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The Hidden Genius of '90s Sitcom Logos
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ส.ค. 2024
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00:00 The Nineties - Syndication turns sitcoms into cash cows
01:39 Family Matters - catchphrases and clichés
03:13 Full House - the squeaky clean family sitcom
04:37 Married with Children - the anti-sitcom
05:30 Friends aka F•R•I•E•N•D•S
07:05 Seinfeld - a show about nothing
08:22 The Nanny - surprise international hit
09:49 Sponsor - Surfshark
10:56 The Simpsons - the 1990s Golden Age
12:07 The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air - this logo slaps!
13:31 Home Improvement - a logo with some grunt
15:07 Frasier - a touch of class
16:21 TV Show branding today vs back in the day
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Would love to see video game logos getting judged !
I hope he does zak McCracken
Yes, please!!!
Battlefield, the witcher 3, fallout new vegas, cyber punk 2077, assasins creed, world in conflict, infamous, halo, GTA, Ghost of Tsushima, ninja gaiden... I know there are more but these are the best examples that I can think of video games with typography and logos that are interesting or memorable (It has nothing to do with the popularity or quality of the game or series).
@@anfrex3342 I adore the N64 Perfect Dark one.
Was just about to suggest this! Nintendo in particular has some pretty good ones to analyze
Seinfeld's logo has always been reminiscent to me of comedy club logos as well which really ties into the theme
I'm suprised Linus didnt mention that, seing how he did a video on comedy club logos.
Until now, all these years I’d missed seeing that the Seinfeld logo oval represents an oval of spotlight falling on the stage and onto Jerry Seinfeld as he performs his comedy routine! Even as the logo is overlayed on his performances at the beginning of the show!
Consider this a PSA and the first stage of therapy for my slow realization.
@@llaeeZ 7:59
Fun Fact: The Logo isn't all that changes about Seinfield intro/outro. The music does too. It's timed and produced differently for every single episode to flow with the jokes he's telling... to compliment them versus distract from them. It's incredibly clever sound design and logo design.
I really do miss the diversity in tv show locations of the 90s. It helped make tv interesting.
Whoa. I’m gonna have to rewatch it with that in mind!
Johnathan Wolff composed the music for Seinfeld, Married… with Children, Will & Grace and King of Queens, among others.
Dude gets paaaaaaid.
Yep the music was designed to have the same tempo and rhythm as speech, as Jerry Seinfeld's speech, more specifically. And so yeah every single episode the music guy recorded a new intro song, only playing the bassline in the gaps where Seinfeld pauses after a joke to let the audience laugh.
Also fun fact, it was recorded entirely on a keyboard. No bass guitar or double bass was used for the bassline, it's all just a good synth keyboard that's creating that intro song.
My favorite was the backwards episode where the music motifs were reversed
In the first season the theme song had minor lyrics too, Its is a woman saying something like " is it the beat" not sure what it is lol
You mention how key art for modern shows has almost replaced logo design, and how it's closer to youtube thumbnails than logos printed in paper TV guides. I'd love to see a video expanding on this, about the ways that TV logo design has changed, and the way that technology and media consumption has influenced these changes.
yes! i second this!
Yes please!
I definitely second this. TV logos have also gone the way of software logos with the minimalistic approach. Last year the biggest commercial TV broadcaster in Norway, TV 2, changed their distinct logo for the number 2 into a separate new one, which they meant worked better in social media than the old one.
You’ve carved such a cool niche because your videos are so good. Just crazy that I’be just watched and loved a video about 90s sitcoms’ logos’ TYPEFACES. That’s four levels of niche!
Haha, thanks Rohin, I mean it's always possible to go deeper. Perhaps a follow-up on '90s sitcom logos typeface kerning?
@@LinusBomanSomething about the Friends kerning has always bothered me! Are the N and D too far apart? It’s fairly shitty, I agree, but I think you were a bit too harsh - it is unarguably iconic. You just have to put dots between letters and people immediately know what you’re parodying
@@LinusBoman it'd be cool as hell if you did a follow up video to this one but with specifically UK sitcoms and other shows. Like you could broaden it to be not only about sitcoms, but instead could talk about soaps for example, so Coronation Street and Emmerdale and Eastenders, that sort of thing. Or maybe just stick to sitcoms, I dunno.
