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Oxford University Press’s new logo is unfathomably bad

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Re: Oxford University Press’s new logo is unfathomably bad

#201

Post by chrstphrknwtn »

blackhaz wrote: post #187
etempleton wrote: post #174

I feel like we are going to look back at logos from this time period and wonder what was going on and why everyone ceased to enjoy nice things. I understand why graphic design has taken this direction. Everything needs to be able to scale to the tiniest little profile icon on websites, but it doesn’t make it much better. I also think a lot more graphic designers these days lack a more traditional art background and s…

Add Royal Astronomical Society logo redesign to the collection: https://www.creativebloq.com/news/royal-astronomical-society... Because every damn hipster with a custom mechanical keyboard who can install Photoshop on his Mac is now suddenly a Designer. This is beyond appalling. These people must be beaten very hard with metal poles.

The Royal Astronomical Society seems like a pretty good example of the opposite.

The old logo was, well old, very forgettable and not particularly well constructed in the first place.

The new logo presents the society as a modern scientific institution, and the logo itself is executed well. And the animation actually works, a rare example where logo animation is not gratuitous.

Re: Oxford University Press’s new logo is unfathomably bad

#203

Post by tsimionescu »

blackhaz wrote: post #187
etempleton wrote: post #174

I feel like we are going to look back at logos from this time period and wonder what was going on and why everyone ceased to enjoy nice things. I understand why graphic design has taken this direction. Everything needs to be able to scale to the tiniest little profile icon on websites, but it doesn’t make it much better. I also think a lot more graphic designers these days lack a more traditional art background and s…

Add Royal Astronomical Society logo redesign to the collection: https://www.creativebloq.com/news/royal-astronomical-society... Because every damn hipster with a custom mechanical keyboard who can install Photoshop on his Mac is now suddenly a Designer. This is beyond appalling. These people must be beaten very hard with metal poles.

That RAS logo is beautiful, stylish, intricate, and quite recognizable - especially with its clever use of telescopes as rays and of the empty spaces to remind one of celestial bodies. I have no idea why you think it's comparable to the simplistic unintelligible symbolism of the new OUP one.

Re: Oxford University Press’s new logo is unfathomably bad

#204

Post by bmacho »

tablespoon wrote: post #180
bmacho wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not worse then the TFA. IMO the other side of the arguing is easier: instead of the merits of the new logo, we can agree that the old logo is just not compatible with something that is modern or inclusive, and it had to go.

> we can agree that the old logo is just not compatible with something that is modern or inclusive, and it had to go. No we can't agree on that. What you say is nonsense.

Yes, it is nonsense indeed.

What about: if they want to signal modernness and inclusiveness (regardless whether they actually want to be modern and inclusive) they had to get rid of the logo?

Re: Oxford University Press’s new logo is unfathomably bad

#205

Post by munificent »

pacaro wrote: post #140
collegeburner wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask anyone outside of Britain what "The Met" is and you'll hear about the museum. I don't think one very small country should be the primary blocker to their branding decisions.

Curious as to what your definition of very small is. The UK is above median land area for a country, #21 for population, #6 for gdp, it's principal island is the 9th largest. I mean, yes, the UK is not the same scale as the USA, China, India etc, but I'd put to you that it is not so very small

England has about 2% of the area of the US, so from a US perspective, it's quite small.

Re: Oxford University Press’s new logo is unfathomably bad

#206

Post by deltarholamda »

blackhaz wrote: post #187
etempleton wrote: post #174

I feel like we are going to look back at logos from this time period and wonder what was going on and why everyone ceased to enjoy nice things. I understand why graphic design has taken this direction. Everything needs to be able to scale to the tiniest little profile icon on websites, but it doesn’t make it much better. I also think a lot more graphic designers these days lack a more traditional art background and s…

Add Royal Astronomical Society logo redesign to the collection: https://www.creativebloq.com/news/royal-astronomical-society... Because every damn hipster with a custom mechanical keyboard who can install Photoshop on his Mac is now suddenly a Designer. This is beyond appalling. These people must be beaten very hard with metal poles.

Ahem, we don't "beat" our designers with metal poles anymore due to climate change.

We only use artisanal free-range wooden spatulas to deliver "corrective encouragement" in a carbon-free manner.

