LOGO DESIGN BLOG   LOGO DESIGN REVIEW

Do you think you know what the Google logo looks like? How about Amazon? Flickr? Now you can find out for sure by taking a neat little quiz at GuessTheLogo.com. The quiz takes the same basic logo and changes just one or two things about it, making for a difficult quiz, actually. On my first try, I only scored in the 27th percentile out of everyone who had taken it.

It just goes to show that the eye first sees color, then shape, then text, but the order of the colors and shapes is less important, apparently.

Give it a shot and see for yourself how well you know the logos.

Last July, the European Union launched a logo design contest for their 50th anniversary, an event that inspired more than 1,700 entries from design professionals and students from around Europe. Recently, the EU announced the winner of the contest: Szymon Skrzypczak, a 23-year-old design student from Poland.

Skrzypczak’s design is a type treatment using a different font and color for each letter of the word “Together.” The meaning is presumably that even though each country in the EU is different, they can still work together in harmony. As the winner, Skrzypczak received 6,000 Euros (7,667 USD) and the honor of having his design plastered all over Europe and featured in celebrations of the Rome Treaty.

“I almost not believe that I was able to convince the jury with my creation and can hardly imagine that it will appear all over Europe,” said the designer.

Second and third place entries were also recognized (see designs below). You can read a complete history of the design contest, and see the other finalists concepts here.