Logo New(s)
by Bennett Holzworth, (13 comments)
I thought I would share some rebranding and logo news that I have ran across recently. None of these would probably warrant an entire post, but they each have an interesting aspect to them.
Nicktoons (now Nicktoons Network) announced a new logo and rebranding. It kind of reminds me of the Sherwin Williams logo (turned on its side), but designed well and with a sense of humor. I assumed that AdamsMorioka had designed the new logo, but this information was nowhere to be found in the press release. I wrote Noreen Morioka an email and she promptly replied. She stated that the Nicktoons logo was not done at AdamsMorioka, but was created in-house at Nickelodeon. The logo was created by Matthew Duntemann and his team.The Nicktoons Network is under the direction of Tom Asheim and Kieth Dawkins.
I think this logo fits well in to the Nickelodeon brand and it is much better than one other Viacom family logo that was done in-house (i.e. VH1).
Here is an interesting article on a logo controversy from the town of Cathedral City. Is it a “subtle endorsement of religion and Christianity”? I think the critics of this logo were looking extra hard for something to complain about.
InterBrand designed the logo of the newly renamed Genpact (an Indian outsourcing company somehow related to GE). “The Genpact logo, developed by Interbrand, includes a symbol in the form of a stylized arrow impacting a blue field.” Although the logo is done well, the “gen” in Genpact, just might stand for generic.
It looks like Sacramento State has a little bit of its student body upset with their new logo redesign (done by Osaki Design). Here is a surprisingly reasonable response. In this article the author states that some people thought that the graphic design program could have handled the redesign and saved a great deal of money. It was nice to read the response of one of the design professors (Gwen Amos). “Without knowing all the details of the contract it is not possible to judge the cost of the redesign, but we stress that good design can cost large sums of money, since it requires many man-hours of research, design, review and study,”
UPDATE: (12-14-05) It has been brought to our attention that the wrong Cathedral City logo has been displayed here. Here is the correct version.
Comments (13)
JonSel said:
It’s nice to see that someone realizes that design isn’t something that just appears out of thin air.
I love the Nicktoons mark. Splat. Great.
Genpact may be one of the worst logos I’ve ever seen perpetrated by a “top-notch” brand consultancy. Holy generics, Logoman! When you can’t come up with a logo more interesting than that, you should try to combine it with the wordmark. That at least adds some distinction and memorability to the entire visual. Otherwise, you’ve got two completely generic pieces in which you will never be able to build sufficient equity.
I thought the Sacramento State logo was a flaming golf ball on a tee. I’m thinking, “I’d like to play that course.” I think it’s the green that suggested that to me. But otherwise, it seems to be well-crafted, if not anything unique. Creating logos for public institutions like universities is like navigating a minefield. The public thinks they get to have their say and the result is usually something whittled down in an attempt to please everyone. It never works. (You can see this in architecture with the design of NYC’s new world trade center buildings.)
That Cathedral City logo is just bad. The word “city” should have been bigger to clearly denote that this is a destination. The gradients…oy. It’s really just poor drawing. Trying to capture a local landmark in a logo is a fine way to define a location. This just wasn’t done well.
Posted on September 29, 2005
jyoseph said:
I come here for great stuff like this, thanks for the great article (and comment).
Posted on September 30, 2005
Scott Stowell said:
Actually, the Nicktoons Network logo was designed by Chip Wass, under the creative direction of Matthew Duntemann at Nickelodeon. And yes, it is great.
Posted on September 30, 2005
Bennett said:
Scott, Thanks for filling in the blanks and for the link. Chip has a fun site.
Posted on September 30, 2005
Chris Murphy said:
The GenPact logo with it’s blue square makes me think their global vision is that the world is square! Pretty bland. Not Verizon Awful – just bland.
Sacramento State and Nick Toons are really nice, though I don’t care for the font used on Cathedral City.
Keep doing “new logo” posts – I enjoy seeing these logos and what others think of them. Perhaps we’ll all learn something too…eh, Quark?
Posted on September 30, 2005
Sreejith said:
Great Article !
Posted on October 1, 2005
Bryan said:
The Sacramento State logo is too similar to this: http://www.pointpark.edu/
Posted on October 4, 2005
L-Fo said:
I find it funny that the article on the Sacremento State logo mentions that it cost $34,000 to develop that logo and then directly underneath this original post there are several google ads that offer logo design for $25. I know google adsense is a good program, but as designers aren’t we trying to prevent the devaluing of our serivces? Just a thought.
Posted on October 5, 2005
Bennett said:
L-Fo, Congrats. You win the monthly “I find the Google ads ironic” comment award. Sorry about the sarcasm, but we do see the irony. Until we set up a better way of sponsorship, they will stay. We would eventually like to get rid of them.
Posted on October 5, 2005
L-Fo said:
Bennet, I figured someone has mentioned it before, but I am new to BADG and, yes, I thought it was ironic. I completely understand the sponsorship issue as we use the google ads with some of our client sites as well. Anyway, I enjoy this forum and look forward to contributing in the future.
Posted on October 5, 2005
Faith Raines said:
I just came acros this site and noticed the new Cathedral City logo. It seems this site did the same as the Desert Sun newspaper did when they ran numerous stories in their paper during their slow news days. It’s the wrong logo.
Posted on December 14, 2005
Bennett said:
Faith, Thank you for letting us know. I have updated the post to show the correct logo. It’s not a coincidence that we have the same logo displayed as the Desert Sun, since that is exactly the place that I found the story and the logo. This is not a mystery since we have a link straight to that article. We weren’t short on stories, we just talk about things that would hopefully interest a designer. Anyway, thanks for the heads up.
Posted on December 14, 2005
youval raj said:
I love that nicktoons logo. It’s great graphic presentation. About the online logo designs, I had seen certain logo design online sellers…you got it!…I call them logo sellers b’coz, just you got to name it while you’re buying the design. Don’t you think it’s funny!. It’s useless to buy the readymade designs. Reason: it laks charector of the brand/co., I recommend working online with designers from scratch.
Posted on December 26, 2006