Bank Logos

In: Graphic Design (general)

14 Oct 2014

I recently went to the eastern shore of Maryland and came across this awesome bank logo on the outside wall of a bank. It made me want to walk in and give them my money. and other people’s money. and sacrifice some children in their name.

Now let’s compare it to citibank’s logo, which only succeeds in evoking slightly positive associations for a series of tween magazines that I will never read:

Citibank-logo

I am a huge fan of simple and memorable. but I think branding has overtaken design – companies just pick something catchy and throw it in peoples faces over and over until it becomes “them”. It’s important sometimes to remember a time when a logo actually evoked real emotions. Look at the font selection. Look at the kerning. Look at the stone they chose for the outside wall of the bank as a background, that has aged beautifully over the years. Look at the bird. It’s a real sculpture with depth, shadows, and gravitas. I mean, wow, it’s just stunning.

Ok, now everyone can chime in with pithy observations about how this would look terrible on a webpage banner, or how it makes them think of nazis.

5 Responses to Bank Logos

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J. Knight

October 14th, 2014 at 12:13 pm

Unfortunately that eagle is only on their main branch. The rest of them share the lousy FSF that is on their website: firstshorefederal.com

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Max O

October 14th, 2014 at 10:09 pm

Yeah I love it too. And the Nazi’s had some excellent branding, type-faces, and logos too…I hope we can be objective enough to separate the ad campaign from the extermination program!

ps. If you’re interested I have a nice collection of Eagle representations in arts and graphics from Germany, Austria, Russia, and the US (including the recent hunger games movie!). Shoot me an email and I’ll send them to you–

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Steanne

October 15th, 2014 at 11:17 am

nationwide insurance just returned to their eagle logo, restyled, after they found it still had better brand recognition than the silly empty box they adoped in 1998. see link.

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qka

October 17th, 2014 at 12:34 am

The red arc in the Citi logo comes from Travelers Insurance, which was absorbed by Citi. Travelers for many years had as their trademark a red umbrella.

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mema

October 17th, 2014 at 4:03 pm

It is a powerful symbol they’ve got there… stone is always a solid addition to any facade…and for whatever reason an entity would choose a bird of prey for its symbol…they do make it look terrific.

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