22 ms·

Oxford University Press’s new logo is unfathomably bad

281 points by vitabenes 4y ago

christkv 4y ago
Looks like Oprah’s brand logo but in blue and a bit of tat.
themodelplumber 4y ago
It's interesting to see the discussion unfold. I used to do a lot of logo design, some for the replacement of time-honored logos even. Spicy jobs those were, both on pro and con sides! One thing I learned was that new, individual, and fresh leadership psychology often brings new logos into being. Differentials in psychology can't help but expose new perspectives on organizational concepts. And that's what a logo is, a conceptual organization pointing to a new or updated organizational concept! :-) Some of those fresh perspectives are normal elsewhere, but have been ignored in a given organization for so long that they seem prophetic when a leader considers them. And so sometimes even the doomed new logos I saw developed were like prophets sent from on high. They might not have been well-loved, they might not have lasted 5 years, but they meant something, and it was often a big something. In my experience, when the new Director of Whatever deemed that the amazing old woodcut logo had to go, it wasn't usually that this individual hated history and tradition. It was their expression of an obvious need for a new concept. To the outside world, the need for radical change is not always as obvious as it is to even just a small set of insiders, people who have developed what you might call "woodcut PTSD," along with some damn good ideas for how the org needs to change, and soon. So, to me--no opinion on the graphical look, since it's often a red herring in a bunch of ways. But some big "!" interest in the individuals and perspectives behind the scenes, due to the nature of the change. (Also, seeing people redesigning the new logo to much applause is kind of a cringe. Again a big risk here is that they are unwittingly reconnecting a really unhealthy feedback loop, based on assumptions from an outsider's perspective/demand on the organization.)
- logifail 4y ago
  > One thing I learned was that new, individual, and fresh leadership psychology often brings new logos into being Could it be that new leaders feel they have to demonstrate they're in change, and initiating a logo replacement is unfortunately much easier than doing something that is genuinely positive for stakeholders and shareholders?
  - themodelplumber 4y ago
    You mean you think that's the main reason for any given logo change, or one of many possible reasons? While not outside of the realm of possibility, it's actually rare to see that kind of thought process play out in practice of working with businesses & NPOs on their logos. Much more common is that there is a base of support for change from above, outside, and below. Maybe related to the fact that "I changed our logo to suit myself" isn't broadly seen as a masterstroke in objective leadership practice.
    - logifail 4y ago
      > there is a base of support for change from above, outside, and below I'm sorry, I have no idea what that statement actually means. How do you quantify "a base support for change"? Would you ask staff if they'd prefer a pay rise ... or for that money to be spent on a new logo? Would you ask customers if they're prefer improved products ... or a new logo? There is a reason I wrote "initiating a logo replacement". If a new-in-the-job boss pitches up in a meeting and announces "I think our logo is old. I think we need a new, fresh, relevant, inclusive logo", then who do you suppose is going to tell them they're wrong? The yes-crowd of middle managers just nod and agree. And there's your logo replacement process started. No need for data, no need for any actual reasons to do something, just someone new in the neighbourhood marking their patch, like a dog at a lamppost.
- s1mon 4y ago
  Sometimes it's just some new big dog pissing on a tree. [I worked at Pentagram for a while, though not on branding. I have seen plenty of vanity projects from big CEOs.]
  - Nathanael_M 4y ago
    You worked at Pentagram! That was kind of my dream employer for a few years. I'd be super interested to know your role if you can talk about it.
- mturmon 4y ago
  Let’s follow your hint. The CEO of OUP is trying [https://www.thebookseller.com/news/oup-rebrands-it-becomes-digital-first-publisher-1278740 https://www.thebookseller.com/news/oup-rebrands-it-becomes-d...] to effect a transformation to digital distribution and digital “tools and resources” which I assume means going beyond digital versions of books and journals. So yeah, the coat-of-arms/bookplate format of the old logo is not where he’s headed. Absent from the OP is consideration of the new logo on its own terms. I get an O for Oxford, the turning pages, and hint of a Möbius strip. It works for me. On the other hand, the translation of the Latin on the old motto is “the Lord is my light,” paired with the crowns invoking royal fiat. Traditional, yes, but… Another signal in the new logo may be a declaration of independence from the University of Oxford itself, because the old logo was just the University’s coat of arms.
tokai 4y ago
Another ring logo. Its hilarious how many low effort logos, with a ring, graphic designers fool people into accepting.
- vehemenz 4y ago
  To be fair, "Oxford" begins with "O", and, as far as contemporary/flat ring logos go, this is one of the better examples I've seen. It is an attractive logo, even if the ethos of the previous logo is lost.
