The Sex Pistols
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FedEx

Though that's probably not the kind of multiple font use in the logo you were asking about :-)

Somewhat related, with examples:
http://www.typophile.com/node/28625

thanks for the responses. I think I may just have to push back with this client and try and get them to go with only one or two logo fonts, and explain that there are other ways to express diversity!

It's very hard to give «blanket» advice without knowing more precisely what you (or the client) have in mind. For example something like a word where every letter is from a different font can be made to work I think, it's just very hard to pull off without looking ransom-note-ish (or just plain bad).
It might be an interesting alternative to look at font systems that combine multiple stylistic variants, like FF Polymorph, or the conceptual work that Letterror did for the Twin Cities (the latter, I think, is not available as a font? But can maybe give you some ideas).

Ask them how exactly diverse typefaces relate to diverse ethnicities. I have seen ads where different languages are used to show diversity, but to try to do the same thing in a logo would be a mistake, I fear. For one thing, really good logos don't use any type, and those that do only use a few letters.

If you have so many words in a logo that you can start using that many different faces, then you really aren't building a logo, but an advertisement. And if they are thinking of using different faces in a single word ... (shudder).

I keep trying to remember this one example of an international school (?) or community center (?) in maybe France (?) whose identity is based on the idea of certain base glyphs being dynamically replaced with Latin-Extended glyphs or even ones from foreign scripts, which however read as Latin letters in context. Kinda hard to describe… Like «school» could be something like «Տch0°l». Anybody know what I'm talking about?

BTW, «really good logos don’t use any type»? That's what I'd call a contestable statement. :)

I think you mean the new Aalto University in Helsinki (and Espoo), Altaira?

http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/punctuation_universi...

http://www.aaltoyliopisto.info/en/

No – it was older than this, and the «other» glyphs were also used as alphabetic characters, i.e. were supposed to be «read»… I wish I remembered where I saw it. Because there the idea was to show diversity (through the use of other scripts and/or diacritics etc.).

Related:
http://typedia.com/blog/post/behind-the-typedia-logo-design/

I'm not a fan of this, but:

No less than Baseline magazine, before the relatively recent redesign:
http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/baseline_interrupted...

And here's something I spotted in Armenia:

hhp

@altaira: perhaps you thought on this work of ruedi baur, intégral?

@hrant, I believe that 'together' logo was the winner in an international logo-competition for celibrating 50 years of the EU.

@alaira: Undutchables?

Nora! I think you got it. Funny, I remembered the «foreign» parts to be more «integrated», but this must have been it. Thank you.

BTW, I realize this stuff isn't exactly what was originally asked for in this thread.
But I'd suggest that this might be an interesting way to express cultural diversity.

> BTW, «really good logos don’t use any type»? That’s what I’d call a contestable statement. :)

Adidas, Olympics, CBS eye, NBC peacock, etc.

When you have a logo that is identifiable without type, you have achieved the ultimate. I did not mean to imply that adding text to a logo means it is not good.

But it depends on the entity's name.
For some of them the best logo includes type.

Also note that many companies that can have a good non-type logo have been around for a long time, started out with a type-based logo, and only later managed to do without type (since they had earned so much visual mindshare).

hhp

"When you have a logo that is identifiable without type, you have achieved the ultimate."
I can see your point maybe if you measure the quality of a logo through minimizing the elements used while maximizing recognizability. As in the Nike swoosh. But (apart from the fact that, like Hrant says, it's not always workable to go without type) I wouldn't think that's the only measure of success in a logo; there are some terrific logos that use (and depend on) type. Are wordmarks inherently worse? Like Coca-Cola – is that really worse than Nike?

Coca-Cola might not be the best example, since it actually works without the text! But, like I said, it took many decades of exposure before they could pull that off.

hhp

ChrisL

Hrant, how does Coca-Cola work without the text – you mean the underline / swooshy thing?

You see that red swoosh, you think Coca-Cola. Game over.

Chris, I'm not finding agnoticism in there.

hhp

"I’m not finding agnoticism in there."

Or atheism, for that matter :-)

If there were to be a symbol for my religious beliefs, it would be a blank space since I don't subscribe to any faith. :-)

ChrisL

Maybe agnosticism just is all the white space around that.
And the further away you get, the more it tends towards atheism. :-)

Brilliant! :-)

hhp