Design question 2: why do diagonal brand names always rise left to right?
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Design question 2: why do diagonal brand names always rise left to right?
You know what I mean. The brand name is on an incline. And if it's on an incline, the left end is the low end. I mean, always. Or so close to always that the exceptions seem weird to us.
Examples, low left to high right:
Only Schlitz. Miller. Regal Pale. Fisher. Falstaff. Goebel. Rainier. Columbia, Bosch, Blanchard's, Old Bohemian, Hauenstein, Koehler (got a shimmy in it but it rises), POC, Knickerbocker, Sterling, Storz, Utica Club, Tivoli, Walter's, sunburst Hamm's. Don't add more. There's no point. They all step up.
@menke raised the question in the other design thread this morning: What steps down?
And why does this rule hold? Maybe Barry or somebody else with more design sophistication can answer this.
I have a couple weak examples of step-down design. Here comes.
Examples, low left to high right:
Only Schlitz. Miller. Regal Pale. Fisher. Falstaff. Goebel. Rainier. Columbia, Bosch, Blanchard's, Old Bohemian, Hauenstein, Koehler (got a shimmy in it but it rises), POC, Knickerbocker, Sterling, Storz, Utica Club, Tivoli, Walter's, sunburst Hamm's. Don't add more. There's no point. They all step up.
@menke raised the question in the other design thread this morning: What steps down?
And why does this rule hold? Maybe Barry or somebody else with more design sophistication can answer this.
I have a couple weak examples of step-down design. Here comes.
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Re: Design question 2: why do diagonal brand names always rise left to right?
I've always thought of these early Regal Pale ovals with the three banners as the inside-out Regals, but never thought about why until this week of working at home in my basement with a thousand cans staring me back all day. But even these banners start rising and end rising. Asterisk.
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Re: Design question 2: why do diagonal brand names always rise left to right?
Only one word out of three steps down -- well, Beer looks a little weak too, now that I look at it. That's good enough for me. Beggars can't be choosers.
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Re: Design question 2: why do diagonal brand names always rise left to right?
Swinger is a bona fide exception to the rule. And a hot mess.
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Re: Design question 2: why do diagonal brand names always rise left to right?
I mean, I am sure we'll find craft cans that break this rule, because craft cans have exploded in a design-free hellscape. Apologies to the few breweries with a little self-respect, but you know what I'm saying.
But Rusty brethren, help me. Are there other examples of this?
And what is the thinking behind the unwritten law here?
But Rusty brethren, help me. Are there other examples of this?
And what is the thinking behind the unwritten law here?
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Re: Design question 2: why do diagonal brand names always rise left to right?
GBX. Asterisk because it's not on an incline -- it plunges straight to hell. But it makes the thread.
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Re: Design question 2: why do diagonal brand names always rise left to right?
Does this can count?
"Although the cans will be of no value after opened, their cost is expected to be small..." Iowa: June 22, 1935
Why drive 12 hour one way to dig Pre-Tax Tru Blu ales, Genny 12 Horse Longopeners, Gamecock Ales, Apollos, Neuweilers Bock, and Krueger’s Baldies when you can locally drive 10 hours round trip and dig Pfeiffer, Goebel, Drewrys and Strohs?
Why drive 12 hour one way to dig Pre-Tax Tru Blu ales, Genny 12 Horse Longopeners, Gamecock Ales, Apollos, Neuweilers Bock, and Krueger’s Baldies when you can locally drive 10 hours round trip and dig Pfeiffer, Goebel, Drewrys and Strohs?
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Re: Design question 2: why do diagonal brand names always rise left to right?
I think the "step up" rule symbolizes positivity. "Hey, look at me, buy me!" The "step down" approach seems negative. Like a, "here I am, take your chances" vibe.
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Re: Design question 2: why do diagonal brand names always rise left to right?
On the design issue, from a marketing class 45 years ago, upward trends are positive, downward are negative. Your eye and focus subconsciously follow that logic. The counter logic is that uphill is hard, but downhill is easy, but, apparently, our subconscious does not work that way.
My 2 cents.
My 2 cents.
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Re: Design question 2: why do diagonal brand names always rise left to right?
Jerry
You beat me to it. Ascension and lifting up. And another unwritten rule seems to be three letters or less. Like with ABC, or the initials of a person, you can digest that visually without too much trouble. But throw a type face like old English in there and all bets are off.
I guess I’m more surprised that I got a mention for a design related question.