But I'm not like demanding this stuff lol, you should create whatever makes you happy, whatever inspires you. You say every video takes tons of work to create and I believe it, your videos are so fascinating and in depth that it's clear you put a lot of work into it, it really shows. So yeah I'm only saying that as a suggestion, I wouldn't expect you to do tons of work on a video like that unless you want to, and have stuff to say about the logos to those shows.
Whatever topic you make a video on, you manage to make it supremely fascinating, you're one of those youtubers who I just immediately click on the thumbnail to any new video by you that I see, I don't pay any attention to what the topic of the video is based on the title, cos it doesn't matter, whatever topic you make videos on, you make it incredibly interesting. So yeah, whatever you decide to make, I'll watch it regardless.
The "Family Matters" DVD font originates as "House-A-Rama Kingpin", which definitely dates to before 2012. It was in use on The Price is Right from at least February 2007, first in the pricing game More or Less, and then on the Showcase prize descriptor placards when Drew Carey took over as host later that year.
You're right, looks like Housearama Kingpin was designed in 1999, and Prankster is a knockoff, with slightly straighter edges.
Fun fact: Family Matters didn't just steal the logo from the Hogan Family, they also re-used the exact same interior sets (the kitchen and staircase are dead giveaways). They were also used on another 90s sitcom, "Step by Step."
I hadn't thought of that! Now I gotta go rewatch stuff.. Amazing the things I've forgotten over the years lol
The Friends logo is pretty iconic. But I can see the point that it got that way because the show legitimized it to an extent by being such an icon, in a similar way to many old sports logos or certain flags.
I think the Friends logo deserves a little more credit. If anything, a minimal logo would have gone against the motivations of the show. It looks handwritten, (whether or not it actually is,) representing the casual and pseudo-spontaneous nature of the stories, 😂 and colored dots are interspersed, echoing the set design and "togetherness" the show was trying to push for.
I agree. For me, it is the best and deserves 20/20.
@@liquidgeorge it's not quite as distinctive as Seinfeld or Fresh Prince, but the storytelling and appeal are there in spades.
Frazier was the one that really surprised me though. I wouldn't have given it more than 14. Top marks for execution, but the storytelling and distinctiveness are just a little above "meh" imo.
togetherness by pushing the letters away from each other?
@@CritLoren yep
It's also one of the logos more closely associated with the show itself, one of the few whose recognizability matches the recognizability of the show. You could write anything in the Friends font and even people who don't watch it will probably recognize it. I don't think the same can be said for most of the others.
I'd love to see a video like this on the various Doctor Who logos.
Yay ! Doctor who fandom !
omg yes, especially now that they've changed it up with the new one
The logo was the only change I liked when Moffat took over!! This is a great idea but very niche haha
How about Scooby-Doo? Like, we can recognize how the musical styles of the theme songs changed to fit the times; it'd be neat to see a similar analysis of the logos.
You mean the old one. It's the same logo that was used from 1974-1980 @@superevilvillain
Cool info about the logos! I'd offer a small correction: at the beginning, you say that syndication was an innovation of the 1990s, but in fact US television had relied on syndication for decades prior, and the practice had its beginnings as far back as radio. The production company Ziv worked in radio and then pioneered the practice with TV in the 1950s and beyond. I think that's pretty neat!
Yup, and syndication was key to making Star Trek the phenomenon it became.
@@awmperryThat's exactly the example that came to my mind when Linus was talking about syndication, and I came here to see if anyone had mentioned it in the two months prior to my watching the video. Of course they did!
Brb, gotta go find and watch every international version of the Nanny.
There''s plenty of options if you want to tackle UK tv sitcoms: everything from Only Fools & Horses (with the distincitve box logo and high brow low class font type), to Dad's Army (obviously leaning heavily into war time typefaces and symbolism) -- the scope and range is ripe for picking, especially from the 70s to the 90s, that's when we were at our peak
YES! Red dwarf, Gimme Gimme Gimme, Bottom, I'm Alan Partridge, Father Ted!
