a logo that changed music forever
It is possible that maybe no one else but me finds fascinating the stories of how some famous logos were born. Further, it is possible that people would disagree with me about what constitutes a famous logo.
Well, it’s my blog and I’ll logo-verse (I call copyright on that and all iterations) if I want to!
Music Television International has deemed sacred the original black and white MTV logo so that’s the only version of the logo they will use in their on-air identity (you know, until they create ANOTHER on-air identity)
But I never knew the story behind the original logo’s creation.
Courtesy of Creative Review via Brand New here’s the scoop:
Working with John Lack, the executive vice president of Warner Satellite Entertainment Company (WASEC), Robert Pittman, a successful radio programmer, helped establish a groundbreaking cable television channel: MTV, the music channel. Fred Seibert, a former jazz record producer and radio station promotion coordinator, was hired by Pittman to oversee the identity of the channel. Seibert turned to his lifelong friend Frank Olinsky, who had just established Manhattan Design with two partners, Pat Gorman and Patty Rogoff, to create the logo. The process was remarkably collaborative: Rogoff first drew the big M and worked with Gorman to determine its perspective; then Gorman suggested a pointy TV to its side, which Olinsky took and spray-painted it. Meanwhile, the M was subjected to productive tomfoolery, with the partners rendering it in bricks, polka dots, and zebra stripes, and suggesting the logo could be all these things.
Seibert presented the mutating logo to Pittman and Lack, and met resistance to both the solution and the firm behind it. Seibert was asked to hire a big-name designer like Push Pin Studios or Lou Dorfsman to do the logo. He did, but as the process extended and time became a problem, Manhattan Design’s was approved. Seibert next focused on the station identifications for broadcast, which Pittman equaled to radio jingles, instantly recognizable and memorable. The first pool of collaborators comprised production houses like Broadcast Arts, Colossal Pictures, and Perpetual Motion Pictures, who created surreal ten-second animations that gave life to the MTV logo. For MTV’s top-of-the-hour identification, illustrator Candy Kugel at Perpetual took the still images of Neil Armstrong’s moon landing (available in the public domain) and colorized the MTV logo on top of the American flag. On August 1, 1981, at 12:01 a.m., to the unmistakable sound of MTV’s guitar riff, this image launched a new generation of viewers, artists, designers, and citizens.
— From our own Graphic Design, Referenced
The thing about this logo that made it so different – and STILL does – is exactly the fact that it changed colors & patters. Most logos are so identified by their color scheme, but with MTV it was the shape, and the different colors/patters made it come alive!
Yes, I too appreciate this, Peter…should I be worried? 😉
Peace!
Liz
You should be worried but I think, Liz, it’s still too early to seek medical attention 😉
Best always,
– Peter
[…] logo is that the value and interest of a logo only truly presents itself when put in motion on TV. A black and white MTV logo (Nickelodeon’s sister channel) isn’t bad on its own but it really came alive with the […]