Logo Design: An Ancient Way of Communicating
Wilfried Haest Wilfried Haest Design 505.983.7076 companylogodesign.us whaest@hotmail.com
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ogo design is a form of visual communication. It is perhaps the oldest way of transmitting messages from one person to another. The practice goes back before there was any knowledge of a written language. Remember the Egyptian hieroglyphs? They date back from 3100 BC, and were a writing system based on logograms (signs that write out morphemes) and phonograms (signs that represent one or more sounds). In a similar way, in North America’s Native Indian culture, we find petroglyphs from centuries before European immigrants arrived. Although written languages have rapidly developed, the logo language has maintained its uniqueness through history. The Copts developed the Coptic language, the Greek the Greek alphabet, the Romans the Roman alphabet, not to
Photo by Kerri Cottle
mention the Chinese, Japanese, Russians, etc. But in all these different cultures and regions, there always remained the need for visual communication. In the Roman army, ranks and legions were indicated by visual symbols, a tradition that still exists in modern day armed forces. In the 1600s in Paris, the homeless people, or “clochards,” developed a secret visual language to mark ways for survival. The symbols were painted and/or scratched on walls, doors and sidewalks to leave messages such as ‘potable water,’ ‘free food,’ ‘gentleman lives here,’ and ‘safe place to sleep,’ to mention a few. While written languages further diversified, logograms experienced a similar development. With the growth of the automobile industry and the network of roads, there emerged a need