MULTIPLES

58 Ingredient Brands

Logos often look their best when they’re set apart, standing alone, all by themselves. Give a mark a nice, clean treatment, and you give a potential customer a clear symbol of the organization you’re trying to represent. But in a world where everything from artificial sweeteners to environmental certification programs to software components clamor for graphic recognition, the luxury of a nice, clean treatment doesn’t always avail itself to a designer.

Logo alphabet soup is a trend best avoided. As more and more entities team up to produce products and provide services, however, these relationships may need to be expressed in the mark. The same careful considerations that inform the development of individual marks can help you make multiple logos look good together. The Intel Inside program is a primary case study in ingredient branding. The logo was designed to be a secondary image—a logo kicker.

Identify the hierarchy among any group of logos used in concert. Which is dominant? Which is subordinate? It’s not a graphic question, it’s a communication question—what is intended to be communicated? The graphic identity should express the intent.

Photos: Jeremy Frechette

Brand powered by other brands: Advertising for automobiles and tech gadgets regularly touts the ingredient brands found inside the products being sold.