National Geographic has caught a ride to the Oscars. At least, our yellow border logo did (see it in the car door pouch above?). It makes a fleeting appearance in the Oscar-winning animated short, Logorama. 

The film is a fast-paced, 16-minute thriller set in an extreme corporate landscape where everyone and everything is a logo of some kind. MSN butterflies flutter above Malibu Rum palm trees, while bright yellow AOL figures skate along the sidewalk and a mustachioed Pringles man waits for the Stop & Shop traffic light to change.

But the characters behave in ways you'd never expect. Profane Michelin Man cops banter like Quentin Tarantino's hit men, then chase a crazed Ronald McDonald, who takes a mischievous Big Boy hostage. During the siege, an earthquake hits, sending everyone scurrying.

For the filmmakers at French production company H5, starting with a clean storyline was key. "As everything is a logo, the story had to be as simple as a logo," explains Hervé de Crécy, one of the film's directors, "Efficient. Simple. Hollywood." After the plot was set, every trip to the supermarket was also a casting call for the 2,500 brands that de Crécy estimates finally landed a role. For more inspiration, they browsed among the virtual aisles at brandsoftheworld.com

Because Los Angeles is a city of signs built on a structured grid, Hollywood became setting as well as inspiration, which also explains why this French film has English dialogue. The filmmakers generally used established U.S. brands, figuring they have a more universal appeal, but also included logos from other countries, like Japan's beef bowl restaurant Yoshinoya, Germany's Afri cola trees, and Kuwaiti oil company Q8's sailboats.

The team originally proposed the world of logos for a music video, but the concept was vetoed. So they worked on the film in secret between other video and commercial projects for the next several years. Working without permissions, they didn't want companies making ads in adjacent studios to catch a glimpse, so they blocked off their small room with a folding fabric screen.

In most cases, says de Crécy, they used the logos without authorization, but some companies in the loop actually asked to have their logos be included, such as IBM, which provided some equipment for the project. What the computer giant didn’t get was input on what happened to the logo, which ultimately collapses into itself during the earthquake. The Los Angeles Zoo told the filmmakers that they probably would have said no if asked for permission to use their logo in the onscreen zoo, but in the finished product, they actually liked the heroic way their zookeeper (played by the Green Giant) protects the animals during the disaster.

De Crécy, who has a background in graphic design, acknowledges that Logorama is part criticism and part celebration. "Of course it's a tribute to these logotypes and to the designers of all these logotypes. There are many that are absolutely beautiful," he says. But he did enjoy tweaking the familiar symbols. As the director says, assigning new personalities "was a kind of game for us."

Near the close of the film, the National Geographic yellow border makes its cameo, tucked into a pouch in the door of the getaway car Big Boy and the Esso girl use to flee the chaos. With the travel literature alongside it (Lonely Planet and a Michelin guide), the vehicle is clearly going to be a get-far-away car.

Director de Crécy says our logo was too abstract to turn into a character, but given its square shape, it was a perfect fit to depict ... what else? ... a magazine. Talk about logotypecasting! But this makes a lot of sense, since the logo is derived from the crisp window of yellow trim that frames the magazine. The border first appeared in February 1910; it was adorned with oak leaves and acorns. Over the century, the leaves were slowly dropped from the design; the last ones fell in September 2000, leaving this vivid rectangle.

So happy 100th, yellow border. And congrats on the new film career. Hope your agent gets you a starring role next time!

—Brad Scriber

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