on vtuber logos
240518
tags: design, vtubers, anime, japan
I came across a video that discusses/rants about Vtuber logo design.
There's allegedly quite a bit of a discussion on design over on X (formerly known as Twitter) about why designers hate vtuber logos (can't be bothered to verify how prevalent the discourse actually is).
As someone who likes weeb culture and design from a conceptual level, I took a passing interest in anime and vtuber branding so I did a wee bit of research into it. Just a skosh.
I think the crux of the conflict lies in a communication dysfunction.
To properly explain my reasoning, it's important to contextualize the situation:
First, let's address the design critics in this situation. This is best summarized by the first part of the above video. The people that don't like vtuber logos are staunch followers of the Western academic design. A lineage of design that include the developments of type in the Illuminated Manuscripts, the Gutenberg press, various design movements such as Art Nouveau/Jugendstil, Art Deco, and Bauhaus, as well as huge cultural shifts such as the Arts and Crafts movement and the Industrial Revolution. The culmination of all these developments led to what is currently known as the "Principles of Design".
Next, let's discuss vtuber logos. Vtubing as we know today started in Japan with influence from the anime fandom. The avatars are anime in design, contents are otaku-centric, and as such, much of the audience are otakus as well. This means that designs and brands that best caters to that audience are made by anime-adjacent designers and illustrators or at the very least, influenced by them. Let's look at some logos from anime and vtuber logos:
Chuunibyou logo, PCP (formerly known as NPC, pcpinc.jp or npcinc.net)
Gawr Gura's logo, ごごん (@gogon_illust)
The similarities are definitely there. One can argue that Gura's logo is like the Chuuni logo turned to 11.
So what's behind the conflict?
Well, in my view, it's basically a Tower of Babel situation.
Western design critics are coming at the vtuber logos (product of Eastern designers) with Western design principles. There's a sort of communication dysfunction happening because the Eastern-influenced designs don't fare well when analyzed with the Western design lens.
For example, to Western designers, adding objects into logo design is bad design and can often make the design look kitsch and gaudy, while it's not really that sacrilegious in the context of Eastern design. While the Western graphic design and typography is built on millennia of Latin script -- abstract shapes with explicit sounds tied to them, Japanese orthography is based on the Hanzi writing system. Many of these characters are pictographs, or characters that evolved from images. Adding images to a system that's based on images isn't really that strange.
Hussein, Samad. Complexity of Asian Writing Systems: A Case Study of Nafees Nast'leeq for Urdu.
Next point of contention I'd like to address: designers often compare logos to tried-and-true logos of Fortune 500 companies. The issue with comparing any logos -- not just vtuber logos -- is that context and category matter quite a bit. For example, comparing the Shell logo to the Paw Patrol logo is like comparing apples to oranges. By definition, both are logos. But categorically, one is a company logo and the other is a media franchise logo. Going further, one is an oil company and the other is a kids entertainment media franchise. They are not the same and the demographics they are catering to is different. One is for drivers on the road, so having a punchy red-and-yellow logo works great for drivers with only a millisecond worth of attention that they can divert. The Paw Patrol logo is great for kids and parents because the shield insignia and the red-blue-yellow primary colors are perfect for grabbing the kids' attention, and the logo is simple enough to be recognized by parents when they go to a toy store where bunch of logos are competing for attention.
Paw Patrol logo
Shell logo
In conclusion, with most visual related discourse, it's usually a case of communication malfunction. A mismatch of critique based on Western design principles and Eastern design sensibilities. One side was looking at design from a black/white perspective and when a magenta thing came up to be analyzed, the tool they use that can only read in black and white malfunctions. This might be a good starting point to analyze Western/Eastern design principles: their similarities and differences. It kinda reminds me of the time when there were a bit of a discourse in ergonomics/industrial design when anthropometric data found that there were some differences in the skulls for helmet designs and "lower" nose bridge for glasses when it comes to some Asian demographics. But that'll likely be a topic in a future post.