  - helsinkiandrew 4y ago
    It reminds me of the Burrs from my Rancilio Rocky Coffee Grinder: https://www.google.com/search?q=rancilio+rocky+grinder+burrs&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwil4tO_8qP7AhXGmYsKHRWyDBAQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=rancilio+rocky+grinder+burrs&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzIHCAAQgAQQGDoECCMQJ1DJAljJAmCuEmgAcAB4AIABXogBtwGSAQEymAEAoAEBqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWfAAQE&sclient=img&ei=GRRtY-XxKcazrgSV5LKAAQ&bih=986&biw=1800 https://www.google.com/search?q=rancilio+rocky+grinder+burrs...
  - themodelplumber 4y ago
    Also a ring == a circle, and organizations are looking to circular-philosophy holistic changes as a broad change since roughly the start of the century. Circles are _the_ graphical element/symbol of holistic energy with few others coming close. Generally when I see a move to a circular logo in a new design brief it's a sign that the organization perceives that it must quickly heal from damage/protect itself from danger and put some aspects of the past behind. It is usually attempting to build capacity for a new direction as well. IMO this is usually not a fully conscious decision by the team. "This is the world we live in"
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      That honestly all sounds like mumbo jumbo.
      - 4y ago
frakt0x90 4y ago
Who cares? It says Oxford University Press which is the important part. The little image above it is just fluff and literally doesn't matter. I certainly wouldn't call it 'unfathomably bad' considering it's not a child's drawing or a some obscene gesture.
- Apofis 4y ago
  I can't open a logo generating website and not get that as a result. It's trash.
- hackeraccount 4y ago
  It's probably good for a few seconds of confusion on the part of people who see the logo and don't recognize it because it looks like a zillion other logos and has no continuity with the old logo. So no big deal. Although. There is Steve Jobs line. Where's he's trying to get engineers on the original Mac to eek out just a slight faster boot. We're going to sell 100 million of these things, can you make it boot 25 seconds faster? If you do that will save cumulatively 90 years worth of time. That's a human life. Can you save a human life! I mean it's dumb and maybe funny but a minor annoyance over a long enough time and enough people could be worth complaining about.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > Who cares? It says Oxford University Press which is the important part. The little image above it is just fluff and literally doesn't matter. I certainly wouldn't call it 'unfathomably bad' considering it's not a child's drawing or a some obscene gesture. It's modernist, minimalist crap, indistinguishable from all the other modernist, minimalist crap. Everyone might as well rebrand as solid-color circle distinguished by a numerically unique RGB value. Their old logo was much better, since it harkens back to a literal coat of arms, which isn't something you see every day.
  - pvg 4y ago
    which isn't something you see every day. Undoubtedly influenced by Oxford and Cambridge but it's a design style adopted by so many universities it's practically generic for 'some sort of university thing logo'. I don't have strong feelings about the new logo either way but the idea the old one is some distinctive masterpiece seems misplaced.
taeric 4y ago
> That iconic beauty and excellence was the province of rich white dudes—and can only be expanded by lowering our standards. And what a load of horseshit that is. This feels like a stretch. And almost breaks what little interest I have here. :( Also, why do folks always impart way more significance to logo/label than makes sense? I can get the desire to want to change. That is natural. The idea that all changes matter is silly, though. Especially to the degree this one will be talked about. Probably less vitriol and energy is put into the literal buildings of the institute.
- KMag 4y ago
  > Also, why do folks always impart way more significance to logo/label than makes sense? I'm not sure we can imply importance from the volume of communication; perhaps the opposite. After colors and names, logos/icons are probably the third easiest thing to bikeshed.
  - taeric 4y ago
    Fair. I just also view it as one of the easiest things to just accept and move on from. Especially since it would be relatively easy to just change again later. In fact, I would fully support any organization I'm in having a change most every year. I do appreciate the connection to the past and something old that many get from it. That said, it is easy to metaphorically make that connection by acknowledging what came before. The control and autonomy that you give to the next generations feels way more important.
- prox 4y ago
  If you are a dev, than you probably miss the extend of in which branding can have an effect. Sure, from some practical viewpoint nothing changes. But consider a logo part of a language, a culture, a visual statement. In design, it’s what we do In this case Oxford Press changed an iconic statement with a stupid generic say-nothing that could be a tire or a bagel company. Think of it like a banner of an army. You don’t want stand behind a banner that says “I am with stupid” It’s hard to convey to non design folk, but design does have an impact, even if it doesn’t bring world peace, it’s culturally significant.
shove 4y ago
There's some fine (not great, just ... acceptable) ideas in the new logo, but it's pretty sloppy for an institution of this stature. A few things I could point to that are probably subjective, but objectively the kerning desperately needs attention.
