Forum logos - Net Place Forums (Germany).

Behind the Design Scenes: Have to hand it to Netplace. The German based company had it together in 1996, when they contracted The Logo Factory to design their web site logo and graphic. Visionary even. Netplace had planned a complete web site destination - forums (in those days, they were referred to as bulletin boards), domain naming (once a complicated affair) and web hosting services. It was a fairly revolutionary business plan for its time (must have worked too - the company is still active and still brandishing the logo on their web site). The Netplace logo is an example of a simple graphic that reveals the company's activities with a few simple shapes. In the original client brief the client wanted a graphic that represented movement and activity, while remaining high tech enough to represent a web based operation. It's not an easy task to create a logo with more character and style that the myriad of nondescript abstract marks in the world. Now try keeping the logo simple enough to be memorable and distinct. And THAT'S why this graphic works so well (it could be argued that the logo is a timely today as it was ten years ago).

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