Choose your favorite logos.

[vaguely-clear]

That is what you get under PS image>adjustments>black and white

If you would like it recreated in b&w to your liking, you can talk to the designer Takuya Kawagoi (http://www.zath.co.uk/sony-monolithic-design-concept-interview/).

I think what phonk meant was that a logo should be reproducible as solid black/solid white, no gradients, in order to be truly compatible in all mediums. For example, you would have a hard time screen printing the SE logo onto a mug.

The first thing that comes to mind to illustrate this would be Image > Adjustments > Threshold in Photoshop, though it would be best (and this is the point) to just do it right as a solid-shape vector. It could be done with the SE logo in question (and maybe it already has, an alternate version used for imprinted products) but then you have two slightly different-looking versions of your logo. It's much nicer to be able to reproduce a logo at the same fidelity in any medium.

 

[bluetooth]

I think what phonk meant was that a logo should be reproducible as solid black/solid white, no gradients, in order to be truly compatible in all mediums. For example, you would have a hard time screen printing the SE logo onto a mug.

The first thing that comes to mind to illustrate this would be Image > Adjustments > Threshold in Photoshop, though it would be best (and this is the point) to just do it right as a solid-shape vector. It could be done with the SE logo in question (and maybe it already has, an alternate version used for imprinted products) but then you have two slightly different-looking versions of your logo. It's much nicer to be able to reproduce a logo at the same fidelity in any medium.

Yeah, I realize that I was just having fun with him and I think he knew that.

I think the whole point though of the SE logo is that it was one of the first and some would say the pioneer of the ‘Web 2.0′ logos (which refer to new internet technologies). Therefore it's image of a shiny 3D sphere is reflective of that, separating it (at the time) from the majority of wordmarks and 1 or 2 dimensional logos. I believe its 3D effect was created to differentiate and establish it as the front runner in the (then) newer niche of communication and internet technologies.