*** From the Archives ***
This article is from December 13, 2012, and is no longer current.
'Tis the Season for New Logos
Earlier this week I posted a story on the radical (and widely panned) rebranding undertaken by the University of California. Here are a couple more recent rebrandings by major corporations for your consideration.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
The historic publisher of Curious George and Lord of the Rings recently ditched its colophon, which had evolved over a century, featuring a horn-blowing boy riding a dolphin.
The logo (like the company) actually traces its roots back to the mid-1800’s when Riverside Press, subsidiary of Houghton Mifflin, first used a colophon with a boy blowing pipes on a river bank.
The new logotype keeps nothing from the historic design. It features three shapes to illustrate ideas of curiosity and discovery, as a triangle morphs into a cone and then a circle.
Comcast
The largest provider of video, Internet, and phone service in the U.S. is also the owner of NBC Universal. To highlight this fact it tossed the red crescent it had used since 1999.
The new logo features NBC peacock over a thin half-rounded sans serif font.
Taken together, the two companies’ efforts offer quite a contrast in approaches to rebranding. Houghton, like the University of California, abandoned long-standing tradition in favor of an entriely new approach. Comcast chose to leverage the power a classic icon (while ditching the letters NBC) and refreshing it with a new font.
What do you think?
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I’m not sure I’m a fan of incorporating NBC’s older logo into an oddly rendered sans font. First, the NBC logo is outdated, initially harkening back to the days when color TV was new (and news!). I also think a bit of navel-gazing is taking place as I don’t know if most consumers know nor care that Comcast now owns NBC. And it seems as though that network comprises a very small piece of the Comcast pie/brand. Tossing the ill-conceived red crescent was wise, but I wonder if this is really the best solution they could have reached. And where does Xfinity come into play? Is it now an offering of the larger brand? I thought it was replacing Comcast completely, but perhaps that’s a regional evolution.
Oohhhh… That explains why Comcast sucks so bad.
Why yes, three random geometric shapes say “curiosity and discovery” to me. You mean it doesn’t for everyone? Sheesh.