Logo & Symbol - mini edition handbooks - Angus Hyland and Steven Bateman

The distillation of complex ideas into symbol or phrase form is probably one of mankind's oldest impulses and certainly one of the most enduring. These two crisply designed manuals have been assembled to present a very comprehensive selection of respectively, Logotypes: the combination of typography and graphic elements utterly ubiquitous across our cities, our object environments and even our clothing, and Symbols: those purely graphic indicators that exist as "freestanding" signs. There are few surfaces unadorned by the branding which explains, promises and provokes by evoking a complex system of associations through the use of the logo. The most rarefied of logos, and perhaps the most powerful exist as symbols having dispensed with the need of identifying words altogether. These symbols are able to bypass the mental framing of a word, its sounding and shape, and tap directly the pool of connections (many of them not visual) that comprise the symbol's meaning. I was struck while reading these books by the complexity of associations triggered by, for example the Woolmark symbol. Familiar to me from virtually every jumper I owned as a child, it invoked a rush of memories and sensations before I had even consciously identified the word it carries. Whilst the two volumes would be invaluable to anyone working in the fields of branding and design they are also fascinating and thought provoking windows into a language so complex and ubiquitous as to feel part of the cultural subconscious.