In this episode of The Immersive Lens, the hosts dive into a wide array of tech currents, from a staggering $18 billion Meta settlement regarding minor safety to the ingenious use of AI "vibe coding" to track down lost Bluetooth devices. At the heart of the conversation is the profound impact of visual identity and branding in the digital age. Paul and Dave explore the anatomy of iconic designs (like the hidden arrow in the FedEx logo and the clever silhouettes of sports brands) highlighting how simple, scalable vector graphics communicate complex stories in an instant.
Bringing their signature blend of humor and insight, Paul and Dave turn the spotlight on their own podcast's missing visual identity. After a hilarious mishap involving a faulty QR-code t-shirt, the hosts issue a call to action for the "Lenzies" community: an official logo design contest. The final verdict is a celebration of community creativity, emphasizing that whether drafted on a cocktail napkin, coded in MS Paint, or refined through generative AI, the best brand designs are simple, adaptable, and memorable.
Key Topics
The Power of Vibe Coding: With AI tools like Claude, individuals are now "vibe coding" custom applications without traditional programming backgrounds. Paul highlights a story of a user who generated a Bluetooth-tracking app to locate a lost device, mirroring his own success in rapidly building custom bots and link shorteners for the podcast. This shift demonstrates how AI is lowering the barrier to entry for practical, everyday software development and workflow automation.
Meta's Landmark Safety Settlement: Meta's recent $18 billion settlement marks a pivotal shift in how social media platforms handle the safety of minors. The agreement enforces strict new guardrails, including two-hour daily usage limits, nighttime access blocks, and mandatory parental overrides with independent oversight. This unprecedented legal outcome sets a new regulatory benchmark that other platform giants will likely be forced to adopt to protect young users.
The Anatomy of Iconic Logos: A successful brand logo relies on clever design and strategic simplicity rather than complex imagery. The hosts dissect legendary branding, noting how Amazon connects A to Z with a smile and FedEx utilizes negative space to create a forward-pointing arrow. These subtle visual cues prove that the most enduring brand identities tell a complete, dynamic story with absolute minimalism.
Vector Graphics Over Bitmaps: When creating digital branding, understanding the difference between file types is crucial for long-term scalability. Vector graphics rely on mathematical equations, ensuring that logos remain incredibly crisp whether printed on a tiny smartphone screen or a massive billboard. In contrast, pixel-based bitmaps lose fidelity and become blurry when enlarged, making vector formats the mandatory standard for professional design work.
Mentioned in the Episode
Logo Gallery
Transcript
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Dave Ghidiu Has that poster always been there? Paul Engin Yeah. I think so. We're gonna have to go... Did you just move it? Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin Did you just put it there? Is that why? I mean, I didn't add any... I've never added any. Dave Ghidiu Listen, I, I wouldn't put it past either one of you. Yeah, it's... Okay. Paul Engin Did you see it? I didn't see it. Dave Ghidiu It was episode 25. Yeah, it was in there. Paul Engin It was in there? Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin Okay. All right. Dave Ghidiu Okay. Well, that's weird. Paul Engin Welcome to The Immersive Lens, the podcast exploring the technologies reshaping how we live, work, and learn. Dave Ghidiu From AI and virtual reality to creative media and design, we're diving into the tools and ideas shaping our connected world. Paul Engin My name is Paul Ungan. Join us as we uncover the people and ideas driving the next wave of interactive experiences. Dave Ghidiu And I'm Dave Gadu. This is The Immersive Lens. Paul Engin So Dave, this is gonna be a pretty short episode, but we're gonna talk about logos. Dave Ghidiu Oh, logos. Paul Engin And why are we talking about logos? Dave Ghidiu Uh, well, oh, uh, before we get started- Paul Engin Oh, yeah Dave Ghidiu ... it's just, it's really warm in here. I'm just gonna take off- Paul Engin Oh, is it? What- Dave Ghidiu My hoodie here. Paul Engin Oh my gosh. What the... Dave Ghidiu What, what do we got here? Paul Engin Oh. No. Do, uh... Jeff, do you see? He's got a shirt on. So he just took off his shirt, and it says, "Tell your friends, family, and enemies." Dave Ghidiu Oh, what's- Paul Engin Oh, The Immersive Lens. Dave Ghidiu He made a shirt? Paul Engin No, he's got a shirt with a QR code. Dave Ghidiu Shirts for everybody. Oh, he got shirts. Paul Engin Oh. Oh my gosh. Dave Ghidiu Shirts for everybody. Paul Engin Are you kidding me? We got shirts. Dave Ghidiu Shirts for everybody. Paul Engin Oh, he's like Oprah. "Who needs a car?" Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin "You get a shirt." Dave Ghidiu Okay. But- Paul Engin "You get a shirt." Dave Ghidiu But no joke, so two things about the shirt. Paul Engin Oh, no way. Dave Ghidiu Like, there's no logo. So I was... I wanted to get T-shirts made for us, and there are no logos. So w- we are logo-less. Paul Engin Oh my gosh. So I'm gonna be that geek and actually take a picture of your QR code to make sure it works. Dave Ghidiu Oh. Yeah, I... You don't think I tested that? Paul Engin Uh, uh-uh. Uh-oh. Dave Ghidiu Uh-oh. It doesn't work. Paul Engin It works, folks. Dave Ghidiu Okay. It works. Paul Engin I've, I've, I've validated it. Dave Ghidiu So, so here's the issue. I, I... We... B- because we're, we're growing in popularity, we need to have swag, but we do not have a logo. I've been using kinda like this generic logo that we use for the, um, the AI, uh, the FLX AI hub. We need an individual logo, because a logo tells a story. A logo is descriptive. Um, so l- so w- while we're on the path, the journey to a logo, I thought it'd be good just to talk about logos real quick and talk about, um, maybe some iconic logos and some characteristics that logo, that, that logos kinda have and tell a story. So who better to do it than you and Jeff, because you guys are artistes. Paul Engin Awesome. Well, thank you so much for the shirts. These are sweet. Dave Ghidiu Yes. Thanks, Dave. This is awesome. Tell, tell your friends and family. Paul Engin And enemies. Dave Ghidiu And enemies. Paul Engin And enemies. This is awesome. All right. Well, this was a complete surprise for those listening. I did not know. Did you know, Jeff, he was gonna do this? Dave Ghidiu No, I had no clue. He MacBook Neo'd us. Paul Engin I tell you, you... I, I was just gonna say, you and Dave, I gotta figure out... I'm not very good with surprises. I gotta figure something out. This is- Dave Ghidiu Listen, you guys got donked. Paul Engin Oh, man. Dave Ghidiu I was, like, punked by, by, by Dave. You got donked. Paul Engin Not again. Um, so I'm gonna start off this episode with a, a, a re- what is it? Errata? A- Dave Ghidiu Errata, yeah Paul Engin ... errata. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin Um, so we were talking about Linux when you were trying to defend the- Dave Ghidiu The Chromebook Paul Engin ... the Chromebook. And, um- Dave Ghidiu And won you over, but keep going. Paul Engin Yes, and, and won me over, yes. Uh, and you mentioned Linux, and I said Mac has a Linux base, but it's actually a Unix base. It's not a- Dave Ghidiu Yeah. So how did you arrive, uh... Like, how did you know this? How did you- Paul Engin Well, I knew that it was... In my head, I think I knew that it was Unix, but I... Which is just another, um- Dave Ghidiu It's proprietary Paul Engin ... yeah. And, um, but it, it's actually a... I wanna say it was an open source flavor of Unix. So, um, they, uh... And I, I just... When you were talking about Linux, I just started getting them confused, and I was like, "Oh, yeah, it's based... Mac have the, the foundation on Linux- ... but it's really Unix." Dave Ghidiu And they are very, very similar when you look at them side by side. Paul Engin Oh, yeah. Dave Ghidiu Um, but Linux had a birthday. So today's the 27th. The birthday was August 25th. Paul Engin Oh, happy birthday, Linux. Dave Ghidiu Yeah, happy birthday, Linux. Paul Engin Wow. All right. So let's go to hot takes real quick, so then we can get into logos. Dave Ghidiu Okay. My hot take is, and I'll put a link to this in the show notes at theimmersivelens.com, but there was a gentleman who had a computer that was managed by their company. It was a Mac. Paul Engin Mm-hmm. Dave Ghidiu And Find My Device was turned off, and he lost his phone, and he needed to find it. So he used Claude to vibe code an app that used the Bluetooth antenna to do a strength, and he walked around, kinda like a metal detector or a compass. And he could walk around his apartment or his house or whatever, and it would tell the signal of the phone. That's how he actually wound up finding it. And I think that's interesting, because as I do the show notes for The Immersive Lens, I was like, "I have developed so many apps," and my workflow is, like, no one else would find it useful. But, like, I made the lensy.app website, which- Paul Engin Mm-hmm Dave Ghidiu ... lets us shorten the links, 'cause Jeff was like, "Our... We need to shorten the links because of the character limits in the show notes." So we made that. Then I made a chatbot that parses through our podcast and kinda, like, gives a description and, and finds, like, the, the tags and everything. Paul Engin Mm-hmm. Dave Ghidiu We use Noda, which is an AI platform the college uses, to do the transcript. And then I made a custom Blogger tool so that I no longer have to type everything into Blogger. I can just, like, uh, uh, I take, like, the components that I put in one place, and it automatically wraps it into an entire blog post. So all that was vibe code, and I was like, "This is perfect." My, my workflow is really, really quick now. Um, but no one else in the world would find this useful. So this is just a testament to the, the software of one, or, like, I'm becoming more effic- efficient because of the tools that I can now use Paul Engin That's awesome. And