State of Oklahoma's New Brand Identity / Logo | Hacker News Reader

State of Oklahoma's New Brand Identity / Logo

branding.ok.gov

87 pointsvlucas85 comments

I think all of this is a terrible visual design for a US state.

But, wow, I do think the logotype is beautiful. The slightly dropped leg on the "K" to make "OK" stand out is very clever. The way the base of the "L" aligns with the "A" is nice. I like the slight informality on the leaning-in stems on the "M". Someone put a lot of love into this.

It's too bad it looks like a gas station chain and not the gravitas and sense of place one wants for a US state, but it's pretty.

One of their old mottoes was "Oklahoma is OK"...which has that same non-aspirational quality you're highlighting in your last sentence.

Here's some OK branding history:

http://www.15q.net/ok.html

While I agree someone certainly put a lot into the thought on the logotype, and it is interesting, I like none of it. It all feels inconsistent with itself and very wrong to me. Feels like three different parts, OK, LAHO, MA. The K splits the word for me. The M just feels too wide, and then the massive space between the M and the A is jarring to me.

I do like the colors and options on the design though, its fun and interesting to me.

Definitely doesn't feel like a state though, maybe a bank.

> It all feels inconsistent with itself

This is one of the fundamental challenges with typography and one of the things I find most fascinating about it as an art. There is an eternal tension between making the characters similar to each other so that the typeface matches as a whole, while making them distinct enough to be easily read and to give the typeface its character.

People have different preferences here, but I personally like the balance they struck with this logotype.

Thank you! ... it was driving my subconscious brain crazy but your last sentence made me realize that I was thinking of BP.

At first I thought this was an Oklahoma tourism logo--which tend to be a little less "official" looking. But it doesn't seem like this is for the tourism board.

The K dropping makes the lettering look... wobbly. Like the letters aren't aligned at all. It's not at all pleasant to look at.

> It's too bad it looks like a gas station chain and not the gravitas and sense of place one wants for a US state, but it's pretty.

Not to be the devil's advocate, but these days many corporations are equal or even more powerful than states. Not sure if this was a consideration.

This field is so vague and lame now. Everyone basically copies the branding language from cable companies and telecom.

Government in particular should have a aura of authority and stability. Making stuff look like a letter from Comcast is pretty meh.

I feel like the National Park Service in particular has nailed this. Their branding is unique, instantly recognizable, and long-lived. Here’s their brand guidelines page: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/hfc/nps-graphic-identity-and-st...

They even recently went through a minor redesign, where they kept the “feel” but updated a bit: https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/new-logo-reintroduces...

I’m also a fan of the Canadian federal government website (http://canada.ca) and the UK government (http://gov.uk)

I knew a dev that did Canadian government web dev contracts. They have a very particular style. They sound like a nightmare, frankly. Very well specified though, not much ambiguity there.

It’s probably because of bilingualism and fanatical focus on accessibility.

The USFS has had defined color schemes for everything since at least the 40s. I cant find a reference offhand but I recall it goes back Pinchot around the turn of the century. They are very intentional about a consistent image and ensuring human elements fit in the local biome.

https://www.fs.fed.us/t-d/pubs/htmlpubs/htm07732807/paint.do...

Part of it is the democratization of creation. It's a logo _anyone_ could have created. It looks like an olympics logo at certain sizes, and an abstraction of a cut jewel at others. What it doesn't do is make you think anything about Oklahoma, or education...

> Part of it is the democratization of creation. It's a logo _anyone_ could have created.

I'm not sure that's democratization, lol.

That's just 'democratization' of the word 'democratization', man.

>It looks like an olympics logo at certain sizes, and an abstraction of a cut jewel at others.

I see at least three things: a flowery circle in five colors at very small sizes (Olympics logo?), a cut jewel (around a white star) at medium sizes, and the white star (surrounded by colored arrows) at very large sizes. It makes the logo quite confusing for me.

This is a really good meta point. There's a weird kind of cultural secularity with branding these days, largely because every company wants to appeal to everyone on earth, so they take these plain, fairly benign shapes and forms.