As well as Blake's 7, Blackadder, Fawlty Towers and of course Doctor Who!
I think an analysis of the various fonts of Star Trek (series and film) and even some of the more in series fonts like for starship lettering and signage might be an interersting topic to discuss.
And how the LCARS font could be improved while retaining the overall look.
Was always impressed by the Home Improvement opening sequence and logo lay out, however never watched the show.
I did subconsciously jump up and down with the opening title card on Frasier. Simplicity, iconic, the various colours and little Easter eggs . PURE BRILLIANCE, UP & DOWN!!!
Wonderful video.
the friends logo has to be one of the most 90s damn things ever. the overproduced 'handwritten' font just screams late 90s. It feels like everything had that kind of grunge edge to it. I never watched friends- I was a bit young for it- but I do recall the obsession with the graffiti tag type logos and album art and what not, that's for sure
In this age one cannot be too young for any piece of culture, it's all at your fingertips.
Now I need a "every popular American tv show tier list based on their logo" live
I'd like to see the various Star Trek logos discussed and analyzed. More than 50 yrs of logo design
Good to see Fleabag pop up at the close. I watch almost no TV but I searched out that series and it really was fantastic - a real groundbreaker in style and eccentricity!
I recently saw a coffee mug that had the Seattle skyline on it in a style very similar to the Frasier logo. I instantly began humming the theme song and next thing I know, I started watching Frasier from season 1 for the first time in many years. That logo is so good yet so overlooked. Also, the show itself really holds up!
Breaking Bad has a very iconic logo of course but it's fairly old now, although it also spawned Better Call Saul's logo which carried on longer.
By far the best Linus on TH-cam, only watched 1:51 of the video but these are like cathartic typographic therapy for me
Friends would be an A for me. Iconic and simple. There's no confusing it for anything else. Thanks for making a video about a design element in society nobody talks about much.
Marie Kondo isn't minimalist. Her philosophy is just about getting rid of things that don't serve you, throwing out things that you don't need, and learning to trust your gut and surround yourself with things you love. As long as everything in the apartment is organized according to function, and each object and color brings you joy when you see it, you can be as wacky with design as you want. I think she'd actually quite like these apartments, tbh. They spark a lot of joy in people.
That's exactly what minimalism is... essentially removing anything that doesn't provide joy or direct purpose. It doesn't mean sterile. There are also differing levels of minimalism... but it all goes back to "nothing more than is needed."
@13:18 - I suspect the choice in typeface for all the 90's era TV shows, including Fresh Prince would've been the limtations of the media. These shows were made to be broadcast on screens at 720x480 pixels from the other side of the living room - so simplyfying the design elements got the stylistic point across while being easily legible
I would love you to review the logos used through the years for record labels and how they changed over time! Love your videos! Ive been in printing my whole adult life and love typography and logo design!
Capitol records, rca, Columbia, emi, epic, a&m, Electra, Geffen, Atlantic, mercury, to name a few, lol, all changed a lot from the 50s to 60s 70s and 80s.
One of the fonts in the same family as The Nanny logo is called Ad Lib, which I had a hell of a time finding when I needed to make a parody of the closing titles for Night Gallery for a video I made for a party.
I could watch a whole ongoing series of these logo reviews.
Another winner of a video. Love this format, and couldn't agree more with your top choice!
Cheers Ben, glad to hear it!
I always said Frasier was bar none the best sitcom of the 90s and didn't think twice about the logo. It's understated, classy, but has a slight playfulness with its little animations
Brownie Points for The Pope's Exorcist using the same Florentine type face and the cabal of Frasier/Exorcist jokes that came out of it.
Great video!
One that I thoroughly expected to show up but didn't was Martin - I think that logo is one of the best.
Awesome video, uploaded at the perfect time for me to watch while I ate lunch! Thanks for the standard of quality and entertainment you bring to your channel.
I was hoping for this too! Although Linus grew up in Australia and Martin oddly didn’t really make waves over there
@@RoamingHeathen great point! I got lost in the wave of nostalgia and forgot not everything is shared nostalgia 😂
As per the criteria, it didn't have more than 5 seasons.
