Negative space logos and symbols (opens in new tab)

Oh this is so awesome!

From now on, it's the only thing you'll see!! :)

I looked, scanned the article looking for this arrow, came back to the comments, read this, went back again, finally saw it.

The Giraffe one from the OP was super cool though :)

IMHO that is one of the main benefit of negative spaces (I didn't know the term but knew the technique): you actually hardly notice that there's "something else" and yet the logos somehow look nice. I'd say they look "soft", without knowing why.

Once you focus too much on "what's inside", it gets a bit confusing because you're seeing conflicting things (like the tree leave that is also people): but it's not a problem because it's not meant for people to really focus on.

And somehow it just works. I find several of these logos really very simple and great.

Now that this has been posted on HN I expect lots of startups to come up with similar logos ; )

You need to think of the context of that logo, which was, what, 30 years ago? The arrow meant speed in a time when post (hell, pretty much everything) was slow. And visual jokes such as this were still pretty new. It's like saying The Beatles' 'She Loves You' is simple and obvious, yeah, it might seem like that now, but it sure as hell wasn't the case back then!

Do you think the line of asses was because the designer found the brothers difficult to work with :-) ?

Very interesting, as I'm about to shell out some cash for a logo designer.

That one took me so long to see the "g".

Presumably it's a tail. A whale's tail.

Where yo' curleh moustache at?

What is especially clever about the logo is the use of a serif L and nesting the sans-serif N inside of it. The juxtaposition is wonderful, and makes the N that slight bit more subtle.

I love being hit by invisible assailants :)

Isn't that an O and an H?