Though the logo is really quite nice, it's also fairly generic. It looks like a logo for a petrol company.

I think states can safely stick to old-timey fonts and images if they want.

It'd be nice to see some smart creative agencies take this issue on because I'll bet they've noticed the same.

> It looks like a logo for a petrol company.

To a very rough approximation, Oklahoma is a petrol company.

A petrol company with a horrible training/teaching process.

You know which state had the best designs? Nazi Germany. And their uniforms were impeccable. Sad that they destroyed the peaceful notion of the original symbolism.

Then now we have Native American symbols stolen but the people murdered and forgotten. Strange world we live in.

Fascists have some great design chops. Check out the propaganda of Switzerland's SVP party. It is :100:.

I'd say communist propaganda posters are pretty good too.

This is painful to see. It looks like a shopping mall or apartment building logo, compared to other states with proper flags.

And it goes without saying, on this topic, one must watch the short talk on state and country flags: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnv5iKB2hl4

this has nothing to do with the state flag though, as far as i can tell. it seems like a decent branding system... not exactly titillating but better than i've seen in most other states.

It's better than their flag for sure, but it's still not all that great and they really should fix their flag.

Tennessee and Texas are good examples of State Flags. When you drive through TN, the iconic three-star pattern is found on a lot of bridges and signs now (similar to the Chicago flag being seen everywhere around the city).

Washington, by contrast, is a terrible terrible flag (flags shouldn't have words or state seals on them; you need to be able to identify them from a distance).

This is an okay start, but it should have included a flag redesign with it that matches the new state branding.

Redesigning the flag is a politically fraught process.

I wish NZ had switched out their flag. They shouldn't have had the current flag in the vote at all. The fern leaf would have been amazing.

That being said, NZ has a recognizable flag (although it's too close to Australia's for sure) and it's not a bad one. By contrast Oklahoma's is really bad and I doubt there are many would would feel compelled to hang onto it if a new one was on the ballot in their next election.

I think for letterheads and buildings, its pretty good - even if I might prefer something more traditional.

Funny enough this design isn't actually a "flag". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Oklahoma It's just a logo. So imagine you're walking by a government building –and the flag in front of it and the logo on the wall are different.

For example, Chicago uses their flag as their branding so they don't need a separate logo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Chicago

Why do you think it looks like a mall logo? /s

https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2019/03/19/PARN/1a0bebe2-...

I'm of two minds of this. On the one hand, I think it's a visually appealing logo. I like the look of it and I think their designers have done well.

On the other hand, it is pretty generic, and as a former Oklahoma resident, nothing about it really reminds me of the state. It's also very minimalist and modern, which is trendy now, but I wonder if it will still be appealing in the future, or just look dated.

I'm also not entirely sure of what the role of a state's brand identify/logo is. Just for their tourism website? They aren't changing the seal or flag, or anything that actually looks related to the state government.

>It's also very minimalist and modern, which is trendy now, but I wonder if it will still be appealing in the future, or just look dated.

Some of it is because of mobile. A lot of branding that looked good in print in 1970 doesn't work well when it's shrunk and displayed on a 5" screen.

But the current style is towards minimalist and abstract which, as you say, can very easily come across as generic. The designers probably had various symbolism, etc. in mind but, absent context, the average viewer probably has no idea.

I realize it doesn't come across this way to most people here, but to me the colors and arrangement of the "graphic elements" evoke Native American textiles. This seems appropriate for Oklahoma, although I must admit that I don't know that the textiles I'm thinking of are related to the particular tribes who inhabit Oklahoma.

I can see that. Although I admit I don't especially associate Oklahoma with Navajo and other Native American art to the degree I do New Mexico and Arizona in particular.

As an occasional Oklahoma visitor, I always kind of liked the arrow sculpture ("Iron Feathers") outside the Will Rogers (OKC) airport:

http://www.e-a-a.com/portfolios/iron-feathers-at-will-rogers...

But if you look at that scuplture with a different light, it looks very lonely sitting out there in the plains:

https://www.waymarking.com/gallery/image.aspx?f=1&guid=a50e1...

