In defense of things black and white

I just saw LogoLounge’s 2009 Logo Design Trends curation. This yearly feature is the only content that gets me to LogoLounge, but I really think it’s always well done. I like that they make up their own, non-technical names for these trends, like “varidot” and “encrust.” Anyway, I’m not writing a love letter to LogoLounge. I’m slowly making my way to a point: While there are a few lovely one-color-plus-white logos in the collection, a great many rely on a polychromatic palette. I don’t mean benefit from, I mean rely.

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Text links—an exception to the rule?

Andy Rutledge published an article on his personal site about a year ago, entitled “Why and How: Styling Text Links.” In it, he lays out four fundamentals of effective text links:

• Generally distinguish the link text from non-link text
• Draw attention
• Support the stylistic approach to the site/page design
• Support or reference branding

I’m about to suggest that we break the first two rules in certain situations.

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First impression: Unit Interactive’s Vector Media Group design

I really like it!. Here’s Unit’s slightly anorexic case study: http://unitinteractive.com/vector-media-group.php and the site itself: http://vectormediagroup.com/.