corporate logo redesign: GAP epic fail, others ... not so much

[Darren Dirt]

http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2010/10/a-look-at-30-other-corporate-logo-redesigns.html

A common trend seems to be "stabilizing" and/or "curvifying" the logos, often with brighter color schemes.

[Tom]

Reminds me, I heard about a logo change Tropicana tried out last year. They went from the orange with a straw in it, to a glass of orange juice, and then back in the span of a few weeks or something. Turns out not only were people upset, but sales plummeted.

[Darren Dirt]

related name change: "Quick Lube" (or was it "Quik Lube") changed to "Q-Lube". Months later, nobody knew what the hell the "Q" stood for, and sales had gone noticeably down. lol.

[Mr. Analog]

Back in the 50s Disney studios decided to try two new things out at once:
-Advertising on Television
-Drawing their classic characters is the new ultra-stylized "UPA" Style

Not only was it horrifying but it actually angered a lot of Disney fans to the point of writing angry letters directly to Walt.

Witness the horror of "Design by Management":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bHGfWfRU_Q

[Darren Dirt]

Witness the horror of "Design by Management":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bHGfWfRU_Q

Amercian Motors, BOAT. I WANT.

[Thorin]

Witness the horror of "Design by Management":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bHGfWfRU_Q

Amercian Motors, BOAT. I WANT.

Compared to other cars of its era and market segment, the Nash was pretty cheap on gas and had some great features that others didn't copy until years later.  For instance, compact, quality, under-hood AC.  At the same time, Nash was working on compact cars guessing rightly that there was going to be a downturn of large cars in the next decade or two.  Too bad they got driven out by the sheer money in Ford and Chevrolet.  Still, Nash and Hudson turned into AMC, and AMC brought us some real interesting four-wheel-drive vehicles (AMC Eagle, for instance).  Oh, and AMC kept the Jeep brand alive and ended up designing the durable 4.0L engine used in many, many Jeeps in the 80s, 90s, and 00s.

[Mr. Analog]

The Nash was supposed to be what the VW Beetle became, a compact car in the era of land-yachts.

Their advertising scheme was supposed to attract people on a budget (i.e. families) by using Disney as an advertiser but the whole thing backfired in a HUGE way (I have a book that discusses the whole debacle in more detail).

Oddly autos like the Nash became very popular in the late 50s during the recession. It paved the way for the VW Beetle and other subcompacts in the early 60s.

[Darren Dirt]

If there is still a "Nash" division of whoever bought out AMC, they should come out with a new model.

Call it the Equilibrium.

re. design, I've got something beautiful in mind.

[Thorin]

The Nash Rambler was a compact, the Nash Ambassador (which avant-garde Mickey was advertising) was a full-size.  In the 60s Nash (well, the Nash-Hudson conglomeration called American Motors) changed its focus to bigger luxury cars and higher power muscle cars.  Nash-Hudson/AMC in the 60s focused on providing more innovation and more things-in-the-car than the Big Three.  Too bad AMC tanked with the Gremlin and the Pacer.

[Darren Dirt]

This thread has totally veered into "now I want to watch Tucker: The Man And His Dream" territory... (by what I remember of the trailer, I am guessing "Tucker" has a similar little-guy-fights-the-Man "vibe" to "The Astronaut Farmer"?)

[Mr. Analog]

There were quite a few auto makers that had a tough time in the 50s most of them it seemed made compacts, like Kaiser-Frazer which went belly up in '55. They came out with some interesting cars like the Henry J. A 4 cylinder engine that gets 25 mpg sounds pretty bad but compare it to say the 1950 (same year) Mercury Monterey which only got 15 mpg, mind you this was back in the day when gas was so cheap competing oil companies would try to entice you to use their product by offering additional services free of charge.

Side note: Tucker is a movie I've wanted to watch for AGES, thanks for reminding me!

Side note 2: As of two days ago 86 years of Pontiac officially ended.

[Thorin]

Tucker is a good movie.  Three headlights, one that swivels when you turn?  We finally saw that in production 50 years later (well, the swiveling, not the third headlight).  Seatbelts?  What, 20 years later?  Pop-out windshields?  10 years later?  Continuously variable transmission?  40 years later?  The guy had some awesome ideas.

Another good movie is Flash of Genius, about the guy who invented the intermittent wiper.

'26 to '10: 84 years of Pontiac.  I have no problems with GM removing all the extra "brands", most Pontiacs are direct copies of Chevy cars anyway.  Remember how many divisions there used to be?  Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, GMC, Cadillac, Oldsmobile, Saturn, Saab, Isuzu, Hummer, Vauxhall, Opel, Daewoo (part-owner), Holden, Asuna, Geo, Lotus.  I'm probably still missing one.  Mind you, some of those were external brands that they bought and turned into divisions.  Still, imagine if they did what the Japanese did - one division for regular cars and trucks, a second division for luxury cars and trucks, and that's it.  Hell, even Ford figured that out and cancelled their Mercury division.

[Mr. Analog]

Call it nostalgia on my part I guess

I'm sure there will be people shedding a tear when certain Japanese model lines come to an end (Civic).

I think that's the prime difference between the auto industries here and in the far East, the big three evolved by gobbling up competitors and turning them into lines/divisions for the last 80 years or so whereas Asian auto makers started out with the concept of different lines/divisions and could organize things in a planned way.

Oh yeah! I've actually been inside a Tucker, they're amazing cars!

[Mr. Analog]

Err, back on topic, this reminds me of a Strong Bad e-mail where he creates a trendy new logo.

I'll link it when I get home.

The sad thing about this is primarily the group-think that surrounds it. There are certain design elements (pointed out earlier) that seem to be a key feature of all these redesigns. From an artistic point of view it is a little frustrating because everything starts to look the same (like cookie cutter architecture that is so prevalent in housing/business development in places like Sherwood Park).

Granted it's all a matter of taste as well, I'd have no complaints if everything started going all "Raygun Gothic"

[Darren Dirt]

Granted it's all a matter of taste as well, I'd have no complaints if everything started going all "Raygun Gothic"

Dammit, now I want to watch "The Rocketeer" again...