About the present logo: the designers might have gone with a redder color for the dirt segment. I know what you mean about there not being enough concrete associations with the state to firmly anchor a logo.

My province uses their brand in the same way any other corporate entity uses their logo - on their letterhead, signage, promotional materials, staff uniforms, and as a common element for all their various departments to share.

As much as it seems like a bit of a waste of money for a government to worry about their brand, it's an efficiency over having the parks department come up with one brand and the highways department come up with another. They can both slap the same logo on the side of their trucks.

I like it more than what we had in the past. I honestly expected a stereotype of an Indian on a horse or some crap like that. I am happy they actually picked something I can easily render in a vector format.

I honestly expected a stereotype of an Indian on a horse or some crap like that.

Acknowledging that state's history and current legal situation isn't really crap. It would probably be nicer than this generic geometry.

If it's so easy to render, why do these assets looks terrible?

https://branding.ok.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/graphic-e...

Dude its a government site hosted on a wordpress engine. What are you expecting? I am just happy its not all bitmaps asking for IE6. (My exceptions for my old home state are low)

It's just an export mistake. Someone turned off anti-aliasing before exporting that PNG.

I find it impossible to look at one of these expensive, third party design firm created rebrandings and not think of the famous "Pepsi Gravitational Field" document. It shall forever remain a seminal satirical work in this genre.

https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell...

Oklahoma rebrands as a gas station that's going to the Olympics.

If you haven't read Eli Schiff's great post on logo design, "You Could Almost Do Anything", you should: http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2016/4/12/do-almost-anything

Do none of these designers travel?

If you go to Amsterdam, you notice motifs from the flag of Amsterdam everywhere. They're everywhere because they're the sort of thing you can put everywhere.

If you go to Bremen, you notice the Stadtmusikanten everywhere. The flag looks like the logo of an oil company, so nobody uses it. The Stadtmusikanten are a little complex, but they're there and they're at least not lame.

You don't even have to go to Europe! What's Maryland's visual identity? The flag and a crab. You can't draw the flag from memory, but you know it when you see it, and it's not lame. It doesn't look like a gas station.

You could throw a dart at a book of coats of arms and land on something better than this Oklahoma design. It may not make sense for Oklahoma, but people would read sense into it over time, like they did with the flag of Amsterdam. Or they wouldn't. The Maryland flag has a complicated history, but there's no meaning that can be read off it without knowing that history.

I kind of looks like a logo for a hotel chain. I like minimal look, but it in no way makes me think of Oklahoma.

What is a thing that instantly reminds you of Oklahoma, but isn't something negative like race riots, manmade earthquakes, teenage pregnancy, and domestic terrorism? Come to think of it the honest history of Oklahoma makes a hell of a flag.

The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.

Sure I guess that would be the perfect conclusion of the state's evolution, if you completely erased even the few remaining symbols of the native people and replaced them with that classic of white culture, the Farmer vs the Cowman.

Their flag is terrible:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=oklahoma+flag&ia=images&iax=images

99% Invisible does a great episode on what makes a good flag, and why cities like Chicago, DC and Amsterdam have iconic, memorable flags:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnv5iKB2hl4

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/vexillonaire/

Speaking of terrible. Those little yellow boxes in the middle of the screen of 99% invisible are VERY distracting. Yes, it's easy to find the previous/next article. I appreciate the effort. But I'm trying to read! And my eyes keep bouncing left and right trying to focus on the text, but these little yellow dots keep pulling them in opposite directions.

Good design, poorly executed.

Web devs don't understand that most people aren't on your site to mindlessly scroll through article after article and never leave your site.

Interesting 99% article. A good guide for flag designers is to follow the rules of heraldic design: no 'metal' (gold/yellow or silver/white) on a metal or colour on a colour; don't get crazy with the charges (i.e. prefer one distinct, large shape over a bunch of small different ones) and so forth.

The rules which applied in the Middle Ages to help distinguish shields still apply to flags today, since both flags & shields are viewed at a distance, often in motion. And IMHO flags based on heraldric often look better than stuff just thrown together.

