Two Looks at Life

The pile of Life magazines I recently saw happened to include some issues from late in the period when the magazine was still using its long-time design and some from just after the magazine began using a new design as it went to a monthly format. And that means they redesigned the iconic logo, too:




These two versions of the logo are like one of those detail puzzles where you have to find all the differences between two visuals. Yes, they're both red rectangles with white sans serif, all-capital letters that spell LIFE, so they're generally very similar. You could even say they're almost identical in a general sense, and if you weren't looking at them side by side, you might remember them as identical.

But since I have them here for you, let's note the ways the new logo (the lower one) diverges from the old one:

• a white hairline around the red box
• much tighter spacing between the letters (much! tighter!... very 1970s)
• heavier letters overall, probably about 30% heavier
• the letters fill the red box more fully, leaving much less red space around the letters

Which one do you like better? Do they feel different to you? Does either one or both give you a feeling of design era?

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P.S. If you're wondering what that arc is that's hiding part of the E in the 1979 logo, it's the top of Marlon Brando's head. He was on the cover because of Apocalypse Now.