- CharlesW 4y ago
  The kerning doesn't look terrible to me. The exception that stands out is the whitespace between the OX and XF pairs, which is optically a bit unbalanced.
cpcallen 4y ago
I am trying to to think of a single rebrand / new logo / new icon that I actually liked at the time—that didn't seem to signal a degradation in the integrity, quality or trustworthiness of the entity represented. (There are some cases where the new brand has grown on me, to the point that I have come to prefer it to the old one. The most recent examples I can think of are the 1999 rebrand of Northern Electric as Nortel Networks—I do still love that globemark!—and the 2015 sans-serif Google logo which has become so ubiquitous as to make the previous serif version look weirdly quaint. But I liked neither of those at the time they were unveiled.) Am I just a stick in the mud? Can you point out some rebrands that have been so wildly popular that I might begrudgingly admit that I actually liked them?
- taeric 4y ago
  I'm trying to think of a rebrand that I truly hated and that led to actual decline in something. I... can't. There are plenty that I confess I don't like. But I would be struggling to put any actual significance to a label. The new street fighter one, as an example. I agree that it feels off that they are ditching the styling that they have used for literal decades. That said, I fail to see how that is at all important to the success/failure of the game they are building. The MIT Press had an amusing amount of thought that went into their logo. But... I would wager the vast majority of folks just don't see it. Reminds me of that parody pepsi logo document. (At least, I think it was a parody?)
  - Null-Set 4y ago
    As far as I know it was real, but Lemon Demon's take on it is some classic parody. https://youtu.be/fu3ETgAvQrw https://youtu.be/fu3ETgAvQrw
  - cpcallen 4y ago
    > I'm trying to think of a rebrand that I truly hated and that led to actual decline in something. I'm not claiming that a bad rebrand spells doom for the entity (though I guess there are probably examples of that)—only that I can think of few rebrands where the new brand _made me more positively disposed towards the entity in question_. And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one; consider this list of brand U-turns: https://www.yourprojector.com/rebranding-u-turns/ https://www.yourprojector.com/rebranding-u-turns/ The last one is particularly hilarious, because I attended the University of Waterloo in the late 1990s when they rebranded from a crest even older than the one shown as "original". In fact, that older crest looked just like the "final" crest. I'm glad they've finally brought it back; pity it took more than a decade to rectify the error. > Reminds me of that parody pepsi logo document. (At least, I think it was a parody?) No, I'm pretty sure that was actually real. At least if it was a parody, even CBS fell for it: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pepsis-nonsensical-logo-redesign-document-1-million-for-this/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pepsis-nonsensical-logo-redesig...
elijaht 4y ago
I found the Met's rebrand interesting to consider. I am on the younger side/moved to New York recently. Without knowing the history of the Met logo I have always found the (new) logo fairly iconic- the stickers visitors wear, and the various paraphernalia with the logo look good to me. I find it clean and sharp. I think I actually prefer it to the old logo (which I do not remember seeing before today)
- elliottkember 4y ago
  I like it because it adapted its image to its nickname. "The Metropolitan Museum of Art" is the museum's full name - embracing "The Met" formally is a nice, humanizing touch.
  - FredPret 4y ago
    As a tourist, I prefer the full name. I never knew what "the Met" was until know. It clearly stands for Metropolitan. But Metropolitan what? Police? Works? The full name is much more accessible and less intimidating.
    - bee_rider 4y ago
      Sounds like a local nickname for a train line to me.
    - pastor_bob 4y ago
      It's interesting because there also are The Mets. So you have the Met and the Mets, but nobody familiar with both would ever think of the other when hearing either.
      - GauntletWizard 4y ago
        That would make for a great fundraising gala. The Mets at The Met
        bradknowles 4y ago
virtualritz 4y ago
The curious but unsurprising[1] bit is that the typography, too, was replaced with a mundane and unrecognizable typeface. [1] https://velvetshark.com/articles/why-do-brands-change-their-logos-and-look-like-everyone-else https://velvetshark.com/articles/why-do-brands-change-their-... Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32040506 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32040506
sega_sai 4y ago
I don't like it as it seems to remind me of the James Bond intro. But it seems most (or at least a large fraction) of people don't really like rebrands. So it probably doesn't really matter (unless unreasonable amount of money was spent on rebranding).
- civilized 4y ago
  Even then it still doesn't matter. Anyone who spends an unreasonable amount of money on rebranding probably has a far more unreasonable amount of money remaining afterwards.
