virgin Islands by J Walter Thompson
Cubist (Cultural Business: Impact, Strategy and Technology) Research Group
Ok, maybe this one isn’t so inspirational, but I just had to include the London 2012 Olympics logo.
What do you think of these logo designs?
Main Image Credit: Georges Braque: Woman with a guitar, painted 1913, in the Musée Nationale d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France.
