In this Archive piece Chris Moorby extolls the virtues of the World Dryer Corporation's logo, a marque which is all too often overlooked, but that's nothing short of brilliant.
Those of you who take the time to wash your hands after an ‘end of pint call of nature’ may be vaguely familiar with the World Dryer Corporation logo.‘Vaguely’being the key word here, as this beautifully crafted mark is more often than not hidden behind a wall of ‘poor’ graphic design. Nearly always inconsistently used and placed on the hand dryers it adorns without much consideration, this logo seems to be a blip of genius that been entirely forgotten about.
On paper, the concept for the logo has cringeworthy assets (with all the hallmarks of a D&AD awardwinning ‘big idea’): combining the company’s initials with a visualisation of ‘heat’ and then wrapping it up in the shape of a world. However, its execution in reality is nothing short of brilliant and would sit nicely alongside the logo works of Saul Bass or Herb Lubalin. It has a wonderful elegance and illustrative quality that uses the idea of heat as a basis for creating its visual style rather than over-relying on the concept, which is where so much mark-making falls down. With an idea being the driving force behind its visual style, the logo gains a timeless quality that, despite its obvious psychedelic references which for me makes it quirky and memorable, will always be relevant.
It seems the logo belongs to a company which simply doesn’t know what it has or the equity it could build into it. The US company that owns the brand makes a good product of a high quality which is the natural choice for most pubs, clubs and service stations across the UK. For the company it appears the visual branding needs to do nothing more than distribute its own company details. But with such an iconic mark and some intelligent brand-building the company could become so much more, perhaps even infiltrating a more sophisticated home consumer market alongside the likes of Dualit.
For me this is one of many examples of how a logo needs a framework and a well-thought-out visual language to exist within, in order for it to convincingly represent its brand (and the core values it aspires to). Perhaps I’m just a person that spends far too long drying his hands, but I hate to see a moment of brilliance go to waste.
commissionstudio.com
This piece first appeared in Grafik 164, July 2008