Простите, замучила вас ссылками на длинные тексты, но они того стоят)))
Статья прекрасной Полы Шер:
The design school exercise is indeed a good way to develop craft skills, and hopefully when the student becomes a professional he/she will learn to get fast at it, and achieve that work in the course of a week as opposed to six months. And there, any similarity between real identity design and a design school exercise ends.
For example the Nike logo, which has evolved over time into its current form, became a powerful symbol to the masses because of its effective use in advertising campaigns. The “cool” of the logo happened in connection to some brilliant campaigns by Wieden & Kennedy, and the effective positioning of the mark on merchandising materials. As pure form, if the “swoosh” appeared alone in a design school critique (or on a design blog) it would most likely have been dismissed as too thin, weak, and pointy, looking like a checkmark and not really conveying motion.
http://www.identityworks.com/forum/logo-design/what-they-dont-teach-you-about-identity-design-in-design-schools/