One of the most revered designers in Japan, and yet - like many greats in design history - his designs are some of the most simple and unimaginative designs I've ever seen. Nonetheless, good branding.
http://kashiwasato.com/
Of course a lot of these logos are under his art direction, but not completely designed or worked on by him.
Saul Bass and Paul Rand worked with simple geometric shapes as well, most often incorporating circles. I don't like a lot of their logos either, yet some of them are so iconic, we still see them and immediately recognize them today. But I feel that Kashiwa Sato completely hops over that iconic bit. How do you increase the visibility of a logo if it's as simple as drawing a few rectangles or making your type more edgy?
I talk about Kashiwa Sato with a negative tone, but I've actually been a bit obsessed about him for some time now. Every time I'm designing, I tend to go back to think about his logos, maybe ponder on what he did wrong or what he did right or why he might have done what he did. Reading up on him, I realize that the edgy and simplistic designs come from his background in architecture. Then again, he served under his "guru"[whom I didn't look into] for 11 years, working as an employee at a design studio, from where he may have taken after.
Nonetheless, it amazes me how top level designers with their simplest of works are so successful worldwide and even the most creative of designers can't even make a dime.
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