One of the amusing facets
of branding is the baloney some graphic design firms use to justify a logo
recommendation.
In my opinion, logos are often overrated. A logo is just an identification badge, it’s not the brand promise.
It also appears that sometimes, the more important a logo project, the bigger the baloney.
For example, according to the New York Times (11/23/09), AOL is preparing to spin itself off from Time-Warner on December 9, 2009. Now I am not against revamping logos if there is good justification. What’s humorous is the hype some design firms use to describe new logos. In the AOL case, they are changing the type face — using upper and lower case, and adding a period — AOL becomes Aol. So far so good.
But, I assume in an effort to strengthen their recommendation, the respected design firm, Wolff Olins of New York, said the period was added to “suggest confidence, completeness” . . . and it signifies that AOL is the best place to go to get the best content period. Really? What happens if Google or Bing catch on and put a period after their name?
The new logo looks fine,
but please, spare us the stories that are phony baloney.
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