I think that oval in the seinfeld logo represents spotlight
So pleased to see what's probably my favorite '90s sitcom make the top of the list. I always loved that logo! Such a fun video--great as always. I'd love to see more like this.
I think The Good Place logo with the green background is actually super iconic. The fonts used and the bright optimistic green capture the surreal aspect of the show.
Also The Umbrella Academy has a pretty iconic logo imo.
Umbrella Academy isn’t really a sitcom though
Revisited Home Improvement recently and the transition graphics are hilarious and trippy.
Honestly, you could do an entire episode on Doctor Who logos.
I would love to see you do this with some British shows! In your opening question the first show I thought of was Doctor Who (I think its newest logo is the show's most distinctive). Some other BBC shows such as Red Dwarf, Blake's 7 and even Good Omens have some really distinctive and original logos as well.
It's always a great day when you upload! Thanks for bringing a wonderful analysis and insight into the world of design onto TH-cam. Not enough channels about this wonderful world.
I'm gonna give you a weird but heartfelt compliment: Your videos are exactly what they should be like. 😂 I think you nail EXACTLY what these videos about fonts and typefaces should look, sound and feel like! Good job! Great execution :)
ah, so today i learn what Dom Casual was called, that was everywhere on british sitcoms in the same sort of era
Dom Casual sounds like a type of outfit for dominatrixes
You know, it’s always bugged me when the thumbnails on streaming use a slightly different font to the actual title card, so thanks for the reminder that it also bugged me in print when I was just a wee babby lassie hahah. But also a reminder to consciously lighten-up a bit about it!
So happy to see Home Improvement's score! I love that show, it has super strong nostalgic feelings for me _and_ the opening sequence really is fantastic. Great video, Linus!
Excellent topic! You make graphic design education so entertaining!
Also just wanted to say you do a great job at the impossible task of taking off the nostalgia glasses to evaluate these logos objectively
I would love to see you do this for non-US shows!
I love the list. My only quibble is that the Home Improvement opening sequence being the only one the brings a smile to your face. The Home Improvement opening is definitely clever and charming, but the Nanny opening is the one with the most joy. I had to rewatch the last part of the video because I started thinking about the opening and singing the theme song.
You are a class act on a perfectly tailored youtube video, your editing skills, pace, soundtrack, quite frankly, better than any tv I have seen. And I wouldn't say I'm crazy about design!
That Home Improvement logo is just 👌🏽✨✨✨
Seeing as a lot of fashion is going back to the early 2000's, that would be an interesting period to look at
Hi Linus, loved the video. How about a similar critique of British TV logos of the 1980s.
Can't believe you had to state "inclusion doesn't equal endorsement". Great video as always.
Thanks mate. It's more for future-proofing - I can't predict what future scandals could potentially re-contextualise praising a certain show, e.g. the Cosby Show.
Would love to see you do one of these for British TV shows.
This video was great! I could see this format being an excellent mainstay in the channel. I really liked that you included extra details about the shows & the tidbit about the Nanny logo being ported to other alphabets!!
You're the sort of channel that I often accidentally 'unlike' because I'll like the video early on and then at the end I always hit like again (I always remember to relike though). Keep up the great work :)
A fun one would be reviewing TH-cam channel logos!
I mean idk i think the friends logo deserves more credit. There's a reason you picked that one for your thumbnail art, those dots just make it instantly recognizable and iconic
I’d like to see a breakdown of logos used in science fiction.
Good suggestion!
I always liked that the star trek federation/starfleet logo looks very similar to NASA's logo, it's got that same sort of triangle shape, although NASA's one is at an angle whereas starfleet's one points upward. I don't know if that was intentional, to make a logo based on NASA's one, but it makes sense that NASA would eventually turn into Starfleet.
And now the US has created a whole new branch of the military called the Space Force, their logo looks even closer to Starfleet's logo than NASA's one did. So it must have been at least in part inspired by star trek.
I always loved Fraiser and the intro is so fantastic
0:08 that would require me to have watched a show from the last 5 years.
Just to make a distinction for any kids watching who don't know otherwise, syndication didn't start in the 90s, it just became a big thing for *sitcoms* in the 90s. But technically that goes all the way back to I Love Lucy.