The New Mexico flag is cited as being one of the better ones.

Our flag in Oregon has two different sides, neither one of which is great.

I love the New Mexico flag. We use it everywhere here. It's beautiful and carries great symbolism, yet it's so simple every toddler can draw it from memory.

It's also the only US state flag to contain neither the colors blue nor white.

I've always had a tremendous fondness for the flag, in part because of the cultural homage included by the Zia sun symbol, and as you mentioned: It's instantly recognizable, easy to replicate by hand, and has a stark beauty not unlike the deserts in this state.

For some time I thought the symbol on the NM flag was too small. Then I realized that the tiny size symbolized a few people huddled together in the vast empty desert, which is certainly appropriate.

I've always been a fan of South Carolina's flag. It's a moon and a palm tree.

That flag had always confused me because most flags with a crescent moon are from Islamic countries. Until I learned that it was the South Carolina flag, I always figured it was the flag of a country that had people frequently immigrating to the USA.

To be honest, I didn't know the history of the flag until after your post. It makes more sense how the elements where from revolutionary war regiments fighting for the south.

In stark contrast, for me, it's relaxing, like a memory of a warm summer night laying in a hammock.

But then I guess, that might make it a bad design.

You know it's a failure when you have to put your name underneath it. How ridiculous would it be if countries just wrote their names on their flags?

So are the tattoos on Trooper Calicoat's arms.

This looks completely terrible. Why are those "Graphic Elements" so pixelated?

I don't dislike the concept, but I also notice the weird jaggies and bumps on the "graphic elements". Conceptually that should be six straight lines, but that's not how it's rendered.

>To make sure it is visible and legible, the Oklahoma logo should never be used where the symbol is smaller than 1/4-inch tall in print materials. On digital applications, the Oklahoma logo should never be smaller than 36 px tall.

ok, i wonder what alternative version they might suggest for smaller sizes. (checks the favicon) oh, i see...

Logo is ok. State seal is what really got me. It looks like something whipped up in illustrator in a couple hours.

The state seal predates this redesign.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_of_Oklahoma

As an Okie, I'm not a huge fan of it. I think they ought to just use the emblem on their flag.

As for the motto, it sounds like an apple knock off, or the motto for a design firm. Oklahoma isn't a design firm, it's a state.

Reminds me of the submitted (but ultimately rejected) Chicago 2016 Olympics logo with the use of negative space surrounded by colors to reveal a shape inside.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_bid_for_the_2016_Summe...

Similar vibe to the ATL Logo > https://www.ajc.com/blog/commuting/atlanta-new-transit-logo-...

The logo and typesetting is quite ok. But the "Our Photostyle" idea is just plain bad/confusing.

This is what stuck out to me too. Given that there was next to no emphasis on this, I don't expect it to stick.

Why do states need branding / logos / taglines? Why not just use the shape of the state and the name?

Compared to most government commissioned new brands I have seen recently it's definitely above average.

Why did they change the shape of the star? The new logo uses a pentagram but the state seal doesn't.

I like it. It's pretty, it's clean, and it's just the right amount of subtle recognition of its Native American history.

Who cares if it's trendy? Whatever you design, thirty-forty years from now, people will be yammering about it's "dated look" anyway.

Oklahoma - The CLONE STAR STATE

I wondered if I was the only one to notice that the logo’s use of a lone star and Oklahoma’s proximity to Texas.

It's ok, but I wonder what they spent on that... and how important it was to spend tax money on it. (And I wonder if someone got a sweetheart deal to do the work...)

?? US government stuff at least has a sort of camp appeal, why tf does a state need a "brand identity"??

I'm from Oklahoma, and a graphic designer, I almost did a spit take laughing at how bad this is.

Looks like a bid for the 2034 Winter Olympics.

Sorta doubt this. OK would be one of the worst possible locations for a Winter Olympics. The Omnibus just did a podcast on the time someone tried to create a ski resort there: https://www.omnibusproject.com/231 (Spoiler, it closed after 3 days.)

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