Re: Oxford University Press’s new logo is unfathomably bad

#207

Post by giantrobot »

Someone wrote: post #137
virtualritz wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually a logo/rebrand change keeps the name. So no real suprise. That said, SGI had an iconic logo of a cube formed from a single periodic pipe before. I was using SGIs daily at the time and I almost cried when they did the rebrand. The rebrand replaced it with a contemporary (at the time, mind you) typography logo that would look outdated if the compamy still existed. To their credit, the rebrand did include a type…

> That said, SGI had an iconic logo of a cube formed from a single periodic pipe before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Graphics#/media/File%3... Rebranded in 1999, according to Wikipedia. I would think the old logo looked really bad on the web at the time, with monitors being 640 × 480 at 256 colors, if you were lucky. It also would have been expensive to reproduce well on letterhead, and I wouldn’t dare thin…

> Rebranded in 1999, according to Wikipedia. I would think the old logo looked really bad on the web at the time, with monitors being 640 × 480 at 256 colors, if you were lucky.

Now this is just silly. By 1999 most web users had at least True Color displays at SVGA if not XGA. While VGA resolutions with 256 colors were a design consideration those users were not the norm.

With that said, the old SGI looked just fine even at 256 colors. The shape was distinctive and it was all grayscale so 256 color palettes had all the colors needed for the logo with little noticeable dithering. There were even good 1-bit versions that were very distinctive.

Re: Oxford University Press’s new logo is unfathomably bad

#208

Post by jfengel »

tfsh wrote: post #91

I profoundly dislike the new logo as it erodes an ever diminishing bygone-era of graphic design. Traditional cyphers, monograms and other iconography are time-bound to the pre-20th century (n Not everything needs to be redesigned, not everything needs a modern sans-serif font. Oxford University is the worlds foremost academic institute; founded in 1096; the Press founded in 1586! The previous logo represented this an…

Minimalism is also a tradition in logos. A logo needs to serve many purposes, one of which is being recognizable even under poor visibility. Many national flags are the height of minimal design, because one key goal for them was to be seen in battle so you knew where your side was.

Modern technology has different reasons for a similar purpose. Resolution may be poor because of your screen or network rather than battle smoke, but the idea is similar.

The OUP logo isn't a battle flag, and could afford more detail than this logo. But OUP is a living entity. Its history is important, but so are its ongoing contributions. They don't want people looking at their books and thinking, "This logo is very old-fashioned; maybe the book is also out of date."

Were it me, I'd have at least hinted at its prior logo. To me, the problem with the new one isn't its minimalism, but its lack of personality. You don't need a lot to have personality; the Twitter logo is very much theirs. Even the Facebook "f" logo, dull as it is, at least has a letter linking to them. (A circle isn't an O; it might even have worked better if it were an O with the same theme.)

Re: Oxford University Press’s new logo is unfathomably bad

#209

Post by systemicdanna »

austinthetaco wrote: post #185
systemicdanna wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perceived loss of individuality is frequently just an outcome of a design epoch change. Most logos that we thought were unique and had lots of individuality came from an era when that particular graphic design style was en vogue. Then later the logos were updated to better follow new trends (a vary fair desire for a business). Yes, Art Nouveau logos were pretty but the vast majority of logos in that era were designed…

You seem to be discussing individuality in style choice, while totally ignoring capacity for individuality within the style that is en vogue. Brutalist/minimalist logos with modern san serif fonts don't leave much room to explore for individuality. Meanwhile art nouveau or 80s sci-fi for example had a LOT of overhead for flexing individuality.

I agree with this argument to a degree. However, we are not comparing coats of arms, or Art Nouveau logos. We are clinging to this particular coat of arms, saying that it has much more individuality than the updated logo. Of course it does: the level of detail is different, it feels old and pompous. It has crowns. Three of them. It has Latin words. In all caps. Lots of character. Though probably looked completely generic when it was introduced in the 16-th century.

We overestimate the individuality and even the capacity for individuality of old things. Yes, anyone could add different squiggles and different Latin words -- but I doubt this is what you mean by "capacity for individuality within the style".

Modern logos are very minimalist, which I agree leaves less space for expressive individuality (basically by definition). But great modern logos are still possible, and they still often convey a deeper, more individual meaning.

Re: Oxford University Press’s new logo is unfathomably bad

#210

Post by tsimionescu »

pcurve wrote: post #81

As far as rebrand is concerned, this one is actually good. The new icon is clever. I think they could've kept the serif font. The new type isn't doing it for me. The Met museum logo is brilliant. I've been going to that museum for 30 years, so there was emotional attachment to the old one. I like them both.

While I don't think it's as big of a crime as this article makes it out to be (and I personally prefer the look of sans-serif fonts), I still don't see what's "clever" about the logo - it seems like a generic O with an unpleasant proportion of full vs striped portions. The striped portion can be take to look sort of like the pages of a book being flipped, but only if you know the context - otherwise the first thought would be tire marks or perhaps a keyboard.
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