To me the biggest legacy of syndication is that wonderful yet tragically brief period between '85 and '95 when tv animation was actually good, because it was worth producing expensive art at a loss and making it up later with syndication.
I kept thinking while watching the video "Man, Frasier logo better be in there somewhere". It's such a comfy design, really gets yo in the mood of the show effortlessly.
love this format! i agree with the friends ranking but not necessarily the critique of the logo. still trying to figure out if that is my nostalgia, or valid! would love to see your analysis on nickelodeon vs. cartoon network cartoon logos (rugrats, dexters lab, courage, catdog, aaah real monsters, etc.)
Great job. Background knowledge and expert insight combined with a breezy score-based ranking format results in an easy and enjoyable watch. Would love more like this
the fact that i thought about the frasier logo during the intro and then you gave it top marks. goes to show, i think. but on the other hand i didn't quite remember it correctly. i imagined the text as purple and the space needle on the left. the space needle is important though!
Great video - really interesting and as always, beautifully made. (I felt pretty certain on the number one choice and wasn’t disappointed!) As others have mentioned, a Doctor Who logo video would be great and maybe classic British sitcoms through the decades that reflect the design styles of that era - from the 1960’s to the present day. I agree that the Friends logo doesn’t warrant a top score, but I bet everyone who saw your thumbnail, immediately thought of the show.
I think one of my favorite show logos today, Good Omens, deserves an honorable mention on this list. Because even though the show came out in 2019, the logo design comes from the book cover when it was published in the '90s. A video on iconic book covers would be fun to watch too!
Bro, I'd listen to you talk about any logos at any time. Please, keep making things like this. Can you dissect some fast food logos if you haven't already? I would also like to see you dissect some graphic design that companies like Adobe, Autodesk and Celsys use, as well, because frankly I've seen Adobe's graphic design run the gamut of near perfection to "How is this box so bad? You're Adobe, how is this so bad?"
I adore the visual style and constant tidbits of info as you explain the score! As someone with autism, the amount of information and the stylistic theme connecting it all makes it so much easier to digest while keeping me interested in watching. Keep up the great work, Linus!!
When you said to think of logos of programmes from the past 5 years vs logos from the 90s, I was able to think of more modern ones. I think just because I’m not familiar with most of the programmes you talked through here. I wasn’t alive when most were aired, and I haven’t watched any of their reruns either.
The Nickelodeon title logos that come to mind for me are _definitely_ iCarly and SpongeBob, shows that caught my attention back when I was the target age of the show. For some reason, all of Butch Hartman's shows never really piqued my attention like those two did.
This is a great video. If I could make a suggestion for a sequel, you should definitely take a look at 2000s sitcom logos. They’re pretty great, too. I already know which ten to choose.
-The Office
-It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia
-Community
-The Big Bang Theory
-Arrested Development
-Modern Family
-Parks and Recreation
-How I Met Your Mother
-30 Rock
-Bob’s Burgers
My first thought was the Doctor Who logos. It evolves and changes almost as much as the arrangement of the opening theme and show some really interesting trends in styling sci-fi
I really love the logo for Good Omens! edgy but whimsical
5:15 Imagine a show where someone smokes... in the house, yes, in the kitchen! while cooking!
Times have changed.
Great choice for the top one. My favorite shows in the 90s were Frasier and XFiles.
Quick note: Syndication was a thing at least since the 60s. Shows like Dragnet and Bonanza even had different titles (Badge 714 and Ponderosa respectively) to keep people from being confused as to whether or not the show was new or a rerun on a different channel.
The bookman version of family matters is still more iconic.
Someone recently told me that Seinfeld even had different bass licks over their intros as well. They really liked to keep it fresh.
I grew up watching TV in the 90s and I had never even heard of "The Nanny" before this... We watched Seinfeld and the Simpsons (before it was tragically cancelled in 2001) and X-Files, etc.
Nice video, thanks! I missed the logo from "Parker Lewis Can't Loose"... too 90ish design!
I enjoyed this one a lot. Would love to see one for cartoons
I do actually think the Friends logo is very distinctive. You could type any word in any context in that style and instantly think of Friends. I couldn’t say the same about most of these other logos.