  - sega_sai 4y ago
    In this case I kinda care if too much money was spent on rebranding, because OUP publishes science books and journals, so I don't really want pay extra of page charges for that...
  - Ma8ee 4y ago
    My interpreter is that they lack any good ideas for real change.
andsoitis 4y ago
A big advantage of the new logo is that it can also serve as a recognizable (in time) letter mark, without needing to write out “Oxford University Press”. Whereas with the previous logo that’s not possible.
- tigeroil 4y ago
  Indeed. I can also see their new logo scaling a lot better. The new logo would become fairly unrecognisable, especially at smaller sizes. I'm a bit mixed about them moving to a sans-serif font, even as someone who usually prefers them, as I find for printed word serif can look rather wonderful but it's hardly the baddest of sins.
initself 4y ago
The removal of a hallmark symbol of tradition is anathema.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- petesergeant 4y ago
  What exactly has been lost here? Neither the city nor the university is wanting for pedigree
- pessimizer 4y ago
  Icons should be smashed whenever they're noticed. The worship of images is blasphemous.
  - Minor49er 4y ago
    There is no difference between recognition and worship?
stinkytaco 4y ago
It feels underwhelming to me, but unfathomably bad? This writer seems to fathom it quite extensively.
seydor 4y ago
So they went the facebook/Burberry style. But what is that distracting cycle above the carefully crafted sans serif all caps?
dghlsakjg 4y ago
I assume this logo is going on the spines of books. This means that you are taking a recognizable easy to spot image that says: 'this book is vetted and serious, trust it like you trust us', and replacing it with a logo that is less recognizable (and by my prediction won't be around in 100 years). For anyone who browses shelves this will, in fact, reduce utility. It's a small thing, but it is worth considering.
- zach_garwood 4y ago
  It will look like a little butthole at the bottom of the spine of a book.
  - yamazakiwi 4y ago
    Perfect for grabbing attention
- some_random 4y ago
  For what it's worth, my only Oxford University Press published book just has "Oxford" written on the spine, no logo.
323 4y ago
The new logo is awful, but nobody really cares.
low_tech_punk 4y ago
Was James Bond involved?
karencarits 4y ago
As the saying goes: If you marry the spirit of your generation, you will be a widower in the next
mauvehaus 4y ago
Ooh, ooh. I have one to share! The infamous "Case" Fat Man With a Surfboard logo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_Western_Reserve_University#Case_Western_Reserve_University_(1967%E2%80%93present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_Western_Reserve_Universit... Is it as bad as the Met's new logo? Probably not. Is it pretty objectionable, and universally maligned? Yeah, definitely. Anybody else got one to share for our shared schadenfreude?
- lelandfe 4y ago
  > Fat Man With a Surfboard Wow, this took me a second but now it’s the only thing I can see. The 2020 MLB spring training hat logos were universally hated, but the Padres had a notably bad one: https://www.crossingbroad.com/2020/02/padres-changing-spring-training-caps-after-swastika-comparisons.html https://www.crossingbroad.com/2020/02/padres-changing-spring...
  - artificial 4y ago
    It's a good luck charm.
- finnh 4y ago
  Serious Pie, in Seattle: https://www.seriouspieseattle.com/ https://www.seriouspieseattle.com/ scroll down until you see the man with his penis on fire. It's on all their signs.
  - peatmoss 4y ago
    Wow, I can’t unsee this now. I guess I can thank you for some regular humor in my life as I go walking now.
  - systemicdanna 4y ago
    I don't even understand what was supposed to be the intended interpretation. A man holding a tiny pizza on fire?
  - toast0 4y ago
kabdib 4y ago
I remember when SGI (Silicon Graphics) paid a bunch of money to rebrand to . . . drumroll . . . SGI! The consultants must have been high-fiving each other after that one landed, it's like trading in your car only to find that the saleswoman has sold you your own car back, at a profit. (SGI later collapsed due to "Corporate Campus Syndrome", and other companies, including Google, now occupy the wacky buildings they spent even more money on. It's kind of like a higher order of hermit crab).
- jonathanyc 4y ago
  TIL Google occupies SGI's former headquarters. A college professor mentioned working for SGI, so I knew they existed and had importance, but I didn't realize their business had collapsed.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
    The workstation market got undercut by the improving performance of intel PCs with accelerators from companies like 3D Labs. There's plenty you could criticize SGI management for, but all the unix workstation vendors ended up getting pushed out by that in the end. SGI continued on for a bit selling supercomputers, as they had some multiprocessor interconnect technology that was good for its time. But that got spun out as SGI died, and is now the Cray division of HP. It's sad what happened to them, as in their prime they really were a category of their own.
