Todd, thanks for your thought-out response. This is the beauty of responses in Medium — when someone takes the time to think (and write) deeply in response to an idea — not just to say, “Good article!”. [Tag, Ev Williams].

I appreciate your approachable tone and open-mindedness. Bravo.

Do you struggle with over-analyzing? Because I think you are taking what Paul Rand said too literally. The test I created is highly relative and interpretive; your rating scale of 1 to 10 is very different from mine; your definition of simple and timeless are very different from mine.

It’s meant to provide an objective decision-making protocol to an otherwise subjective process (logo design).

As far as a scientific answer, I encourage you to dig into the effect color, shapes, and images have on the human brain. I think you’ll be surprised by how these logos (Budweiser, Nike, Apple, etc.) were not accidentally phenomenal… there is science behind their success.

Also, I do think you are misunderstanding simplicity. Simple is not the absence of complex. Simplicity is plumbing the depths of complexity and reducing it to its core elements. Simplicity is the depiction of complexity in an emotive, easily, and instantly digestible form. That is a logo’s purpose.