Assignment 12

The MTV logo was one of the most ground breaking of its time. Media visionary Bob Pitman wanted to create a round-the-clock music television station. MTV was formed, playing music videos all day long. Manhattan design was commissioned to create a logo for the new network, at the root of this as Pat Gorman and Frank Olinsky. The final product they cam up with was a three dimensional sans-serif M with the words music television written underneath it in the same sans-serif font. Gorman thought it needed more though, so she threw the graffiti looking TV over the M and they had their MTV logo. Little did they know how influential and iconic their logo would become. The designers realized though at one point that there was more varying potential in the logo, it was simple enough that it could form different personalities, become animated or be demolished, but still remain a recognizable logo. So Olinsky and Gorman produced more variations of the logo. The unique thing about the MTV logo at the time was that it broke the boundary of what defined a logo, that they must be fixed and remain consistent to create an identity for the company. The MTV logo was designed so well that they could break this wall down, and the company even began to make 10 second segments at the top of every hour where the logo would appear and animate through pictures and even different designs. By 1995 MTV was reaching more then 250 million homes, an incredible increase from the 18 million when it first started up. The logo paved the way for graphic design in the 80s as print graphics of the time began to take on the influences of television in color, texture, decorative graphic elements and sequence.