On the drive back from Ohio this year, we stopped in Bend for breakfast, well maybe it was more like lunch. And it’s not very often that I get over to bend so I had to stop that I wanted to make. About four years ago my wife got me to taste her glasses from Deshutes brewery. We actually use these glasses as juice glasses, and they’re perfect for a hydrating an airborne tablet.

So since we’ve been using them a little more I thought I might get me another one or two. After stopping by I realized that they change the logo on their glasses. Now I don’t have a matching set. I asked the bartender in the manager if they had any old ones and they said no. But Dunlap the bartender and I had an interesting conversation about logos. It was his point that it’s all the rage right now to have to choose between oval and around logos but I think the greater point is missed.

One logo appears to have a lot of white space around while the other takes up a big physical presence. In logo and marketing design we are trying to get imagery to convey meaning and attitudes of the things they are representing. So I feel the second logo the folder round larger physical presence logo is in someways saying “look we are the brewery trust us our beer/product is good”. Where as the former logo a little oval and a little bit more white space around it is saying “look at the beer”, “it happens to be brewed by us”. It seems that the older logo, the oval one, is a bit more humble. It invites a dialogue, which involves the tasting of the product they want to sell.