Fringe Salon
Epic Apparel
Live at the River
Brian Miller has a knack for making the complex beautiful. When given a long string of words, he can transform them into a sophisticated typographic concoction. As the Vice President and Senior Art Director of Gardner Design, Brian has many opportunities to apply his type prowess to the art of logo design. In situations where many designers would be inclined to complain of copy overload, Brian excels at elegantly composing lengthy phrases and titles. On occasion he has even been known to request additional copy from a client. Brian is the post-modern response to clean Swiss modernity.
For the past two years I have had the honor to work alongside Brian at Gardner Design. His patient guidance has helped me expand beyond my Bahaus tendencies. When I asked Brian for examples of typographic lock-ups and enclosures he promptly provided me with over 35 MB of 72dpi files. So I had the difficult task of editing down an enormous library of logos for this article. I’ve included iterations of a few of the logos to demonstrate the variety for a single project.
All of the logos were designed by Brian with creative direction by Bill Gardner with the exception of the logos for A&M Upholstery and The Lone Ranger, which were designed collaboratively by Bill and Brian.
Each logo is an example of either a “typographic lock-up” or “typographic enclosure”. Several logos fall under both categories. All logos seen were presented to the client. Some were selected as the final logo and others have been waiting in the Gardner Design archives until now. Which typographic lock-up or enclosure is your favorite?
Brian is also the designer of the typeface Country Fang distributed through Nathan Williams’ Baseline Fonts.
A&M Upholstery
Piccadilly Square
The Lone Ranger
Allied Crane
Backroads Traveler
Barry Downing Roast
Coleman
Hullings Orthodontics
Lavish
McCoy Realty Group
Parkstone
Stanley Martin
Anjou Bakery - A
Anjou Bakery - B
Anjou Bakery - C
BG Bolton's - A
BG Bolton's - B
BG Bolton's - C
Bradley Paper - A
Bradley Paper - B
Bradley Paper - C
TNT Burgers - A
TNT Burgers - B
TNT Burgers - C
Jeffrey Zeldman linked to this article saying, “Gorgeous logos by Brian Miller (with Bill Gardner) of Gardner Design. Via Mr Messina.”
Those are definitely worth more than $50…
http://www.160over90.com/blog/2009/02/17/the-50-dollar-logo-experiment/
An awesome collection of work :)
Eduf Labs linked to this article.
Mandarine linked to this article .
Max Design linked to this article.
Beautiful collection of lockups.
Makes me realise why I became a manager and gave up being a designer.
Great job
Exquisite sensitivity to form and texture.
great design prevails again!
Thanks for the review!
[...] to going solo, he worked for IDEO, Metadesign, Studio Dumbar, Wolf Ollins and Apple. Thanks to Brian Miller for the tip. Typeface for designer Alissia Melka-Teichroew Identity for Banco Deuno. Typeface by [...]
this isn’t just an excellent article – it’s a resource in its own right. wow – there is so much to learn from bill and brian – they are so amazingly good at their craft! hats off to you!
Wow. Those are stunning. I wish I could see all 35 MB!
[...] the science fair at Horace Mann Dual Language Magnet where his son attends. Brian, as we’ve already seen, is the king of enclosures. I especially like the bunsen burners that encapsulate “potencia [...]