Last night I posted up some Japanese town logos, when all of a sudden LA’s own Steven Sacks pipes up on Twitter with a goldmine of even MORE logos, stylized from Kanji characters. Once again from the mighty Pink Tentacle. I thought that original find was teeming with good stuff, then it doubles. Blown away.

You know, I think we can learn a lot from these 1-color bits of amazement. If you’ve been in the design field for any length of time you’ve probably worked on some kind of signage dealing with geography, whether it’s for your town, city or whatever. Our natural instinct is to jump right to a landmark and use that as the backbone. And hey, fair enough. I’ve done the same thing many times. But these … beautiful and timeless. Unique, yet run together as a solid set.

I can’t offer any historical background to these because I’d just be faking it. But there’s something here, something we’ve been missing for decades. Something pure. That make any sense?