For any small or large scale film company, the creation of a logo is a very important factor. Their logo is the first thing the audience is to see at the beginning of the studios/companies films, they need to be eye catching, riveting and be capable of carrying with them the identity and message of the studio.
Every logo has a main attraction, a caption consisting of the studios name, a short soundtrack and some really cool graphics that connect it all together. Throughout the evolution of all logos, the main centre subject tends to stays the same; it acts as the pinnacle of the design, allowing the audience to recognise it as belonging to the same company, despite the changes that develop over time to the supporting factors, such as the text and layout.
For example, over the years since 1928, the main focus of the ‘Columbia Pictures’ logo has been a lady holding a torch light in the air, standing in a pose very similar to that of The Statue of Liberty. The lady has remained in all logos, whilst the text and accompanying detail has been changed at regular intervals. The stance allows the toga dressed lady to hold the burning and sparking torch raised in her right hand, this torch continues to burn and give out an aura of light in all the logos. The base design also changes in this logo; the woman only appears from the ankles up in the design, whereas in the next a pedestal was added. After that, in the more recent logos the pedestal is updated to a series of narrowing steps.
The colour scheme surrounding the lady in the later logos changes very little through the progression, consisting mainly of a peachy/cream colour dress with a darker purple and then blue shawl. In the first logo, the text of “A Columbia Production” is written in an embossed rounded ‘Souvenir’ font that is arranged in a curve around the woman, filling the top section of the frame. In the more recent logo designs the text appears to be in the same font, but has a bolder squarer appearance. The title – that now only consists of ‘Columbia’ is spaced out behind the woman, stretching nearly the entire width of the frame. It consisted of a bright and brassy orange/gold colour that was designed with reflection marks along the top edges; it then developed into a more Iron grey colour with the appearance of granite or stone, with heavy shadows situated to the left of the letters.
http://myfilmviews.com/2012/01/19/the-story-behind-the-columbia-pictures-logo/#comment-5932 18/02/12
Now, let’s take a quick look at the development of the ‘Paramount’ logo: it started out in 1914 tiled ‘Paramount Pictures’ and consisted (in black and white), of a painted mountain set small in the centre of the frame, surrounded by a ring of 24 stars, the number represented the actors and actresses that the company had signed with. The title ‘A Paramount Picture’ is written in a Majestic Script type font, with bold white letters down the centre of the frame, with all the words spaciously fitted into the ring of stars.
The 2nd version of the logo that was developed in 1952 contained the same font and the same
composition of the ring of the starts and the text around the mountain, which was re-drawn so that it sat much larger in the frame and looked a lot more lifelike. This was the first version of the logo that was in colour, it appeared to have had a sort of blue tint added to the painting, giving it an un-lifelike colour appearance.
In 1975, the 5th version of the logo took a step away from the bright and detailed mountain logos,
and instead created a solid blue background and mountain of the same colour that was displayed by a darker blue highlighting the crevasses and filling a circle behind the mountain and between the stars. The next logo created was in 1987, it was drastically different from the 5th logo, but
managed to keep the usual characteristics of the before logos, with the detailed mountain peak but only now, this logo has been created using CGI, and the background has changed from being mostly blue with fluffy clouds, to a sunset coloured background with more defined clouds.
From my research, I can conclude that there is a lot of work that goes into the development of a company’s logo, that every detail of the logo is influential to the audience, affecting the lead up to the film. I see it as if the creation of the first version of the company’s logo is really important, as this is the first logo that the audience is going to see and associate with the film company. I think that it is important for the creators to establish a successful main subject or object for the logo and then try to stick to this subject as closely as possible through the years. I say this because of the message that logo’s carry, when you grow up with a certain genre of films, seeing the same logo at the start of each you get a connection to them, they begin to hold your excitement. When watching these logo’s again at the start of new films you then receive the same feeling of excitement and anticipation, raising your overall expectations and enjoyment of the film.
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