The University of California Logo Controversy
rockpaperink.com
rockpaperink.com
Clearly the designers who designed the ugly logo aren't the problem, it's "everyone else." (He actually says this.) Everyone else is "not qualified" to offer an opinion-- no, not even if they are professional designers. Clearly only the people inside the organization that did the design are qualified to have an opinion. People who criticize are "reactionaries" (LOL, comrade). Above all designers should never "criticize" other designers no matter how bad their shit smells.
One has to wonder which profession he feels he is in-- manure shoveler? or perhaps bootlick. Either way, this essay made me laugh like none other. I think the only appropriate response is U MAD?
Do you realize how many people hated the Pepsi logo when it was re-designed? Now look at it versus the old logo years after we've become accustomed to it: the old logo absolutely looks like it's a stodgy 80s design. And that was the point of the logo redesign: to make it feel dynamic and modern.
I'd even be surprised of 90% of people polled in the early 80s would've said it made sense for a tech company to a) use a fruit as their logo and b) have it placed on computer equipment.
People often gravitate towards what they are comfortable and familiar with. That's why I try to not evaluate everything by my gut until I see the full picture and rationale.
I didn't love the logo but I thought the identity system was very strong and vastly aesthetically cooler than the majority of shitty academic identity systems I'm familiar with in North America where no one tries ANYTHING different. One could toss a few dozen university logos together from Canada and the United States and they'd probably just mesh into one blob.
Fact is most people expect certain visuals from academia.
Do you expect me to pretend that I don't think that just because I am not a designer?
it looks dated but not so dated as to be classy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UnitedArtistsLogo1980s.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MGM_logo_used_in_the_movie...
http://people.mozilla.com/~faaborg/files/20090521-firefoxIco...
...yep, still ridiculous.
(1) Pay design firm mucho bucks to "redesign identity." [The fee is usually insanely huge, especially considering the quality of the result and the probable amount of effort that went into it.]
(2) Get truly horrible result back, which is universally hated by everybody except the design firm. [Well, who knows what they actually think behind closed doors, but in public, they have total confidence in the thing they're getting paid a huge fee for.]
(3) Spend huge amounts of time and money trying to force people to use it, usually resulting in people hating the new "identity" even more. Often this involves draconian regulations that absolutely forbid any use of the old logo in any context whatsoever (amusing when talking about history of course...), and creation of new infrastructure solely for brand-identity enforcement (and remember, this is a university we're talking about here...).
(4) Either (a) eventually give up and go back to the old logo, (b) successfully browbeat everybody into going along with the new order until all the people that remember the old logo have died, or (c) officially maintain the new logo while in practice everything except the school letterhead just quietly uses the old logo anyway. [Which of these happens depends on university politics.]
I've personally been associated with two universities that have gone through exactly this idiotic process, and have heard of others second-hand.
In most cases the whole thing seems to be a sort of an ego project for the university administration, who think it's a chance to "refresh things." Once the design firm gets started with the vague hand waving and justifications, the administration almost always seems to be gullible--and egotistical--enough to accept pretty much anything they say at face value. Even once it becomes clear that it's a complete cock-up, backing down would be an admission of failure, and there's no way the administration is gonna do that unless there are mass protests and burning of faculty.
Commercial firms sometimes do similar things, but are generally a bit less gullible AFAICS, I guess because they tend to be a bit more hard-headed (university administrations are often, well, kinda...wooly...).
Then again, I don't drink soda and don't watch television.
I seem to recall street advertising of the new Pepsi logo around 2008 and was utterly baffled by it for months.
There are a few parallels here with the logo for the London 2012 Olympics. When the brand was announced in 2007, it was slated.
80% of the public gave it the lowest possible rating, people were outraged about the cost, newspapers ran competitions for their readers to create their own logos, and an animated version of the logo was reported to cause epileptic seizures.
The officials in charge stuck to their guns, and five years down the line I think it's fair to say the branding was a huge success. High impact, instantly memorable, and yet hugely versatile.
As the author of this article points out, the logo was just a small part of a much larger branding strategy.
All I can say is: Yellow gradient smeared over sky blue? Seriously? I just... I don't know what else to say.
[1]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_A_FNfqyuLTQ/Sp1g8tvyVtI/AAAAAAAADV...
-- I am UC alum and I felt they did a horrible job with the new 'web friendly' logo.
I used to be adjunct faculty in art at a UC. It is the worst of presumptive bureaucracies.
People forget that isn't just about the logo it's about the positioning of the brand within the economic marketplace. Plenty of analytics, surveys, strategy etc etc is involved.
If not, then they clearly did something wrong, so why should we give any weight to the rest of their conclusions? If so, why are they acting so shocked?
As for them being shocked. It is always surprising when people become so passionate about a brand.
If they anticipated the backlash, but decided not to care (because their target audience is the NEXT generation, as you suggest), then why are they surprised that this generation is responding poorly. They saw it coming and decided not to care.
As a UC alumnus, I certainly saw that new logo and thought "what the hell is this??" -- GREAT point about the color bring wrong, for example. If it were better communicated that it wasn't meant to replace the seal, I might have liked it better, but it already seemed ugly to me, even before I read about what it was intended for.
We got a massive petition signed to abolish the new logo, and the outcry when they announced this was overwhelmingly negative on campus. No one liked it, and it seems the administration has realized that.
Yes which as a designer, really annoys me. The thousands of people who berated the logo and team who designed it simply did not understand what was being replaced nor the full context.
I think the new identity is vastly superior to the existing branding. Here is a proper comparison:
http://minesf.com/resources/cca/2012/12/13/why-the-universit...
http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/ic_uc_we...
An identity is more than just a logo it's an entire system. And I think it's far better than what people give it credit for.
It's fair to argue that the design/branding was better or worse. I happen to think the new logo looked insipid. The rest of the branding seems to stand up better.
However I think we all should agree that the communication regarding the branding was a travesty. This doesn't seem to be the designer's fault, but they're catching most of the blame.
What I don't like about the original article is the "your opinion is wrong and here's why" attitude. Telling people that they are wrong up front is another communication failure.
That one seems to hit all their design objectives while still looking nice.
saying that the general public is unqualified to comment on it is even dumber.
if 90% of people don't like it, it is by definition a bad logo.
His point is that it makes no sense to evaluate a logo on it's own without greater context of how it fits with a fuller identity.
"saying that the general public is unqualified to comment on it is even dumber."
Why? Doing an identity is hard work and it requires more thought than just looking at a screen, evaluating it against something which it isn't even replacing, and then making a gut reaction. I wouldn't be surprised if most people went into the discussion with a bias introduction ("checkout this ugly logo!") without any rationale.
"if 90% of people don't like it, it is by definition a bad logo."
Well that depends on their taste.
Here is the problem: a logo is designed for the general public, not some elite audience of art critics.
Their taste is THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS. It doesn't matter whether the designers like it. At all.
If you want to do that kind of thing where only your esthetic opinion matters, you should be doing fine art, not web design.
Bzzt. WRONG.
If 90% of "prospective 18-20 year olds" don't like it, then and only then is it a bad logo. Everyone else really should probably stay out of it since they aren't who the logo is for.
18-20 year olds don't bring a lot of grant money with them, as a rule.
That logo might work fine for a corner store, but not for an education institution, especially one like the UC.
As for the logo itself? I think it's pretty bland and the rounded-edge typeface for the letter "C" looks cheap.
Example: http://omc.uq.edu.au/news/599UQNEWS.pdf [2.7MB]
This University of California logo is not an example of a redesign working. There is nothing wrong with a new logo, but there is a lot wrong with that new logo.