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New Logo and Identity for Library of Congress

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Re: New Logo and Identity for Library of Congress

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely prefer the old logo. The new one is extremely generic and does not convey any feeling via the logo.

My biggest problem with the new logo is that they're effectively un-branding the Library of Congress by trying to brand it as LIBRARY. That's like trying to rebrand the White House as HOUSE.

....and now I just had a horrifying thought.

This is another symptom of Idiocracy becoming a documentary?

Re: New Logo and Identity for Library of Congress

#22
interesting tidbit from the comments there; this design firm, Pentagram, also did the recent redesign for EFF: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/07/effs-new-logo-member-s...

Looks very similar, and while I strongly dislike the Library of Congress redesign, it almost works for EFF.

Re: New Logo and Identity for Library of Congress

#23

My initial reaction was shock and disgust. My reaction after mulling it over for awhile and reviewing some of the material is.... contempt and disgust. So there's that.

I definitely prefer the old logo. The new one is extremely generic and does not convey any feeling via the logo.

I always felt the old logo looked too postal. Like it was a franked stamp.

The new one is also not great. But I guess the directive was to maximize "library" and minimize associations with "congress."

Re: New Logo and Identity for Library of Congress

#24
post #11
post #5

My gut reaction is that this new logo is strictly worse than the old one. This is my first time seeing either of the logos. Can someone with a graphic arts background explain why the LoC is so attracted to this new design (after only 8 years with the previous one)?

Heh. Rebrandings are often more valuable for the fact of rebranding (press hit for LoC!) than any aesthetic reason. It's rare to find an administrator with any graphic sense. The current librarian (confirmed in 2016) is a bit of a new broom, and is the first to serve under a term-limit. Previous librarians served for life, and the last one refused to understand computers.

Carla Hayden is the first Librarian of Congress to be an actual professional librarian in decades.

Re: New Logo and Identity for Library of Congress

#28
I don't like the logo, but let's take into account that this is supposed to be a identity system and they are designing a logo that is extremely flexible in service of such system.

The identity in this case will not come just from the logo or the colors or a rigid manual that says what pantone codes to use and how many `x` should be around the logo (where x is the dot of the i or whatever) which everybody will ignore anyway. This identity seems to be designed to be misuse-proof.

We're used to the logo being the centerpiece of an identity system but this "flexible identity" trend has the order of priorities backwards.

Re: New Logo and Identity for Library of Congress

#30

I don't like the logo, but let's take into account that this is supposed to be a identity system and they are designing a logo that is extremely flexible in service of such system. The identity in this case will not come just from the logo or the colors or a rigid manual that says what pantone codes to use and how many `x` should be around the logo (where x is the dot of the i or whatever) which everybody will ignore…

I think that it's leading with its weakest aspect, which is the logo with nothing but LIBRARY. It's much more interesting when there is an actual goal, like identifying an event or department and then putting a little Library of Congress logo next to it.
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