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Oxford University Press’s new logo is unfathomably bad

joukovsky.substack.com

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

#331

Post by cpcallen »

taeric wrote: post #290
cpcallen wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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: h…

Coca Cola is the classic example for this sort of thing. However, I feel that something is off on that story. For one, the brand has moved on from the "classic" with basically no fanfare. Similarly, they have marched on from the recipe, again with no fanfare. I remember a case study once that showed that they actually did taste test the changes and that, at large, the change was the one that was liked by more people.…

I own quite a lot of GAP clothing—mostly trousers bought second-hand on eBay since they stopped carrying the design I liked—and none of what I have had has ever had a logo other than on the label.

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

#332

Post by systemicdanna »

Dig1t wrote: post #319
systemicdanna wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is that there are many reasons to redesign a logo like that. It looks: 1. Elitist (who speaks Latin?) 2. Forgettable (show this logo to a student from India and then ask to pick it out of 10 similar coats of arms) 3. Ugly (subjective, but... thick curves everywhere, all caps words with hyphens, 3 crowns?..) 4. Hard to adapt to new global use cases (too detailed to make small, too confusing internationally) 5…

Those are indeed valid reasons, but they literally stated exactly why they changed it: "to signal commitments to (1) digital transformation and (2) diversity & inclusion". That quote comes directly from the people who changed the logo themselves.

The sensitivities of the modern world require careful phrasing. My guess would be that "diversity & inclusion" means things like it's too elitist, hard to grok to people in new global markets, and the "digital transformation" bit means that it's too hard to resize and too hard to reuse in different context (e.g. the new logo could zoom in on screen and act as a portal into a virtual experience, the old logo is very cumbersome).

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

#333

Post by I_complete_me »

finnh wrote: post #85
mauvehaus wrote: post #47

Ooh, ooh. I have one to share! The infamous "Case" Fat Man With a Surfboard logo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_Western_Reserve_Universit... Is it as bad as the Met's new logo? Probably not. Is it pretty objectionable, and universally maligned? Yeah, definitely. Anybody else got one to share for our shared schadenfreude?

Serious Pie, in Seattle: https://www.seriouspieseattle.com/ scroll down until you see the man with his penis on fire. It's on all their signs.

But it's not so bad when your legs grow out of your neck, right?

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

#334

Post by blululu »

oytis wrote: post #95
blululu wrote: post #72

This is a bit hyperbolic. It's really not that bad of a rebrand. Brands are important. People care about them. They need to be updated with the times. Perhaps the author would care to show some alternative modernizations to illustrate a better way to do it.

The implicit assumption here is that modernisation was required or inevitable which isn't obvious.

Implicit? It is explicitly stated. Brand are a big part of marketing your product to your customers. Brands need to be kept up to date because the styles and tastes of your customers change. Things get old. New display/printing technologies enable and require new design patterns. Your customers start to expect different things over time. People stop noticing your brand if it feels like you aren’t keeping up with the last 20 years of fashion. You need to move constantly just to stay the same point.

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

#335

Post by porknubbins »

pvg wrote: post #317
porknubbins wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you’re one of the oldest universities in the world though, I think sticking with the old logo conveys a subtle gravitas and confidence in your legacy, much more than constant rebranding that says “look at me”.

I'm not sure it's obvious it conveys anything beside 'looks like everyone else'. It's like the GP comment complaining about 'modernist, minimalist crap, indistinguishable from all the other modernist, minimalist crap' never ran across one of the most recognizable university press marks out there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Press#/media/File:MIT_Pres...

Yes I don’t think there is anything obvious here, de gustibus non disputatum after all.

I am a big fan of modernism even minimalism done well. MIT is an engineering school and its logo fits. I just object to lazy or default minimalism.

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

#336

Post by FrontierPsych »

I'm not sure why everyone is all about the logo.

I'm looking at the story and see the second reason to change it as:

(2) diversity & inclusion

Everything is all about diversity & inclusion, especially in academia, but at all levels of Western culture. Nothing else is important.

Don't like the logo? So what, it's not about that. The only thing that is important is to get rid of all vestiges of Western culture, that's the point. If it means a bland meaningless thing that doesn't mean anything, good enough.

But might as well get rid of the name "Oxford" as this is part of the whole Western culture, and just change the name to "The Big O". Works perfectly with the new logo, too.

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

#337

Post by ghaff »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #311
ghaff wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Design is of course a fashion business like most things. That said, a lot of traditional logos had a huge amount of fine detail that doesn't work well on mobile. While not the only factor, it's at least one motivator for a lot of the rebranding/logo redesigns that you're seeing.

I don't really buy that. I mean, maybe with older phones. But I guarantee 98% of people buying Balenciaga or YSL or Diane von Fürstenberg have an iPhone that is more than capable of displaying extremely fine detail very well.

That screens are (in many cases) very high res these days doesn't mean that the eyes looking at a small screen are. The irony is that many of the same designers who are coming up with simple unadorned logos are also fond of tiny grey text.

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

#339

Post by DontchaKnowit »

harlequinn77 wrote: post #76
DontchaKnowit wrote: post #56

I find it so fascinating using that people actually care about shit like this. Like when I saw the logo I had literally 0 thoughts about it. Whatever. It's a logo. Who cares. But then here's a guy who feels compelled to write a whole article about it and a thread full of people discussing it. Blows my mind. Not to demean anyone like it's cool that this matters to people I just cannot even remotely understand it.

But thats the point right? Why pay £100k for something that doesn’t matter?

fair enough.

Fun story, I worked at (unnamed fortune 500 company) a while back, and they paid a consulting company something like 10 million to evaluate and suggest changes to the company's job titles. Not the actual jobs. Just the titles.

So I went from : associate (generic engineer role) to (generic engineer role) I.

Brilliant.

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

#340

Post by tokai »

systemicdanna wrote: post #281
tokai wrote: post #3

Another ring logo. Its hilarious how many low effort logos, with a ring, graphic designers fool people into accepting.

It's amazing how people without any understanding of design processes judge outcomes as "low effort". Familiarize yourself with these processes (e.g. check out IDEO). Talk to professional designers. Try to design a logo. It's frankly ridiculous to expect a revolutionary logo every time these discussions happen. This is not a "lines of code" metric. If designers work on a logo for 6 months the deliverable is not "the…

Oh how full of yourself you are.
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