The Effects of a National Logo Change (on graphic designers)

I was looking up some friends on LinkedIn and found this article from one of the "groups" I have subscribed to, and thought that it was very true. The New NBC Universal "logo"

Being trained in the field of Graphic Design, there are things that have been ingrained into my thinking and my general way of life. When building a logo, you are not only creating a symbol consisting of colors, text or image(s), you are creating the emblem of a brand. There is something to be said about the logos that have stood the test of time, are easily recognizable and memorable. Take for instance, the Nike "swoosh" logo, the Apple logo, and, even the NBC peacock logo. All of these most people can take a look at and say one or more of the following:

• I have seen that before
• I know what that stands for/I know the company that represents
• Can rattle off information about said logo and or the representative company

I am very sad to see that the iconic peacock of the NBC logo has been removed. I really liked the peacock. It was unique, colorful, and historically significant to the brand and the brand image. Like many of the comments about this article (which I have only scanned the first couple of pages) I am in agreement that this logo change resembles what Gap tried to do most recently with their logo and their idea of "logo re-invention," an epic failure.

I find it interesting that so many brands feel like they need to "update" themselves and re-make their image. Some of the most iconic logos, as I was getting at earlier, work well for the company and their image. I once had a book about the 100 most memorable logos and when paging through the selections, it was obvious that behind each logo, there was a story and a memorable company eventually attached to each one. It is sad to see some of the older logos go away, because these days, it seems that a lot of the new logos are worse - design wise - than the ones that they started with in the first place. I guess I would like all companies to employ the phrase, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," because then things like Gap and NBC Universal happen. Oy vey!

-L