LogoArchive #3

LogoArchive #3 is available now on loremnotipsum.com. Today’s zine format and the revival of an independent publishing spirit of the past is a provocation. It is an opportunity to further the practice of research, archival and circulation beyond the book, to offer a counterpoint to mainstream design publications, to develop a dialogue between the two with the intention of elevating all forms of publishing.

This project intends to explore the potential of the zine to reconfigure itself regularly over time. Issue 3 tackles this theme more directly. It begins with the notion of scientists reconfiguring the natural world, then makes a connection with designers remixing the visual world, just as LogoArchive itself is composed of found and previously unassociated symbols. This is developed further in the use of recycled paper for the insert – materials repurposed – in the architecture of the page – the potential to create new relationships and reveal alternative dialogues with a half page – and finally, within the three texts. These look at contextual loss in the transition from material object to digital artefact, an old folding technique given an innovative new life and the potential of the logo to transcend its corporate utility.

LogoArchive is a total project. It is an expression of designer as author. It was developed as a way to investigate the potential of both individual object and ongoing project. To maintain and develop a dialogue. To make temporality a critical and observable component in both content and materiality (each new edition will be marked in time with an additional page).

LogoArchive is marked by its conceptual and philosophical foundations but also its graphic immediacy, an interplay between the visual language of archival and children’s storybooks, as well as its materiality and production. These reflect the pragmatism of documentation and the metaphorical play present in some of the logos, and LogoArchive’s digital origins as an Instagram account and its new material manifestation. LogoArchive is founded on an enthusiasm for a well-crafted logo; a convivial metaphor, a communicative immediacy and smart use of form language. However, in print, it was never conceived as a document with a singular intention; the simple documentation of logos, rather a delivery mode in which to build a story and share thoughts. A conversation on Twitter; digital dialogue lost in the passage of time but forever coded into the electronic aether, is materialised as ink on paper and written into the story and ongoing development of the zine. This sits alongside an anthropological text; a musing on the distinctive qualities of the human eye.

Details: LogoArchive #3

Design: Richard Baird / LogoArchive
Publisher: BP&O
Size: 148 x 210 mm
Pages: 18
Binding: Stapled booklet