    - kabdib 4y ago
      SGI had some seriously cool tech that they could charge a premium for, then $300 3D graphics cards for PCs came out and ate their lunch (around the time that Windows NT was basically destroying the Unix workstation market). I remember sneaking over to their cafeteria, from the Landings office park across the street (where I did stints at some startups). They didn't bother to check badges. I met up with a bunch of old cow-orkers from Apple and just kind of hemmed and hawed when they asked what group I was in. :-) But the lessons are clear: Watch your competitors carefully, and don't build a stupid corporate campus because the gods simply hate that kind of hubris.
arketyp 4y ago
Going all secular feels a bit passé, but granted that move, and the move of renewal, the Möbius strip hits the marks.
lost_tourist 4y ago
That's awful for a university, it would have been fine for a standard corporate logo, but do you want your university press to look corporate?
DontchaKnowit 4y ago
I find it so fascinating using that people actually care about shit like this. Like when I saw the logo I had literally 0 thoughts about it. Whatever. It's a logo. Who cares. But then here's a guy who feels compelled to write a whole article about it and a thread full of people discussing it. Blows my mind. Not to demean anyone like it's cool that this matters to people I just cannot even remotely understand it.
- harlequinn77 4y ago
  But thats the point right? Why pay £100k for something that doesn’t matter?
  - DontchaKnowit 4y ago
    fair enough. Fun story, I worked at (unnamed fortune 500 company) a while back, and they paid a consulting company something like 10 million to evaluate and suggest changes to the company's job titles. Not the actual jobs. Just the titles. So I went from : associate (generic engineer role) to (generic engineer role) I. Brilliant.
- modriano 4y ago
  I remember thinking this way when I was in undergrad. I wrote off branding, advertising, and marketing in general, naively thinking I understood those things because I didn't buy most products I saw in ads. I wasn't self-aware enough to recognize that, when in bookstores, I would gravitate to books with the "MIT Press" name or modernist logo, or the O'Reilly branding, or Harvard's Veritas shield. I'm sure there are books I only thumbed through because of some visual signal (besides the title) that made me feel "that university has probably been around for a while, so they've probably figured out how to deliver what the title promises". Extremely generic logos don't offer distinction, and it's a bad idea for a strong brand to not clearly signal that brand in their products and marketing, especially in fields where there are many competitors (ie elite higher education).
- cafard 4y ago
  If I am in a bookstore, the chances are that NYRB Classics volumes will catch my eye (if the store has them). The series has brought back into print a number of worthwhile books that were hard to find, it has come up with some excellent items that weren't previously out there (that I know--I'm thinking of The Jeffersonian Transformation). The logo is a small part of the "trade dress" (if I have the term right), but the trade dress of a good publisher is an asset.
bearmode 4y ago
I always love reading the angry rants from people who get angry about any change in an organisation's branding. Every single time. Absolutely every time there's a logo change, you can see the hoard of pointless blog posts coming over the hill. And they always fail to understand what actually happens in design, what it's actually for.
- wnoise 4y ago
  Well, why don't you explain what actually happens in design, and what it's actually for?
ape4 4y ago
They should have simplified the old logo - for continuity.
andybak 4y ago
First reaction upon seeing it - I quite like it. I haven't considered context or reputation or brand continuity - but the article seems to be claiming it's intrinsically bad and that feels like hyperbole.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
I don't particularly like the new logo, but nor do I particularly rate the old one. Brands update every so often, I'm not sure we need to take every bit of waffle they generate as part of the PR push seriously.
protonbob 4y ago
Nice looks like they took God (Dominus) out for literally no reason and replaced it with a generic swirl. Even from a historical perspective this makes no sense.
uxcolumbo 4y ago
Why the redesign? What problem does this new logo solve? Isn't there anything better designers or PMs can spend their time and money on? The old logo projects quality, heritage and looking at the symbol it resembles more of a library. The new logo - doesn't fit the image of Oxford and looks like any other 'modern' Dribbble logo. This is another case of redesigning for the sake of redesigning or to stroke someone's ego. EDIT: the old logo belonged to a family of logos. Check the Oxford Uni logo. The new logo doesn't fit that theme anymore.
- xwdv 4y ago
  Logos are always about ego, that’s the point. I don’t know why people expect anything else. If you’re truly egoless, you don’t need a logo.
