Could be the greatest mug ever.

Coarse.

hmm… i think this is actually the logo of a-style, an italian fashion company

a brilliant logo nonetheless.

the logo of ...fashion company

The fact that it is a sales gimick—admittedly an extremely clever one—is not at all surprising.

I think it’s sad that instead of respecting sex as a private expression of love, it is thrown in our faces on logos to sell us stuff.

I am an old guy, and so you may dismiss this as the grumblings of a old man. But the reality is that the public space—advertising, entertainment, politics—is full of anger and sexual provocation devoid of love, and it once was not—at least not on anywhere near such a scale.

I just saw the movie ’Idiocracy’, which captures the coarseness of the contemporary life with such accuracy that it is depressing rather than funny. Of course this logo is brilliant compared to most in the same vein. But it is still cut from the same cloth.

I think it’s sad that instead of respecting sex as a private expression of love, it is thrown in our faces on logos to sell us stuff.

Interesting — I saw the mug as a great piece of art, not as something rather tawdry. Sigmund would find it compelling that you seem to see “sex, sex, sex” everywhere, Bill.

What’s really odd is that I was drawn to the site originally to check out a book entitled
BILL BERKSON’S
SUDDEN ADDRESS: SELECTED LECTURES 1981-2006....

>you seem to see “sex, sex, sex” everywhere, Bill.

I don’t think I’m more sex obsessed than the average guy—which is to say, normal insanity :)

What the designer wants me to do is to puzzle out the graphic so instead of seeing a letter A and two circles I see a couple engaged in sex. The hidden/blatant thing is its cleverness.

Don’t tell me you posted it without seeing it? That would be delightful :) The web site spells it out for you, just in case.

The ’other Bill Berkson’ is I believe a distant cousin, though I haven’t met him.

Don’t tell me you posted it without seeing it? That would be delightful :) The web site spells it out for you, just in case.

Um, well, I saw the title of the page and the colour, and that was about it. That’ll teach me to spend my morning squiting at html and css, and my afternoon working on a very delicate piece of art. When you can’t focus more than 6” in front of your face, looking at anything else other than recognizable letters is, at best, problematic.

The ‘other Bill Berkson’ is I believe a distant cousin, though I haven’t met him.

A likely story.... ;-)

I’m afraid I didn’t see it until I saw it in the wikipedia link, I was thinking of a thread that Nick Shinn started about the position of umlauts. Agree about the sales gimmick thing, fortunately their style is not totally obsessed by sex
http://www.astyle.it//A-Style//Motomondiale//Foto%20Assen//Girls//003.ht...

honestly, why do they only sponsor the Assen round of MotoGP?

Tim

I saw this earlier today and I thought, “What’s the big deal”- just a capital A and a diaeresis tilted off to the side in a not so special slab. But now I ’get it’ and its not cool. I agree with William. Sex is tossed around too much as a trivial thing- it should be treated tenderly and sacredly.

Mike Diaz :-/

>Um, well...

That explains it; bless you, my child :)

I guess this is harder to see than I thought. That makes it even more clever, as people will learn more by a whisper campaign, than by seeing it at first. However, once seen the coarseness is there.

I guess because of the title ’letters have feelings too’ I knew there must be more than meets the eye at first, so I puzzled over it and after half a minute I saw it. Maybe drawing type all day also helps me see stuff—I hope so!

>a likely story

Because the other Bill Berkson, the poet, is a little older and published first, I’ve always used ’William’ as an author.

I puzzled as well, maybe it’s the curved image.
I don’t think it’s my innocence ):)

Tim

i think you’re both right.

advertising etc. is so full of sleazy jokes, that it’s just enervating and stale, and i, for one, neither want to be annoyed nor bored by sex. it should always be something special.

but…
i still think this is funny, i can’t help myself. admittedly it’s dubious as a logo. which of course makes it a bad logo. hmm… now i’m confused…

Took me a while and only after reading the whole thread could I make the two dots turn into little decapitated heads.... sure it’s not my innocence, either. ;)

K.

I saw it right away - hmmm what does that say about me?

It means you don’t have to deal with bifocals like us old farts.... ;-)

Disappointing. No civilized coffee drinker should use this cup. Not because of the image, but because of its shape: the proportions are wrong, and the edge not well defined.

This is more like it:
http://www.e-ad.it/express/immagini-express/Tazzina-espresso.jpg
http://www.coffee-tea-toast.co.uk/images/carml_tea.jpg

Googling, I found this story of the A style logo. The interesting bit:

“At this time [from 1991!] there was no income as A-style was just a Logo, nothing more. Some T-Shirts were printed and sold in a friend’s shop in the centre of Milan. Two years ago Marco was presented to Massimo, a real gentleman that worked in the clothing business, who saw the real potential of this Logo in the “Streetwear” clothing market. There are now 2 factories that make only A-Style products. Marketing is still done in exactly the same way, Gorilla, Abusive, or call it what you like but very effective and a HUGE success.”

So it’s sort of like FCUK. Come up with an idea that appeals to 14-year-olds and watch the money roll in.

Linda,
I have trifocals and I saw it right away—I am an old dog too :-)

ChrisL