[Music]
Stop and try to imagine the logo, just the logo, from a show from the last five years.
It's not easy.
Perhaps Stranger Things, which is a stylistic throwback, maybe Loki, but for the most part
logos for TV shows tend to feel like an afterthought.
But it wasn't always this way.
In the 1990s, a new business model called Syndication totally changed American broadcast TV.
Instead of airing just on a single channel, shows could be sold on to be rerun on multiple
channels, both domestically and overseas, turning the most popular shows into cash cows
and international phenomena.
One format dominated during this era: the multi-camera sitcom.
And judging by the paychecks of sitcom stars, the 90s truly represented the pinnacle of
the genre, giving birth to some of the most iconic series ever produced and some of the
most memorable logos.
So in this video I'm going to break down and analyse 10 logos of the most enduring
and influential shows of the decade.
Of course, to whittle down the list to just 10, I had to set some criteria, which you
can pause if you wish to read.
But mostly they're the most famous or most memorable.
For each logo, I'll be judging based on four criteria.
Distinctness, appeal, storytelling and execution.
Starting with the lowest scoring and moving to the highest score.
With that settled, let's jump in.
[Family Matters Theme Song]
We start off with Family Matters, and this was quite famous for its character,
Steve Urkel, and his catchphrase, which is something very 1990s.
The opening title of this show features a logo set in a typeface called Bookman.
And this is a quite long-historied typeface, but it kind of became very ubiquitous to the
point of overuse through the 1960s and 1970s.
So there was another sitcom during the 80s, which featured Jason Bateman in one of his
early roles, that had almost the exact same logo as this.
It was Bookman in yellow with a drop shadow.
And for that reason alone, this is going to score pretty poorly in its distinctness category.
While the logo might hold a certain retro appeal, it really doesn't provide any insight
into the story or the characters.
And it's so generic to the point where even during the time it was on air, they'd often
use a different logo than what was in the opening title, for promotions.
And today, if you go on any of the streaming services to watch this, you'll find a completely
different logo.
And they've gone with a font that was actually designed in 2012.
And this is a little bit of an improvement in terms of memorability, not a huge upgrade.
Unfortunately, we have to start with the mediocre examples before we can move on to the more
interesting ones.
Urkel: I don't have to take this!
I'm going home!
[Audience laughter]
[Full House Theme Song]
Next on our list is Full House, the epitome of the wholesome family sitcom.
The soft and friendly logo is kind of emblematic of the show's spirit, but it's not particularly original.
It's not a specific font, but this is a kind of signwriting-inspired lettering.
In fact, you can see this style referenced in a| signwriter's manual from the 1970s,
labeled as cartoon.
A signwriting style like this probably inspired another typeface called Dom Casual, which
is from quite a bit earlier, but that's not the font they used for this logo.
Although if you Google the Full House logo font, what you'll find is a fan-made font.
And that's rather common, actually.
Around the late 90s and 2000s, when font design software started coming alogn and actually being
pirated often, is that people made these fan-made fonts as tributes to pop culture they enjoyed.
The logo overall is pretty generic to the point where it is the basis of the parody
logo for that viral video "Too Many Cooks" from a few years back.
Despite all the storytelling elements that made the show unique, the setting of San Francisco
or the different kind of ensemble, isn't really reflected here.
So the execution is okay and the appeal is alright, but the score is going to be pretty low.
[Married With Children Theme Song]
For a show that completely flips that script, we have Married With Children, the first sitcom
to ever air on Fox when it came out in the late 1980s.
It was designed to be the polar opposite of those sitcom tropes, with a downtrodden dad
and his really cynical, horrible family.
And the logo clearly reflects that.
And it was really well done in terms of setting expectations right at the front with that logo.
It's very disturbing looking with the word "married" just dripping with slime and icicles
or something and the imposing rubber stamp effect on "with children".
It just kind of shows this cynical perspective of the show.
Although the appeal obviously is pretty low and the constraints of having a low budget
on a new network with the limited graphic technology of the late 80s is going to affect
the execution score as well.
