3 ms·

Apologies, but I disagree with basically everything you're saying here. Branding isn't hard; forcing a constructed brand is hard. That's the real source of fr

Apologies, but I disagree with basically everything you're saying here. Branding isn't hard; forcing a constructed brand is hard. That's the real source of friction here. A brand might be way more than a logo, but THIS brand is not. That logo is literally the only thing this design agency contributed at all. Even the colors were already in use around the project. If the difference between "a brand" and "a logo" is "ten pages of marketspeak" then I'm even less convinced that branding is hard. I read the "brand guide." It's exactly what I expect from a professional design firm: meaningless noise, carefully typeset. The entirety of section 1 is a PR quickref chart, of no interest or use to anyone but project managers dealing with micromanaging executives. Section 2.0 is breathless pseudo-art crap and some trademark defense. 2.1 contains pointless backstory for fonts that are firmly in the "Google already had lying around" category. Finally, the cartoon gets its own section, expressly to head off the whining from the old guard. I've also seen a ton of this crap over the years, and none of it has ever made the slightest bit of difference. This is exactly the kind of time-and-money-wasting that occurs when some facet of management has gone off the rails. Let's hope the derelict in question is somewhere in marketing, and unable to affect the quality of the actual technology in question. As for the actual logo, I don't have an opinion about it. I don't think there's anything there to have an opinion about. I've never been a big fan of the gopher cartoon, but at least it had some character, which likely comes from the talent of a real artist.

wiremine 9y ago
> Branding isn't hard; forcing a constructed brand is hard. That's the real source of friction here. Let's agree to disagree. I've been involved in dozens of branding processes. None of them were easy, from the strategy to the creative to the execution. If the agency did their job, the brand guide _should_ feel obvious. That's how you know it's on brand. <rant>I find this sort of comment very condescending to designers. I'n not a designer, but I've managed them. Good design is hard. Good creative is hard. Good branding is hard. This was excellent work, and if you see "marketspeak" you need to re-evaluate what good creative work looks like.</rant>
- marcus_holmes 9y ago
  Marketspeak is marketspeak because it lacks honesty and authenticity. It's like "artist's statements" that are written so impenetrably that it's impossible for anyone to understand what the artist actually meant to do with the artwork. And that's deliberate, because of where the art world has got now. If the designers of this shitshow were honest in their statement then it'd be "we made it look like this because it was the easiest and simplest method of getting it past the mass of middle-managers who got to veto the creative without contributing any positive ideas themselves. The brief was to be as inoffensive and non-controversial as possible". As another commenter said, Go is brutalist. The gopher never quite suited it. But at least it was fun and original and different. But this... this is shite.
tyrankh 9y ago
> I read the "brand guide." It's exactly what I expect from a professional design firm: meaningless noise, carefully typeset. It's not helping the discussion to disregard an entire profession. Re-read what you wrote; it is _extremely_ heavily biased, angry venting at some corporate construct you've invented. > at least it had some character, which likely comes from the talent of a real artist. This is just mean.
- stonogo 9y ago
  "You don't like it because you just don't know how goshdarn hard it all is" isn't a particularly useful starting point. Some of us do know how hard it can be, and some of us know when it's hard because the people doing the work don't have anything positive to contribute. I am familiar with what I wrote: I wrote it. I'm not biased against anything; my opinions come from direct experience with dozens of design firms over many years. In-house design teams are, for example, a totally different and more positive approach. Every time you farm the job out you get junk, and this example is no exception. I'm baffled as to why this got farmed out at all -- is there no design team within Google qualified to typeset a two-letter logo based on an existing logo? As for being "just mean," to whom am I being mean? The faceless entities who picked six colors and three corporate-approved fonts and then wrote a twenty-page document inventing reasons they did the obvious? Guilty as charged, I guess.

wiremine 9y ago

> Branding isn't hard; forcing a constructed brand is hard. That's the real source of friction here. Let's agree to disagree. I've been involved in dozens of branding processes. None of them were easy, from the strategy to the creative to the execution. If the agency did their job, the brand guide _should_ feel obvious. That's how you know it's on brand. <rant>I find this sort of comment very condescending to designers. I'n not a designer, but I've managed them. Good design is hard. Good creative is hard. Good branding is hard. This was excellent work, and if you see "marketspeak" you need to re-evaluate what good creative work looks like.</rant>

marcus_holmes 9y ago
Marketspeak is marketspeak because it lacks honesty and authenticity. It's like "artist's statements" that are written so impenetrably that it's impossible for anyone to understand what the artist actually meant to do with the artwork. And that's deliberate, because of where the art world has got now. If the designers of this shitshow were honest in their statement then it'd be "we made it look like this because it was the easiest and simplest method of getting it past the mass of middle-managers who got to veto the creative without contributing any positive ideas themselves. The brief was to be as inoffensive and non-controversial as possible". As another commenter said, Go is brutalist. The gopher never quite suited it. But at least it was fun and original and different. But this... this is shite.

tyrankh 9y ago

> I read the "brand guide." It's exactly what I expect from a professional design firm: meaningless noise, carefully typeset. It's not helping the discussion to disregard an entire profession. Re-read what you wrote; it is _extremely_ heavily biased, angry venting at some corporate construct you've invented. > at least it had some character, which likely comes from the talent of a real artist. This is just mean.

stonogo 9y ago
"You don't like it because you just don't know how goshdarn hard it all is" isn't a particularly useful starting point. Some of us do know how hard it can be, and some of us know when it's hard because the people doing the work don't have anything positive to contribute. I am familiar with what I wrote: I wrote it. I'm not biased against anything; my opinions come from direct experience with dozens of design firms over many years. In-house design teams are, for example, a totally different and more positive approach. Every time you farm the job out you get junk, and this example is no exception. I'm baffled as to why this got farmed out at all -- is there no design team within Google qualified to typeset a two-letter logo based on an existing logo? As for being "just mean," to whom am I being mean? The faceless entities who picked six colors and three corporate-approved fonts and then wrote a twenty-page document inventing reasons they did the obvious? Guilty as charged, I guess.