For readers who can’t go to Norway, I will offer a stunningly superficial summary:1 Norway Post is the old government-owned postal service that has grown, diversified and expanded across Scandinavia.
2 We all know what happens when a company diversifies and grows – It means the company must abandon an ancient symbol and create a modern, stylized logo.
3 And we know what that provokes! Every excitable critic crawls from under a green eye shade to dump massive disdain on the new logo because it’s so sterile, so obvious, so empty, so meaningless, so artificial and so not created by people we know.
Where would the world of branding be without these logo fights! We’d be stuck in daily drudgery – figuring out what color the shiny paper should be… Or quarreling over whether our font should have serifs of not… Or we would be dazzling a client with a strategy that emphasizes (drum roll) customer advocacy! Much more fun to criticize these red and green thingies that, in all honesty, look like a couple of plastic croissants.
To follow the blow by blow, our friends at Brand New have sponsored a roaring debate at:
http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/norway_blows_its_horn.php
For me – your poor jaded observer of the branding scene – I will buy a bag of popcorn and surf the net for a good, spiteful argument over the new Wal-Mart logo.
brandsinger
4 comments:
Given that so many Pokemon fans are now entering into adulthood, it does seem like an interesting move to capitalize on all those childhood memories.
They just need to pair it with an innovative new slogan, like: "Norway Posten I choose you!!"
;)
No way!
I find it fascinating that there can be so many opinions, than a few weeks later, no one cares...
The design is weak, but due to overwhelming market share people will get exposed to it so much that they just get used to it and move on. The logo for "Posten" probably could have been a croissant and the business wouldn't be affected ;)
Ha! Someone will use a true croissant and win many awards.
Thanks again, Kevin, for bringing this latest logo-dispute to our attention. We all agree that design does matter in human communications -- and there are many professional designers in the brandsinger community who have contributed to our commercial culture. But you've pointed out a fundamental truth -- that exposure over time matters too. Familiarity breeds some exemption from weak design... but only some.
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