Four logos that I really love

Continuing with the 'favourites' theme of my last post, here are four logos that I really love. I've seen a lot of good ones while browsing the web recently, but the first two especially are partly responsible for this post, along with this logo snippet via k10k - an entertaining discovery of (ultimately inevitable) trademark infringement by Quark. More insight at antipixel.

Furthermore, Wikipedia - fast becoming my all-time favourite website - has a great article on the logo if you're interested.

Ready. Aim. Fire! Get Into The Game - a Target Corp. website. I can't find a profile for either (Target's About page reveals absolutely nothing) - one of my pet hates for any website, althought it's obvious that they're a gaming website. It's nice to just know that from the start. I'm not fond of the logo typeface, but the clever icons make up for it. Incorporating their parent company's logo is smart too, from a branding perspective. The middle icon of the character with controller reminds me a little of the Ubuntu logo, which is also great. I'd love to see this logo animate through shape evolution from one icon to the next.

Heavy Backpack is a design portal, a "creative catalogue profiling the design community". It was initially the name which got me interested; then I saw the logo. After a while I began to feel that the typeface used for the h/b characters is too serif to properly represent a backpack. Some minor tweaks to the curves could probably fix that, but then the entire concept might be lost, so it's perfect as is I guess. It also becomes a kind of illusion, more visible when you view it reversed (black on white, as on their website) - the letter(s) strokes resemble the shadow of another character - an "n" almost.

Shark Energy Drink. As another blogger writes:

it's logos like this that make you wonder what came first, the word or the logo

I first saw this logo on New Years Eve last year and have wanted to mention it here ever since. It's just too lucky. Genius!

Chances are that if you live in the UK and watch satellite TV on the odd occasion, then you've seen this logo for entertainment channel Sky One, operated by BSkyB. Not much to say about this one, it shares it's 'shape evolution' concept with the Get Into The Game logo above, and is so damn sexy. They don't do a good job of animating it online, however.

UPDATE [28/09]: More on the Quark logo: Sometimes a Logo Is Just a Logo (via creativepro.com)

Quark's new logo is strikingly similar to several others. Is it theft? A global conspiracy? Or a failure to follow basic design principles? Gene Gable gives you the dirt, including ways you can sidestep the same type of predicament.