You beat me to it. Ascension and lifting up. And another unwritten rule seems to be three letters or less. Like with ABC, or the initials of a person, you can digest that visually without too much trouble. But throw a type face like old English in there and all bets are off.
I guess I’m more surprised that I got a mention for a design related question.
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Re: Design question 2: why do diagonal brand names always rise left to right?
I talk to my students all the time about symbol and ideology -- the way that we link height with exaltation, depth (or ground level) with abasement. In religion, in design, in language. And so this makes sense to me.
Weird too because it seems to pronounce the time it takes us to read "Schlitz" as significant. Not "I am seeing a word placed on an incline," but "I am engaging in the process of getting from S to Z, and during that process, things are going up."
Typographic corollary -- brand names begin, conventionally, with capital letters, which, again conventionally, are larger in most scripts. Is it more emotionally reassuring to have Schlitz anchored, figuratively, by the big S, instead of having that big S high, which we might read as "up in the air"?
@Uncle Jackson: Jerry, I wonder whether that upward trend principle derives from the line chart (a quick lap on Wikipedia suggests that they're 300 years old or so) or whether the upward sweep was taught us by theology, architecture, our symbolic reading of landscape? Where are the roots of our believing that upward is positive?
Weird too because it seems to pronounce the time it takes us to read "Schlitz" as significant. Not "I am seeing a word placed on an incline," but "I am engaging in the process of getting from S to Z, and during that process, things are going up."
Typographic corollary -- brand names begin, conventionally, with capital letters, which, again conventionally, are larger in most scripts. Is it more emotionally reassuring to have Schlitz anchored, figuratively, by the big S, instead of having that big S high, which we might read as "up in the air"?
@Uncle Jackson: Jerry, I wonder whether that upward trend principle derives from the line chart (a quick lap on Wikipedia suggests that they're 300 years old or so) or whether the upward sweep was taught us by theology, architecture, our symbolic reading of landscape? Where are the roots of our believing that upward is positive?
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Re: Design question 2: why do diagonal brand names always rise left to right?
@Barry Travis, happy birthday!
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Re: Design question 2: why do diagonal brand names always rise left to right?
Was only able to find one pseudo example among my OI pictures or Beer Can't pictures, and that's a UK beer called "Long Life"....while the "Long Life" is horizontal, their "LL" logo does go down and to the right..... the example I have is one of those L1 Retractable Can Piercers/Openers:
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Re: Design question 2: why do diagonal brand names always rise left to right?
Rhinelander from Huber. It's closer to a vertical name than it is an inclined name.
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Re: Design question 2: why do diagonal brand names always rise left to right?
Have you considered the possibility that "LL" goes up and to the left? After all, you're dealing with people who drive on the wrong side of the road . . .Rand wrote: ↑Thu Mar 26, 2020 3:06 pm Was only able to find one pseudo example among my OI pictures or Beer Can't pictures, and that's a UK beer called "Long Life"....while the "Long Life" is horizontal, their "LL" logo does go down and to the right..... the example I have is one of those L1 Retractable Can Piercers/Openers:
IMG_5801.jpg
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Re: Design question 2: why do diagonal brand names always rise left to right?
Hummmm.....interesting theory. However, I would posit that the "L" on top of the multi-L stack would be the beginning of the Long Life acronym pile. While the learned assembly here is busily stroking their Freudian beards on the thorny issue as to whether the cursive logo text correctly elevates manfully from lower left to upper right, or droops pathetically from upper left to lower right......I think all would agree that a "front to back" convention in text order is a universal standard.mtracy64 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 26, 2020 4:16 pmHave you considered the possibility that "LL" goes up and to the left? After all, you're dealing with people who drive on the wrong side of the road . . .Rand wrote: ↑Thu Mar 26, 2020 3:06 pm Was only able to find one pseudo example among my OI pictures or Beer Can't pictures, and that's a UK beer called "Long Life"....while the "Long Life" is horizontal, their "LL" logo does go down and to the right..... the example I have is one of those L1 Retractable Can Piercers/Openers:
IMG_5801.jpg
Marc
QED
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Re: Design question 2: why do diagonal brand names always rise left to right?
My 2cents. Books are written left to right cause that’s how we read. Reading upward is a positive thing and more natural than reading downward.
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Re: Design question 2: why do diagonal brand names always rise left to right?
In English we read left to right but that is not true in Arabic. So does this mean all these design ideas do not apply to Arabic products?
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