Evolution of the Batman Logo

The Evolution of Batman poster designed by Cathryn Lavery from Calm the Ham is a visual history of the Batman symbol over the years.  I can’t think of any consumer logo that has changed this much, but the Batman logo remains a very powerful and recognizable brand.

A comprehensive and extensive chart of the Batman logo evolution, spanning over 72 years from 1940 - 2012 to map the transformation of a timeless hero.  Thanks to DC Comics for creating this cultural icon that we can all obsess over, all logos belong to them.

The infographic timeline covers 72 years (1940-2012) and shows different version of Mr. Wayne’s logo so the reader can easily distinguish the different iterations.  Additional information like the year and media publication format are listed in text.  I would have liked to see them spaced out along an actual timeline, but this design format fits better on a standard poster.  Three different size posters are available from the Calm the Ham site.

I found this design on the FastCoDesign site, but a few other designers have also tackled this specific history.  Cathryn Lavery mentions this 2008 video from Rodrigo Alejandro Rojas Sandoval as being the first one she knows of that had attempted this:

I saw this design on Nathan Yau’s FlowingData site in 2010, but he wasn’t able to cite the original source.  This one shows fewer versions, and doesn’t include any additional information.

True Colors: What Your Brand Colors Say About Your Business

Does your companies brand reflect their business correctly? Check out True Colors: What Your Brand Colors Say About Your Business infographic from Marketo.

The most prominent brands in the world are defined by their colors. Think of McDonald’s golden arches, the name Jet Blue, and UPS’ slogan, “What can Brown do for you?” These companies, and many others, strategically use colors in their logo, website, and product to appeal to customers. As a B2B marketer, it’s important to think about how you utilize colors and what the colors you choose say about your business.

Research has found that different colors provoke very different reactions in people. Marketo choose to use the color Purple for branding because at the time Marketo was founded, purple was relatively un-used. Additionally, purple represents wealth, royalty, and richness which also has associations to leadership and revenue. Integrating your brand colors in your logo, landing pages, product, and more will help you achieve the highest impact. We put the rainbow under a microscope to find out how each color can help you connect with your consumers.

Designed by Column Five Media, this is a really good infographic.  The use of the specific colors in question make the design attractive and very easy to follow.  I also like the use of icons to show industries that use the different main colors.  The icons and bullet lists also help cut down on the amount of text the audience has to read.

A couple things I would change: 

• There are a number of statistics at the top that should have been visualized instead of just making the fonts really big.
• There are a number of what appear to be quotes from different sources about the power of colors, but the sources aren’t citied.  I assume they’re a part of the sources listed in the footer, but quotes should be immediately attributed.
• Which Colors are Companies Using Most? adds up to 103%.  It’s not clear if these should be mutually exclusive or if the study counts multiple colors from the same company in the results.
• The bottom should have a copyright and the URL link to the original infographic landing page. 

Thanks to Carra for sending in the link!

Interactive Infographic: Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi

 

The Coke VS. Pepsi: The Cola Wars infographic from cnntees.com. Which side are you on?

For over a century Coke and Pepsi have been at each other’s throats in a constant struggle for a bigger piece of the billion-dollar soda market. 

Along the way the companies have picked up a slew of loyalists and fans, adamant that their cola reigns supreme. While there are countless spots online to check out the history of either company we decided to put together an interactive infographic, putting all cola war highlights together in one spot.

This is a really fascinating experiment with infographic design.  Although it appears to be a static infographic, it’s actually interactive.  If you look closely, there are two videos built directly into the middle of the infographic that play when clicked.  The growth chart at the top is also interactive.  Click on a decade, and then choose the specific year, and it displays events in each companies history related to that time period.

The interactivity is so subtle though, most people will probably miss it without me spelling it out in the title and here in the commentary.

The financial stats section is a really poor use of pie charts in the bottle caps.  The logo images work, but pie charts are for visualizing percentages.  Here, they forced the data into the cute visual, but it makes the data confusing and hard to understand.    Are the charts visualizing the percentages of each expense related to total revenue, or just arbitrarily visualizing the values to represent the comparison between the two companies?  No percentages are shown, and no values are shown for the values of the total pie.  This is forcing a round peg into a square hole.

At the bottom, it’s missing a URL to the original blog post (so readers that find this on the Internet can find the original high-resolution infographic), a copyright statement, a trademark statement and a credit to the designer.

Thanks to Ron for sending in the link!

Update on Monday, April 2, 2012 at 10:14AM by Randy

Quick follow-up, for those readers on iPads, the infographic won’t display in the Flipboard reader, but the infographic and all of the interactivity works nicely in the Safari browser.

Do You Need a New Logo?

A fun infographic from Watermark Design, Do You Need a New Logo? is a humorous decision chart.

“wink”