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The Identity Function

According to the test sample of users at BrandTags, Google has achieved logical corporate identity.

Noah Brier's BrandTags has been something of a runaway success. Since May 9, almost everyone, from Seth Godin to Jason Kottke, has written something about it.

BrandTags is "a collective experiment in brand perception. All tags are generated by people like you..." It is basically a way to gauge public perception of brands, which is a pretty neat idea, and provides some really interesting information (proving once again the incredible power of tagging) about the public perception of brands.

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PaulMay 19, 2008
 

Paul Rand’s Ends

The 2003 UPS identity redesign is a good example of a bad trend: Identity design that cuts back on signal in favor of the safety of the noise.

In April of 2003, UPS released what has since become a very hotly debated brand update. Summarily, UPS retired Paul Rand's iconic 1961 package-and-shield logo and replaced it with "a two-tone, 3-D-look shield topped with a quasi-swoosh [and a wordmark] set in a customized version of [the common logo font] FF Dax..." (Source*)

* As evidence of how positively engaging this identity redesign was, the discussion on this article received its first comment April 7, 2003 and got its last one on November 9, 2007!

UPS' logo redesign of 2003
The great UPS logo debacle of 2003

The responses to this re-branding varied from declaiming FutureBrand, the New York-based designers of the new logo as glorified Paul Gaskills to flat-out declamation that "the new logo is better," and subsequently that, "you typography/graphic/illustrator bullies need to relax." (Ibid).

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PaulDec 21, 2007
 
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