Comics N Things: 70 Super Years: Action Comics/Superman Logo Study

6.09.2008

70 Super Years: Action Comics/Superman Logo Study

The official, formally-designed Ira Schnapp Superman logo made it's first cover appearance on SUPERMAN #6 (Sept/Oct 1940). Here's what letterer/designer Todd Klein has to say about it:

...Joe Shuster was, I believe, back in Ohio creating the covers for this new SUPERMAN comic, and as he did each one, he also recreated the logo, making something substantially different each time.
After they had received a few of these, his editors must have given Joe a call and suggested that they have their staff logo man, Ira Schnapp, do a version that could be photostatted and put on every cover. It would save Joe time, it was the way things were usually done, and though they might not have said so, Joe’s variable logos didn’t make the book look good.
...the Schnapp SUPERMAN logo is really quite an excellent and complex piece of design work, with attractive letterforms and subtle three-point perspective. There is one firm vanishing point which you can find by following the sides of the telescoping, and two more implied ones: one to the right following the narrowing curves of the letters, and one infinitely far off to the bottom that allows us to see the top and front of the forms at the same time. Schnapp’s handling of the shading on the S is also masterful.

That's an excerpt from Logo Study: Action Comics/Superman part 2.