Pulled From My Files #52: THE VISION LOGO

This and all images © Marvel.

In 1994 I was asked by Marvel editor Ralph Macchio to design a logo for a Vision miniseries. I submitted three marker sketches, but only two of them remain in my files. At the time Marvel had been stretching out some of my logos vertically, so I decided to design this one already very tall, with the V and N intended to run off the top edge. There are some notes on this sketch (hard to read in this scan) about curving the S more, and opening up space between I, O and N as well as the space inside the O. These were probably notes from Ralph.

Here’s the other surviving sketch, also tall, and this time with one-point perspective telescoping to add depth. My note says that if they chose this design I would open up space between the letters a bit.

Version 1 was what they chose, and this is a photocopy of the final logo I sent in. The changes from my notes were made, and I evened out and opened up the THE. Otherwise this is pretty close to the sketch.

Of course, wouldn’t you know,  the cover art didn’t work well with the tall logo, forcing Marvel to make it pretty small on the covers. None of the four mini-series covers showcase the logo very well, this is about the best to my eye. So my plan didn’t work out, but at least they used the logo without any distortion, as happened with some others at the time.