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JAN 3 07
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Would you like to learn about the history of the Angled End logo? No, of course you wouldn't, which is why this self-indulgent essay appears only as a small text link!
Let's begin this story way back before the name Angled End ever existed (dream sequence starts). I had moved into a Mission apartment with my newly-San-Francisco-transplanted high school friend and fellow designer Eric Clarkson, with whom I had been tentatively planning to work on a professional level for a couple of years. This merger seemed good enough an idea for him, so we began the search for a company name, which I wanted to start with an 'A' because, and here's a little tip you budding entrepreneurs might want to remember, people searching for a business will nearly always choose from among the first qualified businesses they find, and in every alphabetized list that I've ever seen, A comes before, say, Q.
I had also wanted to use the term identities to refer to the business type in favor of design, partly because I like to buck the norm, partly because I have always wanted to be in the business of building complete brands from the ground up, and partly because I just liked the sound of it. But it was Mr. Clarkson who found the term angled end, I know not from where. The simple but unusual phrase caught his eye and bounced around my head for only a few minutes before we agreed that it was wicked awesome (my words, not his). Angled End Identities was born.
Ae the elder
Strong. Stoic. Boring. |
You might say it was all downhill from there. I wouldn't want to paint the wrong picture and say that Eric and I butted heads on everything, but it gradually became evident that our design sensibilities did not converge very well (I have since come to realize that this is nearly always the case with designers). And sure enough, when it came down to designing and selecting a logo for our venture, we came to an impasse. Ultimately, I suggested that we just go ahead and use a previously discarded logo iteration, the utterly simple 'Ae' letter pair, which was innocuous enough for neither of us to dislike it per se and clean/reserved enough to pass muster in the business world we were catering to. Design and production of the old AEI site and other branding materials proceeded accordingly.
The runner-up
Better luck next year! |
About three years afterward, Eric left San Fran for grayer pastures (who, me biased?) and the business venture, which had ultimately proven to be more of a two-person collective, was no more; Angled End was now just the business facade of a single designer. Skip a couple more years to September of 2006 and you find the same designer feeling the age of his beloved website. But hell, if I was going to change the website, did I really want to stick with that ultra-corporate 'Ae' mark? Initially I had planned to switch to a logo variation that I had put a lot of time into and always loved, one that was more adventurous than the original 'Ae' but still more or less corporate in its demeanor, which would also allow me to change only the logo for now since it melded reasonably well with the existing brand materials. But there was still this other design that I had always loved, more than any of the others, one that had been borne of an epiphany.
Let me tell you that from a logo design perspective, you would have a hard time finding a better pair of letters to work with than A and E. They fit beautifully together in almost every configuration and can produce an almost bottomless bag of stylistic iterations (click here to view other noteworthy logo comps). And I discovered early on that in the lower case, 'a' and 'e' can be the same character, with one flipped over. Viva la symmetry! It was during the investigation of this phenomenon that I envisioned a pair of giant, interlocking 3-D versions of basic on-screen text characters (which is a reflection, so to speak, of how long I've been pushing pixels around one at a time). It was the kind of nifty visual treasure that every designer rushes to the nearest sketch pad to lay down as quickly as possible, and by golly, it worked as well there as it had in my head!
Unfortunately, the concept didn't fly as well with Eric, and for good reason: it just ain't professional, at least not in the conservative business sense, and that was (is, for the most part) our market. As much as I loved the 'ae' block widget, it did not make sense to use it.
Our proud victor
The lego-block AE
ushers in a new era
of Whit creativity |
Did not, but now does. I realized, in mulling over my re-branding options, that my client base is strong enough (I haven't advertised in a long time now) that I simply don't need to go to any great lengths to appeal, at least in my own brand, to the suits. And on top of that, I realized that the new version of Angled End doesn't necessarily have to be all business. Why should it? Let's face it, Angled End is Whit Gurley. There was a time (this must have been a "the world is my oyster" period) when I was making great plans to create a brick and mortar design agency with a full staff. But I realized years ago that I no longer wanted that to happen, and on top of that, I'm spending nearly as much time these days on projects that have nothing to do with graphic design as I am on projects that do. Why should those efforts not be a part of the Angled End sphere?
So now they are, and now Angled End has a service mark that befits its president, secretary and janitor. Dear old Ae, we will remember you fondly. What you lacked in originality, you made up for in universality, and you served your role with dignity and unassuming grace. We hope you will enjoy spending your remaining years in that quiet log cabin by the lake.
Little ae, let's party.
:: whit
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