[Friends Theme Song]
Now any list of iconic 90s sitcoms could not skip over Friends.
The show is just synonymous with the 90s and its cast was at one point the highest paid
cast on television.
However, when it comes to the logo, I've got a bit of a spicy take.
I just don't think the logo is great design.
I mean it's simple and distinctive enough, but I'd hesitate to use the word minimalist
because that implies an intentionality that I don't think is there.
I'm not sure I buy that that was such a genius design move and more just...
Ross: I think you're reading a little too much into it?
But one thing that really sticks out to me is the very *un-minimalist* design aesthetic
of the show.
I mean can you imagine Marie Kondo stepping into any of these set designs?
Like this is 90s maximalism taken to its logical endpoint.
It's just knickknacks and bric-a-brac and colour everywhere.
So to call the logo minimalist is giving it more credit than it deserves.
This is the kind of logo you could sketch literally on a napkin and call it a day.
It's fine, but it's no design masterpiece.
So it's going to get a score that reflects that.
[Seinfeld Theme Song]
Another huge phenomenal show of the 90s was Seinfeld, of course and it has this very iconic
and graphic logo design.
But interestingly it didn't actually make its first appearance until season three of the show.
For the first two seasons the opening credits just have "Seinfeld" written in plain text along
with the other opening credits.
With each new season the colours and patterns within the oval and text changed in just a
delightful array of 90s colour combinations.
So there are actually two different Seinfeld logos.
There's the logo in the opening credits and then there's the promotional logo that you'll
find everywhere online, that was probably created sometime after the show finished.
But both of them share the same basic composition and one of the nice little details in it,
is a little triangle, just to kind of hint at it being slightly offbeat without being full-on slapstick.
And it's a slight upgrade overall, actually, with the new promotional logo.
The oval is more balanced and it's just more tightly composed.
It kind of has not a timeless, but an enduring appeal and it's very strongly graphic.
[The Nanny Theme Song]
The Nanny is a really strange phenomenon.
Despite being extremely specific in its New York Jewish cultural references it was a huge
international success.
Being broadcast in over 80 countries it also had the most* international adaptations of
any sitcom on this list.
Now looking at the logo it's got this strange interlocking lettering style that you might
think is original, but it's actually a bit of a throwback to the 50s and 60s, that's sometimes
known as "beatnik lettering".
This style became popular in a lot of different places including title cards of sitcoms like
Gilligan's Island.
This lettering style not only had a revival with The Nanny in the 90s but also in the
series Ren & Stimpy which was extremely influential in the new wave of Nickelodeon cartoons which
then went on to influence shows like SpongeBob SquarePants.
So if you're on the younger side you might recognise it from:
French accent: Approximately 10 hours later...
This logo gets pretty good scores all around and it does a good job of actually also projecting
the loud and interesting style of the lead character.
What was interesting about this beatnik lettering is it wasn't just used for the original
English language show but also by many of the international adaptations of The Nanny
including ones that used totally different alphabets from our Latin one.
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[The Simpsons Theme Song]
Having touched on animation, no discussion of 90s sitcoms would be complete without acknowledging
The Simpsons.
The opening sequence to The Simpsons features the show's name written in all caps in the
handwriting of the creator Matt Groening in this quite blobby, squiggle-vision style and
that was effectively used as the logo for promotions in print and other places until
they updated the design to use a much more deliberate mixed case lettering approach.
This is the version of the logo that we're still familiar with today featuring an enlarged
initial S and a lowercase T and E in "The", which has a much more pleasing overall rhythm
and composition.
This was probably motivated by the explosion of Simpsons merchandise through the 90s.
The simplicity of the Simpsons logo is one of its main strengths.
I mean it's hard to imagine how you can improve on it.
It's yellowm just like The Simpsons themselves, and it's Matt Groening's distinctive handwriting.
Even though he went on to create many other shows like Futurama, that handwriting style
is going to always be associated with The Simpsons.
[The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Theme Song]
For the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, the logo echoes the whole "fish out of water" narrative,
representing this street wise kid thrown into this upper crust environment by juxtaposing
that graffiti style lettering for "Fresh Prince" with this traditional serif typeface used
for "Bel-Air".
