LogoLounge

Felix Sockwell keeps plenty of killed work on his Web site for a

very good reason: He eventually sells most of it.

“If there is a good idea in it and i t hasn’ t been used publicly, it

goes onto the site,” says the former design director of Ogilvy &

Mather who’s now a successful solo designer and illustrator in

New York Ci ty.

An assignment for Informative.com, a business-to-business infor-

mation portal, is a recent success story. To create the Web site’s

new identity, Sock

well adapted two images from previous assign-

ments and resurrected a killed magazine assignment.

Sockwell’s involvement began when the art director of the agency

handling a logo project for Informative.com spotted an illustration

about health care on the Web that the artist had done for Time

magazine, but had been rejected. The elegant, simple drawing that

shows two people embracing or supporting each other was a per-

fect message for Informative’s Web site, at which businesspeople

can help themselves and others. The image would represent com-

munication on the site.

But that was just the beginning of the job. Informative.com’

s

organizers wanted a multi-logo identity, one in which logos could

be swapped as needed for different applications.

The second and third logos were adapted from images Sock-

well had done for Parsons School of Design posters several

years earlier. Both of these images—one a pair of profiles joined

by a palette to represent creativity or aesthetic and the other a

computer to represent digital communications—were greatly

simplified from their source images.

Although the client for this project is using the arti st’s unique line

style as a unifyi

ng element, Sockwell is not necessarily excited

when potential clients call him asking for “something linear.”

“You have to put something new into every j ob, no matter what

your style is,” he says. “The best thing to do is to look around at

what is being done and then do something different. I try not to

do anything that looks like an AT&T logo or Nike swoosh. I never

have done anything like those. Trends don’t last. I stick with con-

tent, and try to do something new with that.”

Once a logo is ready to be presented, Sockwell considers

it crucial

to show the client what he calls the logo’s “arms and legs.” He’ll

spend extra time and money demonstrating different applications

for the mark: What it could be applied to, how it could be produced,

what it would look like embossed, in various colors, and animated

for the Web.

Sockwell advises that it’s important for designers to k eep in mind

that they, the logo’s creators, likely will not be at every presenta-

tion of the proposed mark. “So you have to explain i t well,” he

says. “If the person presenting your work does not have his or her

head wrapped around your idea completely and there are ten

executives throwing out questions, that person will not be ready

to sell your idea.”

Informative.com

Multi-Logo Identity

Felixsockwell.com, New York, NY

102