- taeric 4y ago
  Why not? What "problem" did the old logo solve? False dichotomy? Does it? The old logo looked like any number of older logos. Lace around book with latin in it. Not bad, certainly. But "projecting quality?" I don't actually know what the image of Oxford would be. I suppose you could echo back to my "any number of older logos?" I oddly agree with this. But... I also don't see it as a problem?
blululu 4y ago
This is a bit hyperbolic. It's really not that bad of a rebrand. Brands are important. People care about them. They need to be updated with the times. Perhaps the author would care to show some alternative modernizations to illustrate a better way to do it.
- oytis 4y ago
  The implicit assumption here is that modernisation was required or inevitable which isn't obvious.
  - blululu 4y ago
    Implicit? It is explicitly stated. Brand are a big part of marketing your product to your customers. Brands need to be kept up to date because the styles and tastes of your customers change. Things get old. New display/printing technologies enable and require new design patterns. Your customers start to expect different things over time. People stop noticing your brand if it feels like you aren’t keeping up with the last 20 years of fashion. You need to move constantly just to stay the same point.
- TheFreim 4y ago
  > They need to be updated with the times. Why?
- Maursault 4y ago
  The author says nothing about why the new logo is bad and the old one good. Frankly, objectively speaking, the new logo is much better from a design perspective whether the author likes it or not. A logo needs to be original, readily identifiable, and easily reproducible on any substrate. The old logo does not meet any of these standards, while the new logo does. The same can be said for the old Met logo. The newer Met logo is unmistakable and more easily reproduced anywhere. Author is obviously not a graphic designer or at least not one that was educated in design principles.
  - boppo1 4y ago
yamtaddle 4y ago
Why is it that Japanese wave painting and/or an ouroboros and/or a tire turned half inside-out? Yikes, the old one was so iconic. New one's actually not terrible per se, but it's a huge step down in this case.
- yamazakiwi 4y ago
  It was and is in fact iconic
zeristor 4y ago
How relevant is having a Psalm as a motto? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominus_illuminatio_mea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominus_illuminatio_mea
- JasonFruit 4y ago
  Relevant to what? Things aren't relevant in isolation. We're talking about the logo of an historic institution, part of an institution with an even deeper history, the sort of place where you might expect a person chosen at random to be able to understand that motto.
  - yamazakiwi 4y ago
    Relevant to the common alive person. I'll be that person chosen at random; I don't understand the motto. How is it relevant to a school? Good riddance.
    - JasonFruit 4y ago
      Maybe you aren't relevant to Oxford University Press — very seriously, no insult meant. You're not the audience, and whether you understand it is not their concern.
      - yamazakiwi 4y ago
        That is likely, but you're alluding you know who the audience is when you don't. I'm correct in assuming you don't work for Oxford. I obviously lied and said I didn't understand to entertain the conversation that I was confused by the use of a psalm. If I'm honest, I mostly just find it archaic, which is maybe appropriate for a school as old as Oxford. Why do you personally think they removed it? Bad Design?
pcurve 4y ago
As far as rebrand is concerned, this one is actually good. The new icon is clever. I think they could've kept the serif font. The new type isn't doing it for me. The Met museum logo is brilliant. I've been going to that museum for 30 years, so there was emotional attachment to the old one. I like them both.
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  While I don't think it's as big of a crime as this article makes it out to be (and I personally prefer the look of sans-serif fonts), I still don't see what's "clever" about the logo - it seems like a generic O with an unpleasant proportion of full vs striped portions. The striped portion can be take to look sort of like the pages of a book being flipped, but only if you know the context - otherwise the first thought would be tire marks or perhaps a keyboard.
  - pcurve 4y ago
    "The striped portion can be take to look sort of like the pages of a book being flipped, but only if you know the context - otherwise the first thought would be tire marks or perhaps a keyboard." I could be reading into the logo, but I think it's clever because the logo could be interpreted many different ways: 1. "O" for Oxford. 2. The striped portion is paper flipping, as you pointed out. 3. The round O evokes old mechanical paper press / publishing machine, machines, so it has connection to the word "Press" in the Oxford University Press. The stripes also create movement / motion.
spywaregorilla 4y ago
I have no stake in this race but I think it looks pretty good
tonmoy 4y ago
The whole article feels like profanity filled, nostalgia driven passionate drivel void of any actual analysis. As someone who was not familiar with either of the logos before today, I don’t think the new one is “shite” compared to the old one
- Nathanael_M 4y ago
  I think there are valid points against it to make. Interest, uniqueness, memorability all suffer with this new logo. They're throwing away an established brand with a lot of associations for people, but obviously they considered that and deemed it worth it. I think one of the worst things about is that it's already aesthetically dated, and, because it has nothing really unique or interesting or stylistic about it, it won't age well. But it's not worth a crusade over. I find it interesting how emotionally attached people (myself included) are to brands, sometimes. A bad rebrand (or even a clever, but sufficiently different rebrand) can feel a bit like cutting down a big old tree in your yard. Why are you getting rid of something so old and beautiful? There are some good reasons, but it still hurts.