It was a rather groundbreaking design in many ways being one of the first mainstream shows
to incorporate a graffiti and hip hop aesthetic which you can also see in the opening title
sequence which was more inspired by Will Smith's music videos at the time than it was by those
traditional montage sequences you'd see at the opening of other sitcoms.
However, if we look a bit closer, the execution of the design has some problems.
The E's in "Fresh" and "Prince" are a little over-tilted forward and the counter of the P
in "Prince" isn't great.
The serif font for "Bel-Air" could also have been slightly more of an elegant choice.
These points might seem nitpicky but these are the small details that prevent it from
getting a perfect score.
The artist behind it probably wasn't a true graffiti artist so with a more polished execution
it would definitely be S-tier but nonetheless it's an absolute milestone in terms of 90s sitcom logos.
[Home Improvement Theme Song]
Home Improvement could scarcely be more 90s.
I mean the premise is around a cable TV host and his family, but before diving into what
I really love about this logo, I want to dispel a common misunderstanding.
A logo isn't necessarily better because it's visually representative of what it stands for.
This is really reductive thinking.
It's not just make thing that looks like other thing.
So yes, the Home Improvement logo is shaped like a house which fits for a show based around
the home renovation theme.
However, the genius of the logo is really in the execution and its integration into the show.
Especially that opening sequence.
No other logo on this list was woven into the opening credits quite like this.
The opening titles are just a charming blend of stop motion and early digital animation
which perfectly encapsulate the characters in the show and its overall style.
And a big part of that is the logo being reconstructed and different materials that
kind of reinforce that theme.
It always brings a smile to my face, which I can't say about watching any of the other
opening credits to these shows.
Overall, across all of the different scoring metrics it's getting a top mark.
I just don't see there being a better version of this idea as a logo.
Hence I have to say that there is almost no room for improvement.
(Tim Allen Grunt Glissando )
[Frasier Theme Song]
Something we've seen less of in American sitcoms since the 90s is diversity of location.
Like it seems the majority of shows are set in New York and LA and there's certainly some
of those in this list.
But also we had Full House set in San Francisco, we had Home Improvement in Detroit and of
course Frasier really leans into its setting of Seattle.
Not only being name checked in the closing theme song but forming the basis of its logo.
This creates an opportunity for some fun easter eggs to be thrown into the opening credits
using the skyline but the overall effect is actually quite sophisticated especially when
in combination with that great typography.
This is a typeface called Florentine which was designed in the late 1800s, but was really
the perfect choice for Frasier.
It encapsulates that sophisticated image that the characters Frasier and Niles want
to cultivate and project.
The only modification was to standardise the A for better readability.
The logo for Frasier gets top marks.
It's a perfect blend of sophistication and fun, capturing the essence of the show itself.
Just in case anyone missed it, a high score for the logo does not mean an endorsement
for the show or its stars.
But what was really interesting in researching this video is thinking about how differently
we interact with shows now as opposed to in the 1990s.
When you browse streaming services on your phone or TV what draws you in is what they call "key art".
In some ways it's what's replaced the movie poster but it has more in common with designing
a good YouTube thumbnail.
It's a different calculus than logo design in the traditional sense.
In the 1990s TV shows' logos had to work in black and white print for the TV Guide.
But even then inside a single issue of the TV Guide there might be one promo for a show
using the logo and another using completely different typography.
The actors themselves were so much more recognisable and pretty much tied to that individual show.
So it didn't matter as much if there wasn't perfect consistency around how the logo was used.
That's worth keeping in mind when we look back and judge these logos from the past as
well as taking into consideration the technical constraints that they worked under.
I discussed some of the hardware used to create broadcast graphics in my previous video about
the history of clip art.
Let me know if you disagree with my ranking order or if you enjoy this format, if you'd
like to see me tackle other decades or maybe shows from other countries in the future.
Thanks especially to my patrons over on Patreon for your support in keeping this channel going.
My name is Linus and I hope I'll see you in a future video.