so you're gonna have that up, a link to some of the stuff? Dave Ghidiu Yeah, that'll be in the show notes at theimmersivelens.com. Paul Engin Awesome. Sweet, sweet. Dave Ghidiu All right. What's yours? Paul Engin So, um, this literally just happened, I think, yesterday or this morning, but, um, obviously your favorite company, Meta, and- Dave Ghidiu I saw this in the show notes- ... and I was, I was gonna say something about it. Paul Engin And so they were being sued for a trillion dollars, um, and, uh, they ended up settling either last night or today for $18 billion on a class action suit that was related to, uh, safety of teenagers- Dave Ghidiu Yes Paul Engin ... or kids. Dave Ghidiu So I would direct all our listeners, all the lenses out there, to go back and listen to last week's episode when I was like, "From the people who brought you Cambridge Analytica and one billion dollars- ... in settlement fines." This is, like... This was just shy of 18 billion, right? Paul Engin This... Yeah. But, um, it was interesting. So one of the things they did is they made some concessions. They said as part of the settlement, they're going to begin doing, uh, two-hour daily limits for, uh, anyone under 18. They said that they're going to, uh, at night and during school blocks, um, block any minors, uh, between midnight and 6:00 a.m. They're gonna do p- parental overrides, and, um, they're gonna have a independent oversight on the, um, on, on what they're doing, so it's not looking like they're hiding anything. Dave Ghidiu They're... Uh, I... They will still be hiding things. Um- But- Paul Engin Geez Dave Ghidiu ... now, do you- Paul Engin I can't, I can't convince him otherwise. Jeff, what do you think about this? Jeff Kidd They will figure it out. Paul Engin Yeah. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Um, but y- yeah, it, uh... I m- there's... It's no secret there's been so many whistleblowers, so many documents discovered, like, during discovery that, like, w- we know they know they're doing bad things, and- Paul Engin Yeah Dave Ghidiu ... it's nice to see an $18 billion summary- Paul Engin But- Dave Ghidiu ... settlement Paul Engin ... I think what a lot of people were saying, though, is they make 18 billion in one day. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin And so it's not enough, and I think there's one or two states that are actually, um... didn't concede to- Dave Ghidiu Oh Paul Engin ... the settlement. Dave Ghidiu So they- Paul Engin So they're gonna still go after 'em Dave Ghidiu ... good. Paul Engin But you wanna hear the craziest thing? This was the craziest thing that I saw on this. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin They have a clause that says they only have to pay out of that 19... or what was it? 18 billion. They only have to pay 70% of it unless Google's YouTube and TikTok agree to a similar, um, approach to, uh, how they're approaching- Dave Ghidiu Interesting Paul Engin ... their, um, social media. And I was like, that's... And- Dave Ghidiu I didn't know they could do that Paul Engin ... I didn't know they could do that either. I don't know what you think about that, Jeff. Jeff Kidd I'm processing that right now. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin It just... It baffles me, but I, I mean, they agreed to it, so, um, yeah. So look out. So I don't know if TikTok and YouTube are gonna have similar constraints or... Dave Ghidiu I, I imagine so at some point, maybe self-in- induced. Paul Engin Yeah. Dave Ghidiu All right. Paul Engin All right. Dave Ghidiu Let's talk about logos. Paul Engin Logos, logos, logos. All right. So you, you determined that something is missing when you created these shirts. Dave Ghidiu It's just text, man. Paul Engin Yeah. Dave Ghidiu I don't know. Paul Engin I love it, though. Tell a friend and family. Dave Ghidiu Tell your friends and family, and your enemies. Paul Engin And enemies. Dave Ghidiu And your enemies, too. So I- Jeff Kidd It's thought-provoking if you think about it- ... because if you're walking down the street or in the hallway, it's like, "What are you talking about?" And then it's just like, "Oh, scan this code." It's like, "Oh, okay." Dave Ghidiu Yeah, you turn around, and the q- the QR code is on the back. So you turn around, and it's like, "theimmersivelens.com. Scan this QR code." Paul Engin Well, you know what I wanted to do during opening days when I was presenting? Dave Ghidiu Yeah? Paul Engin I was gonna do a quishing, a QR code phishing, where I was gonna put a QR code up there, and I was gonna tell everyone not- ... not to use it. Dave Ghidiu Oh. Paul Engin And everyone would use it 'cause I tell them not to use it. Dave Ghidiu Yes, we were both. Paul Engin And, uh... But then it didn't, it didn't make it up. Dave Ghidiu I do like that, like, guerrilla marketing or thing. Paul Engin Yeah. Dave Ghidiu So the, the icons that I think of when I think of- Paul Engin Okay Dave Ghidiu ... like, icons and logos- Paul Engin Yeah Dave Ghidiu ... are, like, Coca-Cola. Everyone knows that. CBS. Paul Engin Yeah. Dave Ghidiu And I like the CBS one because it's just, like, an eye. It's kinda like a stylized l- uh, eyeball. Paul Engin Mm-hmm. Dave Ghidiu Um, and some of the... Uh, uh, I think there's, like, two or three other ones that I think, like, as I talk about them, this does not need to be visual media because everyone out there can in- can kinda, like, see the FedEx logo, which is, like, F-E-D- Paul Engin Mm-hmm Dave Ghidiu ... and then Ex in different colors. Paul Engin Yeah. Dave Ghidiu But inside, in between the, like, E and the X, there's, like, a little arrow showing it's, like, moving forward, which I like. Paul Engin Direction. Yeah. