If they want to appear modern and inclusive, why does it look like the inside of a gun barrel from the opening sequence of a Bond film?
Oxford University Press’s new logo is unfathomably bad
271–280 of 340 posts
Re: Oxford University Press’s new logo is unfathomably bad
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It looks like a bunch of screwdrivers arranged in a circle with a random black spot for no reason. Terrible logo. As bad, if not worse, than OUPs. Beaten with metal poles is correct.
Re: Oxford University Press’s new logo is unfathomably bad
#273I am trying to to think of a single rebrand / new logo / new icon that I actually liked at the time—that didn't seem to signal a degradation in the integrity, quality or trustworthiness of the entity represented. (There are some cases where the new brand has grown on me, to the point that I have come to prefer it to the old one. The most recent examples I can think of are the 1999 rebrand of Northern Electric as Nort…
The original "Federal Express" logo wasn't bad, but FEDEX rocks it hard. Some of the old LEGO logos aren't great (this may partially be from years of consistency, however). But most of the "best rebrand" articles you find on google are just "logo in one font became similar logo in slightly different font".
> The original "Federal Express" logo wasn't bad, but FEDEX rocks it hard.
I will give you this one, but…
> Some of the old LEGO logos aren't great…
True, but in the context of my original question, I don't think it's reasonable for me to have an opinion about rebrands that occurred before I became aware of the brand, and LEGO has been using the same logo since I got set 20 in 1977.
I _do_ vaguely recall the old Federal Express slanty logo, but I must admit I don't remember the rebrand _as such_, so I'm not sure how much I can count this one. But yes: a good example of a definite win as far as rebrands go.
Re: Oxford University Press’s new logo is unfathomably bad
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no objective way to evaluate this. It’s always in relation to something else. If we take 1000 blue logos (with different gradients and letter arrangement) and compare them to this single black logo: the black logo will be _objectively_ more distinctive.
There is nothing objective in picking some specific subset of logos for comparison vs all possible logos You created a subjective measurement.
Variation does not equal distinction. You can have millions of gradients around white letters which will not be perceived by anyone as distinctive. On the other hand you can have black letters arranged in a million ways that will look distinctive. It's all a subjective selection.
There is an infinite number of ways to design a black logo. There is an infinite number of ways to design a blue logo. So which infinity has more distinctive logos?
Re: Oxford University Press’s new logo is unfathomably bad
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
The original "Federal Express" logo wasn't bad, but FEDEX rocks it hard. Some of the old LEGO logos aren't great (this may partially be from years of consistency, however). But most of the "best rebrand" articles you find on google are just "logo in one font became similar logo in slightly different font".
> The original "Federal Express" logo wasn't bad, but FEDEX rocks it hard. I will give you this one, but… > Some of the old LEGO logos aren't great… True, but in the context of my original question, I don't think it's reasonable for me to have an opinion about rebrands that occurred before I became aware of the brand, and LEGO has been using the same logo since I got set 20 in 1977. I _do_ vaguely recall the old Fede…
I suspect that some sports teams have "rebranded successfully", especially given how silly some of the 80s baseball uniforms look now.
Re: Oxford University Press’s new logo is unfathomably bad
#276I am trying to to think of a single rebrand / new logo / new icon that I actually liked at the time—that didn't seem to signal a degradation in the integrity, quality or trustworthiness of the entity represented. (There are some cases where the new brand has grown on me, to the point that I have come to prefer it to the old one. The most recent examples I can think of are the 1999 rebrand of Northern Electric as Nort…
I'm trying to think of a rebrand that I truly hated and that led to actual decline in something. I... can't. There are plenty that I confess I don't like. But I would be struggling to put any actual significance to a label. The new street fighter one, as an example. I agree that it feels off that they are ditching the styling that they have used for literal decades. That said, I fail to see how that is at all importa…
> I'm trying to think of a rebrand that I truly hated and that led to actual decline in something.
I'm not claiming that a bad rebrand spells doom for the entity (though I guess there are probably examples of that)—only that I can think of few rebrands where the new brand _made me more positively disposed towards the entity in question_.
And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one; consider this list of brand U-turns: https://www.yourprojector.com/rebranding-u-turns/
The last one is particularly hilarious, because I attended the University of Waterloo in the late 1990s when they rebranded from a crest even older than the one shown as "original". In fact, that older crest looked just like the "final" crest. I'm glad they've finally brought it back; pity it took more than a decade to rectify the error.
> Reminds me of that parody pepsi logo document. (At least, I think it was a parody?)
No, I'm pretty sure that was actually real. At least if it was a parody, even CBS fell for it: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pepsis-nonsensical-logo-redesig...
