Logo Deathmatch 4 - Non-Profit Organizations: Health and Medical

Or - When Overlong Titles Attack, next on FOX.

Despite being the 'bad' selection for this particular post, this logo -technically speaking- does a lot right. It's contained, the typography is readable, the symbol, at least, is likely to reproduce decently at small size, it creates visual interest, and the color choice evokes trust and calm, both things that definitely fall into the 'good' category for a medical-assistance organization.

The downside, however, seems pretty major. Namely, representation and understandability. Take away the text, and I defy you to find someone who could tell you what this logo was for without just making a wild guess. I can sort of see a crouching person in the circle and three outer shapes, but with the little triangular symbol in the middle mostly destroys that image, aside from actively drawing your eye in, and away from the text. This would be more at-home in some futuristic first-person-shooter, probably on the side of some kind of container leaking a glowing, viscous liquid. Which could very easily be associated with shifts in health, but not in the way the AHAF would likely want.

Like the AHAF logo, the American Heart Association relies heavily on typography, and it has most of the same strengths that the prior logo does. The text is readable, and due to its size is likely to reproduce well at small sizes. The text and image are fairly well balanced, using white-space to draw and guide the eye without trapping it on one useless point. The color speaks -not of calm and trust- but at least of life, and vitality and passion. And frankly, if you're going to have an association with hearts, you probably don't want another color unless you're trying to be ironic, goth, or talking about gay rights. The torch isn't the most representative symbol in this case, but it can be read as carrying a light, or the cause, so it works. It's also going to be readable across most cultures and languages, and the simplicity is going to give it easily recall and make it easy to learn.