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin Yeah. Dave Ghidiu And the Amazon has that, like, the, the little arrow that connects A to Z symbolizing, like, we have everything from A to Z, and it's like- Paul Engin Ooh Dave Ghidiu ... "Oh, I really like that." Paul Engin Do you want me to take that to the next level? Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin Amazon is so good. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin And they do it with a smile. Dave Ghidiu Oh, they do. Paul Engin That's a, that's a smile, and that's a little dimple. Dave Ghidiu Interesting. Jeff Kidd That took... Someone pointed that out to me, and I- Dave Ghidiu Yeah Jeff Kidd ... was stunned at how obvious it was after they said. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Jeff Kidd I was like, "Oh my God, that's that." Yeah. Dave Ghidiu So now people- Jeff Kidd The smile Dave Ghidiu ... now people who are driving their car are gonna have to stop, pull over, and look at the Amazon logo, and see the smile. Paul Engin Yeah, and they just do a little smile. Dave Ghidiu Wow. That's cool. Um, and the Beats logo for, y- uh- Paul Engin Oh, that's a good one Dave Ghidiu ... it, it looks like a circle with a B, but that's really, like, the headphone, like, on an ear, which is cool. Paul Engin Yes. Dave Ghidiu All right. Paul Engin I love it. Um, I'll say that, um, I like those logos. I also like... I don't know if you remember the Paris logo. Dave Ghidiu Paris the country? Paul Engin The Olympic, the Paris 2024- Dave Ghidiu Oh Paul Engin ... Olympic logo. Dave Ghidiu Uh, uh, y- I mean, I'm looking at it now, so I don't see- Paul Engin What do you see? Dave Ghidiu It says... So it looks like there's a circle with a flame in it, um, and then I see Paris 2024, and then the Olympic rings. But now that I'm looking at it, that's, like, a face almost, like a- Paul Engin It's a- Dave Ghidiu ... smile? Paul Engin Yeah. It's a girl. Dave Ghidiu Oh. Paul Engin With her hair, and that's her lips. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin So- Dave Ghidiu So the circle and the flame is also- Paul Engin Yeah Dave Ghidiu ... like, a woman's face. Paul Engin Yes. So it's got the positive, a play on positive and negative. Um, so you do a, "Oh, wait, what's that?" And you have to take a second look at it. Um, so I like that play of negative space. I think when we- Dave Ghidiu Oh, yeah Paul Engin ... think of, like, negative space, uh- Dave Ghidiu Like the arrow in the FedEx. Paul Engin The... Yep, and, uh, the NBA logo. Um, that was, uh, Jerry West's silhouette. Dave Ghidiu So that was an actual- ... basketball player, and someone took a picture of it, and then turned it into that logo Paul Engin Yeah, so then they took a silhouette of it, meaning they just flattened it out into a single color, and then made it negative space, and then they put the two color branded, uh- Dave Ghidiu The blue Paul Engin ... blue and red. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin Um- Dave Ghidiu Oh, that's cool Paul Engin ... and you see that a lot. Uh, you, you think about, like, uh, the Jordan, um, logo. Dave Ghidiu The Air J- Air Jordan? Paul Engin The Air Jordan is- Dave Ghidiu Yeah, he's like, slammed on Paul Engin ... a silhouette. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin Yeah, exactly. So it's a silhouette of that. Um, and those are logos we like. For New Media, um, we had students create a logo using a similar thing, where it's like it silhouettes ... It, it's the N and M for New Media, but then it's a silhouette of our students who actually designed the logo doing- Dave Ghidiu Oh, that's actually them? Paul Engin Yeah. Um, so it's, uh, one on a computer, and then the other one is- Dave Ghidiu Is that on a phone or something? Paul Engin On a, um, the drone. Dave Ghidiu Okay. Oh, the drone. Paul Engin Uh, or camera, holding a camera. And so the logic was is that we were going to have the ability to swap the silhouettes out with other activities. Dave Ghidiu Oh, that's so cool. Paul Engin So- Dave Ghidiu So it could be a drone pilot Paul Engin ... it could be someone flying a drone, and then a drone little on, on ... Like, so they gave us flexibility to add to this to make it a little bit more- Dave Ghidiu So when someone, when they designed this logo ... First of all, if you haven't seen it, folks, you gotta go see it. You can see it at theimmersivelens.com, um, because it's, it is really cool. So, a- and I don't wanna get too technical here, but when I design a logo, because I don't have any background in it, I might design like a PNG or a JPEG. Paul Engin