Re: Oxford University Press’s new logo is unfathomably bad
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's were we started: all logos were coats of arms. And then all logos were something else. These are design trends.
That’s not true. While there have been fads in the past that some logos adhered to, the history of insignia is overflowing with what we would today call logos that were not coats of arms.
Every epoch in the insignia design had a distinct style, right? Roman military insignia looked like Roman military insignia, there wasn't a vast range of styles within that use case / time period.
Outside of military use and maybe some rare other state uses, there wasn't much insignia, and especially not much insignia that you would call a logo by today's application.
Re: Oxford University Press’s new logo is unfathomably bad
#278Who cares? It says Oxford University Press which is the important part. The little image above it is just fluff and literally doesn't matter. I certainly wouldn't call it 'unfathomably bad' considering it's not a child's drawing or a some obscene gesture.
It's lost history. The Latin text on the old logo connects the present with the past. There would have been thousands of instances where people would have thought "what does that mean" and have a browse through history. Airbrushed and homogenised in favour of a tire.
That history represents 400 years of colonialism. Latin represents classism and racism and denies the history of billions of marginalized peoples.
Thus, it must change because the purpose of a university is not to retain cultures and histories when no one else cares, it's not to improve the mental capabilities of the students.
It purpose instead is to pursue equity in 2 senses: no especially talented people of the wrong* parents are allowed to gain inordinate skills and the foundation makes gobs of money.
(*) Determination of wrongness changes over time, and the adage "2 wrongs don't make a right" is considered tomfoolery.
Re: Oxford University Press’s new logo is unfathomably bad
#279I am trying to to think of a single rebrand / new logo / new icon that I actually liked at the time—that didn't seem to signal a degradation in the integrity, quality or trustworthiness of the entity represented. (There are some cases where the new brand has grown on me, to the point that I have come to prefer it to the old one. The most recent examples I can think of are the 1999 rebrand of Northern Electric as Nort…
Ooh, I'll give it a shot! Burger King: https://jkrglobal.com/case-studies/burger-king/ Simple, but fun. Retro, instead of over modern. Better than the logo is all the supporting fonts and imagery. Super aesthetic. InstaCart: https://www.wolffolins.com/case-study/instacart Pretty recent, tech company, not a beloved brand at the time of rebrand, but wow it's a great rebrand. Way more character, way more fun. Leibniz: h…
> Burger King
I like this one. Not spotted the new logo in the UK yet, but it would definitely make me less determined to avoid the company's restaurants.
> InstaCart
I'm not really familiar with this company so I don't really have any feelings about the rebrand per se. I do like the new logo, which is clever—but after looking up what it used to look like I can say I prefer the aesthetics of the original.
> Leibniz
Again a brand I'm not familiar with. Fair point about the consistent design system, but again I prefer the original logo.
> New York State Parks.
Again not one I'm familiar with, but here I can say I LOVE the new logo: who can not love it when an organisation makes it so obvious they wish they were Canadian?
> CNET
This one I definitely was familiar with. Hadn't seen the new branding. My reaction is "looks weird; those letters make me feel uncomfortable".
> Midi
WTF. The new logo is cool in and of itself, but this rebranding makes me actively angry:
- The MIDI logo has been used as a symbol to identify connectors for decades. Changing it will cause unnecessary confusion.
- The important feature of MIDI is that it is _digital_, but the new logo is all about _analog_ waveforms.
- It's also stupidly confusing. Literally the first thought that passed through my mind when I saw the new logo is "did the MIDI organisation get bought by Meta??"
> Mojang
I'll give you this one. The new logo is pretty bad, but the original was _awful_.
> DK
I am literally* crying. (* not literally).
> These are some bigger names, but honestly the really interesting stuff is inside smaller companies who don't have to worry so much about legacy.
I think this raises an important point. Smaller companies without much history do not destroy much when they throw their old branding away. Bigger, older companies do.
Re: Oxford University Press’s new logo is unfathomably bad
#280I am trying to to think of a single rebrand / new logo / new icon that I actually liked at the time—that didn't seem to signal a degradation in the integrity, quality or trustworthiness of the entity represented. (There are some cases where the new brand has grown on me, to the point that I have come to prefer it to the old one. The most recent examples I can think of are the 1999 rebrand of Northern Electric as Nort…
Apple losing the rainbow from its logo? https://imgur.com/DvKPvYz
This is the ultimate example of a _terrible_ rebrand, in my opinion. I _loved_ the colourful logo, and I think that getting rid of it was the ultimate travesty. (At least the flat black Apple is better than those terrible shiny ones, though.)
I do wonder if I'd have liked it if I'd previously been familiar with the original woodcut logo, though.