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Comment by duncanawoods | Hacker News Reader

Fascinating but it doesn't seem to prove anything besides we struggle to draw complex logos from memory therefore the complex logos of Starbucks and Footlocker are at the bottom and the simpler logos of Target and Ikea at the top.

I don't think anyone will struggle to recognise the Starbucks brand despite the difficulty in drawing mermaids. In someways its quite fitting - they want you to believe their coffee is so complex that its worth >$5 and forget that you could make it at home for $0.20.

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> Fascinating but it doesn't seem to prove anything besides we struggle to draw complex logos from memory therefore the complex logos of Starbucks and Footlocker are at the bottom and the simpler logos of Target and Ikea at the top.

I'm unconvinced. Of course complex logos are harder to draw, but it doesn't explain why so many people got extremely simple logos wrong, like Adidas' or Domino's, while comparatively harder logos got better scores, like Burger King's or 7-Eleven's!

I think there's something more at play than just logo complexity.

I'd say re-production and re-cognition are two separate skills.

I recognize the Mona Lisa when I see it, but I won't be able to reproduce it.

Or, in a non-visual field, consider instantly recognizing certain voices ("Good news, everyone!" "You may remember me from such films as..." "I will find you, and I will kill you.") to the effort it takes to imitate those voices well enough for someone else to know who you're imitating.

Yeah this almost seems limited by drawing skill and effort. Like I wouldn't bother trying to put a bunch of detail into the starbucks logo because it would end up looking bad so I'd probably just draw a quick approximation and call it done.

A better methodology might be to pair a rememberer and an artist (like for forensic artist mugshots). But that would be a ton of work if you wanted to get decent sample size.

IMO, for everybody apart from a few graphic designers, it's not drawing skill that limits accuracy of the Starbucks logo: it's that we never registered its exact geometry in the first place. The ideas of Gestalt perception are frequently used in logo design, and one of them is the "binary" figure/ground relationship that the two colours of the Starbucks logo create. It's complex, and almost everyone just sees a "Gestalt" and doesn't parse the arrangement of parts. Somebody with drafting skills could easily draw it based on textual instructions, but definitely not accurately from memory without a more careful study of the logo than (almost) anyone ever undertakes.

Some sketches are hard to draw even after minutes of watching. Without remembering "there is <n> <x>'s on <y> background with <z> outline ...", not many people can draw exactly what they've seen few seconds ago. Our perception and recalling works in very fuzzy way; you can be absolutely sure that logo is what you've drawn, but this is just false memory constructed by subconscious to fill the gaps. Our minds should contain fantastic amounts of these, retained and restructured there by side-effects of the thinking process.

The Starbucks logo is a mermaid? I'd know it if I saw it but I can't recall it at all other than green and I think humanoid.

> you could make it at home for $0.20

Probably more like $0.15, since you don't need to leave the coffee on the burner for 6 hours, thus saving on energy costs.

The problem with Starbucks is not that I can make it cheaper at home. The problem is that I wouldn't want to drink that burned garbage if they paid me.

Starbucks coffee is not bad, in my opinion. The problem is the optional "fanciness" they put into it (all that disgusting caramel, syrup, cream and whatnot), and the huge amount of milk they put into their lattes and cappuccinos. Their actual coffee, which you can taste if you order it black, is good. I don't think they burn it.

I like milk in my coffee -- what we in South America call "café con leche", which is closer to half and half -- but unfortunately Starbucks doesn't offer anything like it. You can ask for extra shots of coffee but they charge extra, and their coffee is already expensive as it is.

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