Mm-hmm. Dave Ghidiu And the logo is a logo. You can't easily modify it. Paul Engin Yeah. Dave Ghidiu But because your New Media people are New Media people, they're using, like, Illustrator- Paul Engin Illustrator Dave Ghidiu ... is that right? Or Photoshop. Paul Engin Yeah, so usually when you're creating ... Um, so I'm ... We're gonna give guidelines, and we're gonna give suggestions. And Jeff, did you wanna say something? I'm sorry. Oh. Jeff Kidd No. Paul Engin Okay. I thought he was, I thought he was shifting to say something. Um- Jeff Kidd I was taking a pregnant pause. Paul Engin So, uh, we're gonna talk a lot about some of the, these things, and, um, if you hear terminology that's kinda like, "What?" don't worry about it. We're just looking for anything you can produce. And, um, we'll, we'll take it in whatever form you can, uh, create it in. Um, but, uh, if you wanna try to follow some of these guidelines, that'd be great. So to your point, um, we use, uh, vector programs, which is Illustrator, and there's other ... There's free vector programs out there. Um, but the one that we use- Dave Ghidiu Or like Inkscape. Paul Engin Yeah. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin Um, and the benefit of vector versus bitmap, which is something like Photoshop, is that vector graphics are all math-based. So you can scale them bigger or smaller, and they never lose fidelity. Dave Ghidiu They- Paul Engin They're always sharp Dave Ghidiu ... so it's not like pixelated. Paul Engin Right, exactly. Dave Ghidiu And so that's like a font. The bigger I make a font, like I still see the curves and the serifs and everything. Paul Engin Right. Dave Ghidiu I don't see, like, the steps, like the pixels as squares. Paul Engin And did you know that fonts are vector? Dave Ghidiu What? Paul Engin So, um, and if you ... And I go over this in New Media, if you're ever, anyone's ever interested, but you always have to add anti-aliasing, and it converts it to bitmap any time you save it to a JPEG. So but type by default is vector- Dave Ghidiu Okay Paul Engin ... so, um, for, for that reason. And then the other thing is, uh, we try to do it in layers so we can- Dave Ghidiu You can m- swap out, say- Paul Engin Swap things out Dave Ghidiu ... the silhouettes of the, the students. Paul Engin Correct. Dave Ghidiu Okay. Paul Engin Correct. Dave Ghidiu So th- that's like on a whole nother level, because when I think of logos, I might like draw them out with pen and paper, like not that I even have logo background design or logo design background, but I would draw them out on paper and then maybe try and recreate it in like, say, Microsoft Paint or something like that. Paul Engin Yeah. Dave Ghidiu Like I, I don't have the acumen that you all have. Paul Engin Yeah, and I think ... So why don't we go with this. What are you hoping for? What do you want the logo to represent- Dave Ghidiu So- Paul Engin ... so this way they have something? Dave Ghidiu Well, I don't think we've officially announced that I think we wanna have a contest. Paul Engin Oh, we didn't. Dave Ghidiu Okay, we're gonna have a contest, folks. Paul Engin Oh, I ... Oh my gosh, you're right. Dave Ghidiu Contest, contest. We have a contest for all the lensies and the listeners, basically all our friends and family- ... and enemies. Paul Engin And enemies. Dave Ghidiu And enemies. That w- we want to, you to submit, a- and you can go to our website and make the submission, uh, a logo. And I think, so I think it needs to have kinda some of these kind of, um, components that we've talked about. Paul Engin Yeah. Dave Ghidiu So, uh, I don't know if negative space needs to be in there. Paul Engin Right. Dave Ghidiu But it should tell the story of what we do, and I don't know what that story ... Like I can't design a logo. Should it have a microphone 'cause we're a podcast? Should it have like a camera lens because we are also simulcast on YouTube? Should it have- Paul Engin Headphones Dave Ghidiu ... headphones? Should it have dollar signs 'cause we're making a lot of money on this? Like- Paul Engin Should it have something about lenses? Dave Ghidiu Lenses or lensies? Like I don't know ... Or enemies. Is it an icon of an enemy? Paul Engin Right. Dave Ghidiu I don't know. Paul Engin Yeah. Or silhouettes. Dave Ghidiu Or silhouettes. Like I'm very curious about what people will, will submit. Jeff Kidd Dave and Paul have lenses coming out of their mouths. Dave Ghidiu Oh. Paul Engin Jeez. Jeff Kidd 'Cause they're immersed in ... The lenses are immersed in them. Dave Ghidiu Oh, we're, we're trying ... Are we trying to escape the lens? Jeff Kidd Your lens, the lenses your, your ... Dave Ghidiu Sure. Uh, so- Paul Engin And, and I will say that when, uh, w- we'll give you a little bit of about what we think, and, um, I think when we talk about logos, there's a lot of different types of logos. There are logo types or logo typographies, which is something like a Coca-Cola where it's spelled out. Dave Ghidiu Yes, like cursive writing. Paul Engin Yeah, and so, um, there are letter forms, which are just a single letter, like, uh- Dave Ghidiu Like Facebook Paul Engin ... the F or- Dave Ghidiu Yeah Paul Engin ... like, you know a Honda? Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin You know the H- Dave Ghidiu Mm-hmm Paul Engin ... or an Acura, th- you can see that they're in the same family. Dave Ghidiu Oh, yeah. Paul Engin Um, or monograms, which are, uh, like initials like IBM. Dave Ghidiu Okay. HP. Paul Engin HP, yes. Dave Ghidiu The HP one's really, really cool, the new kinda like rebrand of the- Paul Engin Is it? Dave Ghidiu ... a few years ago. Paul Engin I haven't seen it. Dave Ghidiu It's really cool. Paul Engin I haven't seen it. Um, so a, a few things to also keep in mind when we're talking about this, um, is, uh, the notion of, uh, KISS. Oh, look at that. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin Yeah. Kia has a similar ... Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin So he was, he's showing me, um, HP really Uh, speaking of KISS, keep it simple, silly, but not really is the, that's, uh, that third S, second S. Oh my gosh, numbers. What? Dave Ghidiu WWW. Paul Engin WWW. Dave Ghidiu Okay, so, so k- keep it simple. Paul Engin Keep it simple. Dave Ghidiu Silly. Paul Engin So I think one of the things that you can think about is taking stuff that we're talking about, and then how can you simplify it and still convey that same thing, and you keep simplifying it. Um, and in the HP case, they took the H and the P, and then they really took almost everything out of it, and they just kept these simple shapes. Dave Ghidiu Yeah, like slanted lines- Paul Engin Yeah Dave Ghidiu ... just four slanted lines. Paul Engin And if you look at the Kia- Dave Ghidiu Same kind of thing Paul Engin ... it's a similar- Dave Ghidiu Yeah Paul Engin ... it's a similar thing. Dave Ghidiu Although, I think the Kia one wasn't quite as simple, 'cause a lot of people were like, w- Paul Engin What is? Dave Ghidiu It looked like a new car name. People were like, "I've never seen this before." Paul Engin Yeah, that's true. Dave Ghidiu And it did not... It wasn't easy to decipher that was Kia. Paul Engin Um, some, some things that you should also think about, and again, it's gonna be completely open to the audience on what you wanna submit. You can do sketches, and then we can take those sketches and see if we can bring them to fruition. You can, um, just, just give us any of your ideas. Dave Ghidiu Yeah, submit them. Paul Engin Um- Dave Ghidiu And, and do you wanna know what I think we should do? Paul Engin What? Dave Ghidiu I think we're gonna get swag with the logo on it. Paul Engin Oh. Dave Ghidiu And maybe the top three will get some swag from us. Paul Engin That'd be awesome. Dave Ghidiu With the new logo. Paul Engin With the new logo. Oh, I love it. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin What do you think, Jeff? You think that- Jeff Kidd You think we're gonna get more than three people? Paul Engin We're gonna get a lot more. Dave Ghidiu Calling all lenses. I don't care if you have Illustrator and wanna make it, I don't care if you're using Microsoft Paint, I don't care if you draw it and take a picture with your phone and send it in. I don't care if you draw it and put it in an envelope and sell and send it to us- ... old school. We want all the logos from all the people for the Immersive Lens podcast. Paul Engin Yes. And you know what? And if you use AI, think about this. Sketch your... Sketch it, take your sketch, put it in AI, and have AI play with it a little bit and see what it can produce if you're nervous about- Dave Ghidiu Yeah Paul Engin ... you know. Dave Ghidiu I like it. Paul Engin Um, and then we can take it, and we can modify it further if we need to, but, um, I think that that'd be another thing if you wanted to play with it. Um, a few things to also think about. No gradients. Uh, stay away from gradients, and then- Dave Ghidiu That's like, um, when it fades from like blue to red- Paul Engin Yeah Dave Ghidiu ... or something like that? Paul Engin Yeah. Dave Ghidiu Okay. Paul Engin 'Cause usually if it prints or if we're scaling it, gradients don't show up well. And um, so think about solid colors. And then the last thing is if you use type, um, you can, because it's probably a logo, you don't need to worry about this, but you should think about using a sans serif font, which is- Dave Ghidiu That doesn't have the little- Paul Engin Little decorative elements- Dave Ghidiu Yeah Paul Engin ... because then it will display better, um, in smaller, smaller screens, which is a big thing. Like Google switched when they started developing, um... Dave Ghidiu Yeah. I like the new Google font. Paul Engin Yeah. Dave Ghidiu And they actually just released that font. You can, uh- Paul Engin Oh, did they? Dave Ghidiu You can use that font, yes. Paul Engin Oh, that's awesome. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. So, um, and one thing that I just wanna say about colors, and I don't know that we have a color other than I like 0046AD, which also happens- ... to be the hex color for, uh, FLCC. I think it's a nice, rich blue. I almost got shirts that were blue, but I couldn't find that. Like, it was not th- that blue that I prefer. Um, but one thing, like, I like about telling a story with colors, and I know you shouldn't do that for accessibility reasons, but the Olympics logo, you know how it has five rings? Paul Engin Mm-hmm. Dave Ghidiu Every o- of those colors that are on the rings, every... At least one of those colors is on every flag in the country, or in the, in the world. Paul Engin Oh. Dave Ghidiu So like every country is unified in- Paul Engin Right Dave Ghidiu ... in that logo. It tells a story. And- Paul Engin Right. And I think that's, uh... The logo has to be able to be black and white, white on black, and color. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin So, um, again, that's something that we can play with after. I don't want, I don't want people to be limited by, you know. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin I mean, submit a sketch, submit an idea. S- We're, we're open, and let's see what we get. Dave Ghidiu And, um, maybe... Does it have to be square? Paul Engin So it doesn't have to be, but if it's square, it's better. Dave Ghidiu Will that skew our- Paul Engin Ratio is one to one. Dave Ghidiu Okay. Paul Engin It doesn't have to be square. It could be circular, but the, you know- Dave Ghidiu I see. Yep Paul Engin ... one to one ratio. Dave Ghidiu Y- That, that might skew the chances of you getting some swag, lenses. All right. Paul Engin All right. Um, so if you're, uh, wanna research a little bit, check out Paul Rand. Um, we'll have a link to his site. Um, he's developed a lot of logos. Um, he developed the ABC logo. Um, he developed the IBM one, which is a really big one, which are the negative, um, lines going through it. Dave Ghidiu Oh, yeah. I like that. Paul Engin Um, and then, you know what was interesting is, um, do you remember when Apple, um, got rid of Steve Jobs and Steve Jobs started a new company? Dave Ghidiu NeXT. Paul Engin NeXT. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin So Paul Rand, this is how he, he developed the NeXT logo, and he didn't give them an opportunity to edit. He said, "You will pay me this much, and I will give you the logo, and it will be what it is. You will not tell me what to do with it." Dave Ghidiu Is that because at that point he was so established with his- Paul Engin Yes. Dave Ghidiu Okay. Paul Engin Yes. I mean, and so he was very sought after, I assume. Um, but it was really interesting. I was like, wait, what a design Dave Ghidiu And I could see S- Steve Jobs, 'cause he was the one that started NeXT, right? Paul Engin Yeah. Dave Ghidiu I could see him being like, "Yes, I, I appreciate design, and that's why I asked you to do this." Paul Engin And so yeah, that's why. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin Yeah. But, uh, I thought that was an interesting fact. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin But, um, you can go check it out. So let's talk, let's talk about what do you think, uh, the Immersive Lens represents? Technology? Dave Ghidiu It is, and I don't know if we're a brand other than, like, podcasting at this point, but we're hoping to move into, um, different spaces, right? Like we're gonna have our own hardware someday, our own software, maybe our own- ... air- airplane company. Um, yeah, I think we're, we're about technology, emerging technology. Paul Engin Yeah. Dave Ghidiu So emerging is- Paul Engin Emerging Dave Ghidiu ... is, is a good theme. Paul Engin Yeah. Dave Ghidiu But I think we are a podcast, and I think we are, um, we have a YouTube presence, so, uh, I, I don't... W- What else are we that needs to be represented or could be represented in a logo? Paul Engin I'd like to think that we're, uh, dynamic or engaging Speaker 5 Um, just as, as terms to think about- Jeff Kidd That's fair, yeah Speaker 5 ... when you're, when you're doing it. Um, Jeff, uh, anything nice to say? Jeff Kidd Well, I, I thought of two, kinda two things. Do you ... I don't wanna c- make this more complicated, but could it or should it look good if it was part of an animation or something like that? Like, not part of a bigger animation, but maybe if it animated itself. So, like when Dave said think of logos, one, two that I thought of was NBC. So NBC is the peacock. Speaker 5 Peacock, right Jeff Kidd But over the however many years it's been, it, it, they've animated it in different ways. Like it's a f- sometimes it fans out. Somet- and some ... And for the longest time, it was an actual peacock. Speaker 5 Yeah. Jeff Kidd You know, there's been s- different iterations of that, but there's ... So it could be a logo, but there could be fun ways to animate it. Like, if, if it animates into the logo or if the logo could be animated somehow. Dave Ghidiu And- Jeff Kidd Like, you, have you thought about that? Dave Ghidiu Y- your timing is impeccable because Google's, uh, Gemini, their AI, now has a legitimate, like, logo reveal video. So you upload your y- logo, displ- and type what you want to happen, and it makes a video based on it. So I just showed Paul. Speaker 5 Yeah. Uh, a, a logo, um, the ... One of our ... Is it one of the, um- Dave Ghidiu That's like- Speaker 5 Yeah Dave Ghidiu ... for the FLX AI Hub. Speaker 5 The FLX AI Hub, yeah. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. So, so if you- Speaker 5 So I don't think you need to necessarily, to your point, Jeff, I don't think you need to plan on it. I think when we get the layers, then we can creatively think about different approaches. Um, I think that the, the big thing is just getting that static design first. Does that make sense? Jeff Kidd Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 5 Uh, and then what was the ... Was there another thing? Jeff Kidd Yeah, there was, and I forgot. Speaker 5 You for- Sure. Dave Ghidiu But, but when you are done with that- Speaker 5 Yeah Dave Ghidiu ... uh, we'll go to Gemini, and if you hit the plus vide- uh, button, you can go to videos, and one of the, like, prefab ones is logo reveal. Jeff Kidd Oh, I remember what it was. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Jeff Kidd I remember my point. So, uh, y- you want them to maybe consider ... 'Cause we, we, you have the scripts that you say, the beginning and the end of every episode. Dave Ghidiu Mm. Jeff Kidd Do you want them to maybe pull inspiration from any of that? Dave Ghidiu Yeah, that's a good point, that, 'cause that's part of our DNA. Speaker 5 Yeah, you could. That's actually a good idea. Jeff Kidd Like, 'cause you say, "Look, and thanks for looking through the immersive lens with us," right? Speaker 5 Right. Jeff Kidd That's something that you say. Like, that could, if they wanna try to pull inspiration from that phrasing somehow. Speaker 5 Yeah. I think that's, that's a really good idea. Jeff Kidd Yep. Dave Ghidiu All right. Speaker 5 Um, yeah. And so I think, uh, you know, uh, we, we have, uh, hosts and guests, and, um, we talk about tons of different topics. Um, they're kinda centered around immersiveness or technology, but, uh, you'll be able to submit your ideas, your concepts. Um, and again, w- we're not restricting it to it has to be vector. It could be sketches. It could be- Dave Ghidiu It could be anything Speaker 5 ... text or it- Dave Ghidiu Yeah Speaker 5 ... it could be, um- Dave Ghidiu A napkin Speaker 5 ... a n- Dave Ghidiu A cocktail napkin- Speaker 5 Yeah Dave Ghidiu ... with a drawing on it. Speaker 5 Well, if you can take a picture of it and submit it. Jeff Kidd That, that'd be a little bit better. We, we will accept napkins. Speaker 5 Um. Dave Ghidiu Um, and so you just go to theimmersivelens.com, and you'll see it as one of the options kind of up at the top. Speaker 5 Yeah, and then I love it. Then they can have a, a little bit of a swag. So top three will get, um- Dave Ghidiu Top three will get some swag Speaker 5 ... swag. That sounds good. Um, all right. So let's see. Was there ... Ch- ch- ch- ch- sh- Dave Ghidiu I think that's- Speaker 5 I think that's about it. Um, pictorials, Coca-Cola. All right. Yeah, surprise us. We're looking forward to seeing this. Um, and again, we, we were keeping this episode pretty short. Um- Jeff Kidd So this goes out, you know, for us the f- this Monday. Speaker 5 Yeah. Jeff Kidd So the date of this would be the 31st. Dave Ghidiu 31st of August. Jeff Kidd So how long do you plan on running it for? Dave Ghidiu Oh, that's a good point. Um, let's do, uh, two weeks. Speaker 5 Yeah, I think two weeks is fair. Dave Ghidiu Two weeks. Speaker 5 So it'll go till- Dave Ghidiu September 13th or whatever that day is. Let's say September 15th, make it easy to remember. Speaker 5 All right. Dave Ghidiu The Ides of September. Speaker 5 The Ides September 15th. All right. So, um, this'll, this contest will go through September 15th. It'll be on the website, so you'll be able to see the, the date as well. Um, all right. Very good. Anything else, Jeff, that we might be forgetting? Thank you for bringing that up. That was, that was good. Uh, all right. Well, that's all the time we have today. Again, this was short. My name is Paul Langan. Dave Ghidiu And I'm Dave Gadu. If you enjoyed today's conversation, be sure to smash that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. Let's be careful out there, folks. Speaker 5 And share it with a friend or colleague or- Dave Ghidiu Or Speaker 5 ... enemy. Dave Ghidiu And if you forget, you just read your shirt. Speaker 5 Woo. Until next time, stay curious, stay connected, and thanks for looking through the immersive lens with us. Dave Ghidiu This episode was engineered by Jeff Kidd. Speaker 5 Recorded at Finger Lakes Community College Podcast Studios located in beautiful Canandaigua, New York, in the heart of the Finger Lakes region, offering more than 55 degrees, certificates, microcredentials, and workforce training programs. Dave Ghidiu Thank you to Public Relations and Communications Marketing and the FLX AI Hub. Speaker 5 Eager to delve into passion, discover exciting and immersive opportunities at www.flcc.edu. Dave Ghidiu As part of our mission at FLCC, we are committed to making education accessible, innovative, and aligned with the needs of both learners and employers. Speaker 5 The views expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Finger Lakes Community College. Dave Ghidiu Music by Den from Pixabay. Speaker 5 This is The Immersive Lens.
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