Following the launch of the University of California identity, it seems a petition was sent around calling for the new logo to be kiboshed, with a return to the original UC seal. Well, 50,000+ voices have been heard.

From the announcement by UC Senior VP for External Relations, Daniel M Dooley:

The monogram was only a piece of the visual identity system — a new approach to typography, photography, colors and the like — that was developed by UCOP design staff.

Since it debuted in the past year, this new “look” has served the UC system well, replacing what was a clutter of dated materials that varied from UCOP department to department. And it has received praise from an array of accomplished design experts not affiliated with the university.

And yet, while I believe the design element in question would win wide acceptance over time, it also is important that we listen to and respect what has been a significant negative response by students, alumni and other members of our community.

Therefore, I have instructed the communications team to suspend further use of the monogram.

Armin at Brand New offers this perspective:

Happy now? By next week you’ll have forgotten about even signing the petition but, in the course of that, you have caused irremediable damage in the confidence of the leadership team at UC to even consider doing anything new or different anytime soon that would potentially help improve your university system to succeed. Enjoy your seal.

And boy is Armin getting an earful in the comments. No one there supporting the new monogram, of course, but they are taking Armin to task for not appreciating the public and alumni discourse that led to this decision.

I just wish they’d gone exclusively with this, which seems to also have been part of their plans:

Instead of this:

Which makes us all think this:

In the end, why all the variation? Seal vs monogram vs monogram with text vs monogram with the gradient fadeout. There’s no surprise things turned out this way when no one was willing to be decisive about how the monogram was to be applied.

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But you’re still left with the final logo, which starts, reasonably enough here:

But somehow ends up here:

This comment thread on Vimeo spells it out clear enough:

Tina: Does that logo really make you think, higher education?
Morgan: It makes me think the logo isn’t done loading.

And, as Gruber says:

It has no heft, no gravitas.

Shame, for all the well-put effort that otherwise went into building out a coherent identity for the university.

References
Brand New: IC, UC, We all C for California
Daring Fireball: UC Introduces New Logo
Mercury News: UC Introduces a Modern Logo

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Designers in Canada owe a debt to Burton Kramer. As Roger Remington states in the introduction of Burton Kramer, Identities:

Kramer became known as a staunch advocate of fully integrated design at a time when such an approach was virtually unknown in Canada.

Bringing this Swiss design ethos to Canada in the mid-60s was quite a revelation and, with Expo 67, gave Kramer and designers such as Moshe Safdie an opportunity to shine as the world visited Montreal.

Canadians of this era will remember Kramer’s work for Clairtone, a high-end Toronto based audio brand founded by Peter Munk (who’s foundation launched the remarkable Munk Debates).

Still in the mid-60s, Kramer was working with the Royal Ontario Museum to help define a consistent visual language across the variety of exhibitions.

And Canadians of all ages will recognize his work for CBC, CIBC, the Eaton Centre and Union Station.

Interior designers will appreciate his work for Teknion.

While Torontonian drivers may bristle slightly at the green P which doubtless reminds us of a few meter maid run-ins.

Though Burton Kramer, Identities, doesn’t share much in the way of the process behind much of the work, there’s just so much to see here from a remarkable and culturally significant career.

You can find more info and order details at burtonkrameridentities.com.

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Ottawa based designer Steve Zelle contributed a great article to LogoDesignLove last week titled: Logo warehouses, crowdsourcing, and a lack of understanding. He begins with:

Logo design should not be approached with the goal of filling that blank spot on the top of your letterhead. It is not the time to recklessly do something trendy and cool. Most importantly, it is not about getting a task off your to-do list so you can move on to selling widgets to your customers.

The logo design process should provide value far beyond the delivery of a symbol.

The trouble with looking for a low or no cost, easy and quick logo isn’t that you get designers barking at you about spec work or that your fans jump down your throat (I’m loathe to reference the Gap again, but the reality is they saw both of these reactions by being lazy with their logo development). No, the issue is this attitude leads to you, your designers, and your customers neglecting your brand and, by extension, your company.

Let’s jump back to Steve’s article, as he expresses this point visually:

When you cheap out on process, you yourself spend less time on research and planning, your design team spends less time getting to know you, your product, your needs, and what drives your consumer, and this neglect inevitably leads to consumer disinterest because the end result is not as suited to you as it should be. None of which is healthy for your company, short term, long term or otherwise.

Steve continues:

While a graphic designer can help with the nurturing, a logo alone is not the solution to developing a strong brand. This strength can only come from understanding. The company must understand their business, competition, market space, preferences, trends, strengths, weaknesses, and most importantly why customers should care about them.

Understanding goes the other way, too. If their customers can’t understand what it is that makes the company unique and why they should care, then they cannot develop a connection. No connection, no strength.

One of the greatest values a graphic designer can provide is the ability to successfully translate this understanding into a visual brand.

Here’s the full article. A great read!

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We needed more colour to fill in the site. Simplicity to increase recognition. And a little boldness to help the identity man up a little and hopefully provide for some great swag in the future. Here’s where we ended up:

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So we made this for them:

6 months later, they had switched to this:

It’s important to make sure your media reflects your culture, not just the target you’re looking to reach. The original site we designed was based on a brief that didn’t quite fit. This latest refresh from them is much more in line with Rogers Ventures the company and their culture.

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It’s the right decision. Good for them.

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Gap 2009:

American Apparel 2008:

Competitive hommage? How very, very peculiar.

And we’re not the first to notice.

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Sample execution: Take your classy, well established logo and replace the logotype with sterile Helvetica. Shrink the background of your logo so it becomes a handy little square and tuck that sucker behind the top left corner of your wordmark.

To be sure there’s enough contrast between your wordmark and this new dark square that’s obscuring the last letter of your name, add a nice gradient to lighten up the overlapping area.

Step 2: Share this sucker with the world!

You can do a big coordinated effort with press releases, signage and product updates, and so on, but that would imply a professionalism not at all in keeping with your design efforts so far.

Sample execution: Just drop this sucker on your heavily trafficked US Website and see what happens. You can save the regional website updates, product and signage updates, the Facebook and Twitter page updates to, well, sometime later.

Step 3: Respond to criticism with the nonchalance you applied to all your efforts thus far.

You’ve already shown your disdain for design by releasing this dog on the world, so when the criticism flows in, show how much you value design by inviting your users to fix the problem. After all, why spend money on something that’s just so simple to accomplish?

Sample execution: Write your fans on Facebook and Twitter asking for them to design you a logo for your multi-billion dollar company. Here’s a handy template for you to use:

Thanks for everyone’s input on the new logo! We’ve had the same logo for 20+ years, and this is just one of the things we’re changing. We know this logo created a lot of buzz and we’re thrilled to see passionate debates unfolding! So much so we’re asking you to share your designs. We love our version, but we’d like to see other ideas. Stay tuned for details in the next few days on this crowd sourcing project.

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