matthewmacleod 4y ago
Imagine complaining about the design while having a fucking jittery user-hostile popover spam wall fading out and covering your content. Also the logo is completely fine, as is the example of the Met.
tfsh 4y ago
I profoundly dislike the new logo as it erodes an ever diminishing bygone-era of graphic design. Traditional cyphers, monograms and other iconography are time-bound to the pre-20th century (n < 1901). In recent years I've noticed an acute shift to brutalism, minimalism and a loss of individuality in all facets of life. One needs to look no further than something as mundane as bollards, forgive me for my tangent but consider these two examples, one from the 19th century [1] and another from the 20th [2]. Granted this is not a scientific or thorough analysis, it is surely riddled with bias, but there is an unmistable trend towards not just forgetting, but neglecting our history of design and ornamentation. Not everything needs to be redesigned, not everything needs a modern sans-serif font. Oxford University is the worlds foremost academic institute; founded in 1096; the Press founded in 1586! The previous logo represented this ancient authority and acts as a vessel to a far-away land in this present day. This type of craftsmanship can not be created anew for they are not of this time, the juxtaposition of such symbolism paired with a modern institute would be nothing less of disingenuous. Therefore we must - for the good of history - preserve these works. 1: https://assets.londonist.com/uploads/2022/06/i875/guard_post.jpg https://assets.londonist.com/uploads/2022/06/i875/guard_post... 2: https://kentstainless1.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/stainless-steel-bollard-main-image-KFTB101.jpg https://kentstainless1.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/...
- pannSun 4y ago
  Is it really 'neglect', when ornamentation is deliberately attacked and avoided [1,2]? When this [3] is what modern architecture thinks a church should look like? They'll give excuses that it's due to cost cutting, then build things like [4] when funding isn't an issue. Not that we should be surprised by lies - all war is waged by deception. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornament_and_Crime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornament_and_Crime [2] https://theculturetrip.com/europe/articles/ornament-is-crime-celebrates-the-best-modernist-architecture-in-the-world/ https://theculturetrip.com/europe/articles/ornament-is-crime... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Wilhelm_Memorial_Church#New_church https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Wilhelm_Memorial_Church... - The initial design included the demolition of the spire of the old church but following pressure from the public, it was decided to incorporate it into the new design. [4] https://www.format.com/magazine/galleries/design/best-contemporary-art-gallery-buildings https://www.format.com/magazine/galleries/design/best-contem...
duxup 4y ago
Some local sports teams have tried sort of minimalist new logos and jerseys. They end up looking like generic jerseys you get from some small town screen printer for your rec league. After every other team already made their choice…. I don’t understand the desire to drain all the character out of things. My cynical side says these are just resume fodder for executives/ comities.
dr_dshiv 4y ago
The Louvre’s logo is my favorite: a cleverly disguised Pythagorean Tetractys.
throw7 4y ago
Ah. A $2 million dollar virtue signal. Well, I hope they like their new anal sphincter logo.
AlbertCory 4y ago
It's probably a sign of the times that I looked at the new one and thought, "OK, in the context of modern logos, it's not that bad." However, comparisons to ANY other logo are meaningless. The Met has been around for 150 years. They need to keep getting donations from younger generations, and they want people to come and visit. OUP is not going anywhere. It's 500+ years old. It sells scholarly books and its financial picture is probably as secure as it's ever been. It didn't need a rebrand.
irrational 4y ago
Wow. I own a number of Oxford university press books. I always really liked the old logo. Very distinguished. The new logo really does look stupid.
systemicdanna 4y ago
An unpopular opinion: there are too many other logos that look like the original logo. Some amalgamation of Latin words and a coat of arms. It's also pretty unattractive visually (weird thickness exterior curves, all caps words with hyphens). First impression of the new logo: boring. Second impression: nice play on an open book and capital O, very clean lines, will look good in print (perhaps with some light gradient/shading). The new typeface reads very well.
- mikkergp 4y ago
  I imagine the new logo looks more appropriate on a book about computer science or theoretical physics.
- kybernetikos 4y ago
  I like the stairs feel to the new logo, which I think fits with a University Press's mission rather nicely.
