Appletell

If you have been paying attention to Apple’s recently released product’s, you may notice something slightly about them. You may have noticed that they are beginning to stray from their current multi-colored logo, to a more plain logo. Instead of just using the stock six-colored logo on their products, they could now come in a range of colors, like “Burnt Orange” and Purple.

The recently released PowerMac G3’s sport a blue Apple logo on the side, which may look weird at first, but it grows on you. Fortunately, Apple is still keeping with the “bitten apple” shape, instead of going for a total redesign like when the six-color logo was first released back in the 70s.

With this change, Apple is trying to integrate their logos into the products more smoothly. Instead of the Apple logo clashing with the overall design of the product, it will be more subtly integrated into the overall design.

Who knows what this will spell for Apple in the future. The logo looks a little less creative, is now almost a plain as the IBM logo. This could end up hurting Apple’s brand recognition, but does help the design a little. Though how important is design to Apple when compared to brand recognition?

According to a study done by Duke University and the University of Waterloo, it can.

The study, which is to be published in April, found that exposure to well-known brands, even for a second, can cause us to behave in ways similar to the traits of the companies. 341 students took part in the experiment which consisted of flashing either an IBM or Apple logo so quickly, that the research subject was unaware what logo they had just seen. They were then asked to list all the uses of a brick beyond building a wall. The results? The students who were shown the Apple logo came up with more unusual uses for the brick, as opposed to those shown the IBM logo.

If the researchers are correct in saying that we can be influenced by advertising even when we are not aware of the fact, these results are not surprising. Anyone who is reading this blog right now knows that Apple has long since associated itself with creativity, and innovation. IBM on the other hand is almost the opposite of Apple in brand recognition.

The whole article is an interesting read, and I’m sure there must be a way for us to use this sub-concious recognition to our advantage…

Read [PhysOrg]