I watched a documentary the other night about the development of Virgin Records, and the "NOW That's What I Call Music" compilation albums. I've personally never known a time when these CD's haven't been around; and when I seen the graphics for the first few records I was shocked. The reason I was shocked was because the logo they used for a few of the records is sooo much cooler than the crap they use now. But why is it crap? Because there's no feeling behind it, there's no personality. It's just 3D rendered button pushing crap.
So, I done some research, and found that my favourite of all the records was number 9 (above). The simplicity of it is great, the comparison between this and a more recent one (also above) is laughable. I spent an hour or so re-rendering this original logo, and I'm convinced it still looks better.
When it comes to logo's nowadays, lots of big companies are switching to more simplistic and sophisticated logos (a great example is ITV), and for good reason: It's just better. It has character. 3D often looks tacky.
