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!
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).