I think this would make an interesting series of videos, covering different decades and other types of shows (drama, cartoons, game shows, etc.).
I'm not sure where you got the idea that syndication became a thing in the '90s. Syndication has been around since at _least_ the '70s, probably earlier.
True - Star Trek was famously in constant reruns because of syndication. I should have been clearer that the 1990s was the peak of the business model (not the start of it) before fragmentation of the TV industry in the 2000s.
I just knew that Frasier was going to be on this list! I'm happy to see it's number 1. Such an excellent opening design.
I definitely disagree with your assessment of the FRIENDS logo. I was never a fan of the show, but I think the logo perfectly encapsulates the playful "normalness" the show intends to convey. You mentioned it was a logo that could be scribbled on a napkin without realizing that THAT IS PERFECT FOR A SHOW ABOUT YOUNG ADULTS IN THE 90S! It's simple, it's colorful, it's characteristic, and most importantly it's iconic and memorable. For something that you say is "unintentional" it sure was successful.
FUN FACT: curiously enough, the word "adaptation" was misspelled every single time it appeared in this video, most of the time as "adaption" but also as "adapatation".
it's an adaptation of the word.
Honestly pretty good ranking, even if i dont disagree 100% but yeah I never really thought about how brilliant some of these were especially Frasier.
The Married With Children logo deserves to be higher on this list. It's one of the best. Especially with the slime effect.
Really pissed that you used the good place logo as an example of a vague modern logo, since it was designed to represent the absolute feel-good blandness of a place designed to make you feel like you are in heaven (really difficult to explain this without making it a spoiler haha) it works with the intro, a nice feel good chime, as well as everything else in the series
This is a very interesting video. It's not every day that I get videos like this in TH-cam recommendations. Thank you.
You should watch his other videos, he makes them all so fascinating. I never knew I'd be interested in graphic design and typography until I found his channel. I recommend watching his video on Olympics logos over time, that's a really good video of his. Or the one where he reviews the different business cards from that scene in American Psycho, that's a really good and funny video.
@@duffman18 Okay, I'll take a look when I have time. It was interesting to watch the detailed analysis of the logos. I myself sometimes look for exactly what font the logo is written in. There is a product or a channel logo, but they have exactly the same font. I did not know that there is a whole channel with a professional approach to font analysis.
How is nobody talking about your incredible voice and great personality?!
7:39 I always loved the version of the seinfeld logo with the planet and stars
Something about the way Linus said “Futurama” suggested maybe a fan? If so, may I beseech LB for a video on the typography in the show (like the alien codes) & how the show iterated on various design tropes to move them into a future setting (or locate scenes in flashbacks) by marrying them to either equally trope-y or wholly novel sci-fi-isms? That’s one of the standout series for telling so many stories thru design elements in the world.
(Hypnotoad hypno-ed for somebody’s sins but not mine lol)🐸🍭
Please do 70s and 80s shows as well!
This was very interesting! I'd love to see you do this for other decades/countries!
All these years I’d missed seeing that the Seinfeld logo oval represents an oval of spotlight falling on the stage and onto Jerry Seinfeld as he performs his comedy routine! Even as the logo is overlayed on his performances at the beginning of the show!
Consider this a PSA and the first stage of therapy for my slow realization.
13:20 - I bet they WERE a graffiti artist, but the studio saw their original and said "audiences will not be able to read that" so they begrudgingly made a more legible version, and it hurt them to do so. They were like "why even hire an artist then??" and they were like "so we can tell you what to do" I've heard a million versions of this story.
Wow I just warched a few of these and just assumed this channel had about a million subs! This is great 👏👏👏 Its one of those channels that I enjoy even though its nothing to do with my job, hobbies or interests but its still very enjoyable.
Syndication was not a new business model in the 1990s, it has been a part of TV since the 1950s.
How about an overview of the Memphis design that absolutely epitomises the 80s and 90s.
'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend' had a pretty memorable logo. Also the 'What if...?' series.
Why Linus doesn't have 1.3M subscribers is one of life's greatest mysteries.