top-mouton logo, designed by Herman Muller, circa 1969-1970?
As far as I know, this is the only other logo my dad designed, apart from his own logo before he became a self-employed interior designer. Back then he worked at top-mouton, a interior design studio in Belgium in the late 60s and early 70s.
During his employment there, he designed the company logo, which has been in use ever since. I remember he had a pin badge of the logomark and I always wondered what it meant (aside from being intrigued by the shape).
The orange shapes obviously point upwards, playing on the “top” of top-mouton, and the forward-thinking attitude of the company. Its as simple as that.
French speaking readers will obviously know that “mouton” means sheep. I have no idea what the relevance in the naming of the company is, only that their headquarters is in the very rural countryside of Flanders (the region of Belgium where I’m from)…
One thing that struck me is that I can’t place the typeface used in the logo. Obviously Arial is used in the current incarnation, but obviously Arial wasn’t around when the logo was designed. It might’ve been Helvetica or even Universe…
My bet is on the former.
November 22nd, 2007
‘fraid not brother. It’s universe. Look at the top of the t for comparison. Beautiful work too.
November 22nd, 2007
Yeah I know Univers is a much closer match. I’m just basing my conclusion on the fact that my dad used Helvetica in everthing he did… so it makes sense to think he used that as well for the logo originally.
December 15th, 2007
hello, if there is an intrest in the evolution of this logo, I might give some extra information. The logo was designed in a first place with different colors, purple for starters, over the years it has proportionnally evolved and typographically. This last version was done 7 years ago by Basedesign. The reason of the 2 triangles making one shape, is due to the name, “top”, and to the fact that my grandfather and grandmother made one, being on one side mr. top and mrs Mouton, they worked in a harmony, trying to reachthe best. It was also developed as a perspective for the never ending road. We still have the full archive of the history of this logo.