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Q3 • 2021


COVER STORY


By Tim Sweeney


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hen Bill Gardner says the magic of a good logo is the result of blending objective and subjective ideas, he knows


of what he speaks—on multiple levels. As the president of Gardner Design, founder


The LogoLounge founder talks logo trends, making magic for brands, and why good design blends the subjective and objective.


of LogoLounge, publisher of the textbook Logo Creed, and creator of the annual Logo Trend Report, which has become a go-to source for designers everywhere, Gardner is a globally recognized logo guru. He also put himself through college as a magician (yes, seriously), traveling across the United States and around the world and rubbing shoulders with the likes of Siegfried and Roy along the way. When Gardner emerged from Wichita State University with a bachelor’s degree in marketing, he wasn’t overly excited about going into the family business of real estate appraisal. With a talent for art, he went back to school to pursue a design degree, finishing his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design at Wichita State, only to find that no one would hire him. “I wanted to do logo design, but an agency might do one every three years.” Gardner says. “And every interview conversation would always come back to magic, so I had to put that away so people would stop asking me about it.”


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