Kate Spade

Kate Spade is a popular designer known for her accessories and fashion. The brand launched as exclusively Kate Spade Handbags in 1993. Since then, the brand has expanded to every corner of the fashion world, including a clothing line, glasses, notebooks, and phone cases. The classic spade image is taken from her last name. The keeping her name all lowercase brings a playful balance to the classy, modern, serif font. Keeping New York in all caps adds an air of formality and high society. The simplicity of the logo makes it easy to apply to different color backgrounds.

Betsey Johnson

Betsey Johnson is a designer famous for her outrageous and ultra-girly fashion and accessories. Her fashion line was launched in 1978 and has been  standing out in department stores ever since. All of her products are either hot pink, leopard print, furry, bejeweled, or have hearts and bows on them. Sometimes, a single product can be all of these at once. Betsey Johnson’s quirky signature (sometimes including the smooch) is fitting for this brand. It is unapologetically unrefined. The two “N”s in her last name are distinctly mismatched. The smooch provides a much needed pop of color, however, the glare of light is unnecessary. It would be better matte.

Icicle Creek Center for the Arts

Icicle Creek is a nonprofit arts center in the middle of charming Leavenworth, Washington.  Leavenworth is a small Bavarian style tourist town in the middle of the Cascade Mountains. Reminiscent of the Alps, the mountains and rivers are defining features of the Leavenworth landscape. In fact, Icicle Creek itself runs right through the campus. This is artfully and simply portrayed in Icicle Creek’s logo. The green mountains and blue rivers flow seamlessly together. However, if the logo needed to be grayscale, the image would be equally effective. The campus was built in 1995, so the modern logo fits the modern architecture of the buildings. The word “icicle” can be tricky to read because the “i”s and the “L” can look similar in lowercase. I applaud the choice to go all caps, and keeping the “C”s wide enough to create sufficient visual separation between all of the straight vertical letters. The entire title of the organization is fairly long, so I like the fact the name (Icicle Creek) is distinctly bigger than the description (Center for the Arts).