A few days ago, we notified you of NBC Univer…ahem…NBCUniversal’s new logo. Well, some time has passed and the design/branding community has reached a rather negative conscience.
Brand New, a blog focusing on corporate identities, gave the new logo a rather positive review. Here’s what the commentators had to say.
David H wrote:
I liked the old logo; it incorporated the identities of the two companies into one decent-looking logo. Both the globe and the peacock were represented, and the globe even looked like a bridge spanning the two companies. This new logo took only the worst of one logo—the Universal text—and ruined even that.
My complaints only focus on the logo itself, as I actually like the typeface elsewhere. I even like NBC UNIVERSAL in the typeface, but NBCUniversal doesn’t look good to me.
Jeremy:
With one mighty wave of the corporate wand committee, NBCU managed to smite every last bit of equity it ever had. Peacock? Poof! Globe lockup? Poof! Steff Geissbuhler and Bruce Mau be damned. What do those guys know, anyway?
Love them or hate them, both of those elements were immediately recognizable symbols loaded with decades of meaning—the kind of meaning that can’t be manufactured by a commissioned typeface. I know this site is called Brand New, but sadly it’s become apparent that most of the corporations here focus solely on the latter with little regard for the former.
Simon:
The old logo wasn’t only messy, it was hard to use. If you’ve seen logos of corporate divisions based on the old logo, you know that they look hideous. The division name was always crammed below the globe, and hardly readable. No wonder “NBC Universal Television Production” became “Universal Media Studios” and abandoned the old logo. The new logo works both as a division logo and as a “mark of approval”.
One should remember that the NBC network is of shrinking importance to NBCUniversal, who have dozens of networks around the world. It shouldn’t define the entire group.
The old corporate logo wasn’t doing the peacock any favors either, cramming into a small space, with lots of distractions around it. The peacock is an iconic logo on its own, or with appropriate type, and we should be glad it is finally free from the NBC Universal cage.
Anyhow, what do you think?
