Any graphic designer who works in the area of the arts (and many other fields) has to deal with the demands of including sponsorship logos. Often it's a matter of including three or four logos at the bottom of a page or a display panel. But Salisbury Festival has taken it to extremes: I've just been looking at their 2009 programme (the PDF version that you can download from their web site) and the inside front cover consists of 42 sponsor logos.
Not a pretty sight, is it? And I wonder how much they cost to design, all those logos? Only to end up here communicating absolutely nothing at all.
Sometimes I think it might be better if there were a set-aside scheme for designers: where the government (or the EU) paid designers not to design. Don't you?
The world would surely be a more attractive place without the Wessex Water one.
your blog is always eminently readable but this entry is an instant classic. You should try putting the bloody things in the title sequences of video especially when the only logo they will give you is 3dpi and 1mm square....
Posted by: Martin | 24 March 2009 at 12:54 PM
I would love this to be the case, I myself have just finished doing a promotional 4pp flyer for a client which wanted to include every single endorsing organisation's logo. Total logos: 52. It's so horrible lining them up and adjusting the spacing around them and in the end no one looks at them. Most of them are so small and badly designed they are illegible. But it looks so 'impressive' says the client...
Posted by: Jonathan | 24 March 2009 at 06:13 PM
'A set-aside scheme for designers'
A truly wonderful idea.
Posted by: Andrew K | 24 March 2009 at 10:49 PM
Haha, yes very good.
Of course, that page would instantly look better if those logos were in black and white.
Posted by: Ben | 26 March 2009 at 01:24 PM
To me a 'beautiful' visual example of financial crisis hitting the budgets, resulting in graphic design problems.
Projects need more smaller sponsors to get all the money needed (as the big ones spent and/or lost amounts of their money).
Posted by: William | 30 March 2009 at 05:54 PM
My personal record was 53 logos on a 1/3 of A4 folder.
Hideous.
Not even grayscale helped.
Posted by: Tachi | 31 March 2009 at 08:03 PM
I think that's a 'yes' then, don't you?
Posted by: davidthedesigner | 31 March 2009 at 08:09 PM
I think substantially more is better. At least you know to completely ignore a page with 42 logos on it. However trying to make a page with say five logos on it work (especially as now the clients think you have more space so therefore they can be bigger) is much more difficult.
Posted by: Julie Oakley | 09 June 2009 at 09:52 AM