Posts Tagged ‘logo’
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The staggering failures of the AOL identity project released last week continue to amaze me. Covered thoughtfully here, you can really take the time to savor the flavor of deceit and corporate ineptitude. I’m not really talking about AOL when I say that, either. No, it’s the paragon of bad design, Wolff Olins, who is again the culprit.
After the London Olympic logo fiasco, and to a lesser extent Wacom’s “thing,” one might begin to wonder how these people stay in business. I believe that their client list, for one, has so many giant names of industry listed on it that it blinds potential clients to the thievery they are about to experience. Second, it is entirely possible in this day and age, still, for a client to hire an agency without doing a proper Google search. But lastly, and what I believe to be the true representation of their power, they must have a highly motivated sales/account management staff who can sell shit like this with a straight face.
Either way, work like the AOL “identity” and the others, when coupled with the sneering, look-at-how-clever-we-are press releases and after-the-fact justifications make all designers look bad. I’d like to ask them to stop.
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iStock seems hell-bent on their quest to become the Wal-Mart of the graphic design industry, by offering the cheapest quality at the cheapest price. They have recently turned their hungry, hungry eyes on logo design, and are seeking clientless, meaningless logo art to stock the shelves of their store in hell before launching it to an unsuspecting public. For your trouble, you will be paid $5.
Five. Dollars.
Last week I got bent all out of wack over two kids charging $200 for a logo, so I’m sure you know how I feel about this. Design, and the good that comes from it, is not a commodity. That is why Wal-Mart is not Target, why Microsoft and IBM are not Apple. You cannot prepackage design. Even in this uncertain economy, even with a crunched and desolate job market, $5 for a logo is beyond the pale. Even Hobos have standards.
I am not going to even pretend to be one of those designers out there having a shit-fit about the new Nickelodeon logo (or rather, the passing of the old logo). The new logo is perfectly competent, just aimed at different goals. Will it last 25 years? The better question is probably will it really affect your life if it doesn’t? Most people in my age group grew up with the splatter as a major part of our afternoon programming (I still refuse to acknowledge Nick-At-Night exists due to lingering anger at them taking away my night-time cartoons when I was like 4), and so most designers bemoaning this change are simply holding onto the lingering remains of their past. But, like Transformers, and now G.I.Joe, the time has come to let it go.
Just to let you know, today’s comic started with children, moved on to dogs, grandparents, and finally settled on hobos. That’s how my mind works, so please be grateful to all of my friends and family for installing a self-censor into my mind, even if it only works half the time.
–nv–
What started out as a horrible story of one man wronged by the powerful, fighting tooth and nail for his livelihood and reputation, not to mention thousands of dollars to feed this hulking evil behemoth which pursued him, quickly turned into a zany flip-flop of animosity once his pleading case was looked over with the slightest amount of scrutiny. It is my understanding the founder of said evil conglomerate StockArt.com has entered the fray, while the original post by Mr. #savejon seems nowhere to be found this afternoon.
The lesson to learn here is that whipping up a frenzied mob using your blog and carefully-constructed tweets is very easy, and indeed, very fun. So far, this has been my favorite graphic design moment of 2009. There’s a few months left to top it, though, and my sights are set high.
Nate Voss is a designer, illustrator, talkshow host and design journalist. Working in Omaha since 2001, Nate served four years on the Board of Directors for 
Donovan oversees all creative development at