- Godel_unicode 4y ago
  The new logo is borderline painfully boring, this trend is going to end in there being one logo for everything, and that logo will be a single circle. Clean, minimal, elegant, and capable of instantly putting anyone who sees it to sleep. It’s pretty amusing that this is on the front page at the same time as the below. https://medium.com/knowable/why-everything-looks-the-same-bad80133dd6e https://medium.com/knowable/why-everything-looks-the-same-ba...
  - systemicdanna 4y ago
    That's were we started: all logos were coats of arms. And then all logos were something else. These are design trends.
    - Godel_unicode 4y ago
      That’s not true. While there have been fads in the past that some logos adhered to, the history of insignia is overflowing with what we would today call logos that were not coats of arms.
heywherelogingo 4y ago
In keeping with Oxford's preferences, the new one does look more woke than the old one.
petesergeant 4y ago
> It is worse, though, when such a logo replaces a world-class symbol of scholarly excellence. A maxim I remember from business school: a brand is a promise of a repeatable experience. Imagine thinking any part of Oxford’s notability came from its butt-ugly coat of arms
CGamesPlay 4y ago
> using a flat, ugly logo to signal “changing times,” let alone inclusivity? That iconic beauty and excellence was the province of rich white dudes—and can only be expanded by lowering our standards. Should have been the thesis statement.
jayant_kaushik 4y ago
The new logo reminds me of the Anaconda logo (https://anaconda.org/ https://anaconda.org/). The old logo was so much better, it displayed historical significance of the institution, it’s legacy, and the basic fact that it is related to education. The font had its own charm too. There was absolutely no need to change it. Wasteful expenditure of donations money.
WoahNoun 4y ago
It looks like a mobius strip. Not sure if that is intentional. I don't hate it.
whyleyc 4y ago
To avoid the hostile pop-over on the linked page: https://archive.ph/MhJGP https://archive.ph/MhJGP
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webwielder2 4y ago
Every rebranding ever has been lambasted by armchair design critics.
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Cupertino95014 4y ago
A logo change, like mergers, divestments, and reorgs, are one of the few things where the C-suite can feel important. It gives them something to do, issue a press release about, and give interviews to the BBC. Unlike those other things, it's hard to prove it was a mistake. Maybe over time, sales fall off and prestigious authors migrate to other publishers, but if you approved the new logo, you can find a hundred other things to blame for that.
kazinator 4y ago
It looks like something for a telco. Someone peeled the skin off a 3D model of the AT&T death star, and origamied it into a coffin wreath.
onetimeusename 4y ago
It looks like the old logo came from the University of Oxford's coat of arms[1] which has an ancient origin. The previous logo looks like it essentially tried to reproduce the coat of arms. I don't know why it's assumed that having a minimalist logo means you are more capable of moving into the digital era if you read the press release about it. That is strange reasoning. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_the_University_of_Oxford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_the_University...
Sunspark 4y ago
The new logo is actually quite good for a property management firm.
SergeAx 4y ago
> a brand is a promise of a repeatable experience Oh, really? I thought the promise of repeatable experience is user rating stars nearby, totally controlled by an online marketplace, by the way. /s
etempleton 4y ago
I feel like we are going to look back at logos from this time period and wonder what was going on and why everyone ceased to enjoy nice things. I understand why graphic design has taken this direction. Everything needs to be able to scale to the tiniest little profile icon on websites, but it doesn’t make it much better. I also think a lot more graphic designers these days lack a more traditional art background and so you don’t see the same amount of artistic flourishes.
- blackhaz 4y ago
  Add Royal Astronomical Society logo redesign to the collection: https://www.creativebloq.com/news/royal-astronomical-society-new-logo https://www.creativebloq.com/news/royal-astronomical-society... Because every damn hipster with a custom mechanical keyboard who can install Photoshop on his Mac is now suddenly a Designer. This is beyond appalling. These people must be beaten very hard with metal poles.
  - chrstphrknwtn 4y ago
    The Royal Astronomical Society seems like a pretty good example of the opposite. The old logo was, well old, very forgettable and not particularly well constructed in the first place. The new logo presents the society as a modern scientific institution, and the logo itself is executed well. And the animation actually works, a rare example where logo animation is not gratuitous.
    - layer8 4y ago
      The new logo looks like an anime-typical eye with reflecting highlight.
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    That RAS logo is beautiful, stylish, intricate, and quite recognizable - especially with its clever use of telescopes as rays and of the empty spaces to remind one of celestial bodies. I have no idea why you think it's comparable to the simplistic unintelligible symbolism of the new OUP one.
DubiousPusher 4y ago
I don't know. I think you could make the argument that the only thing missing from the old logo was a pineapple. I mean it's not the most egregious examples of pictographic stuffiness but it definitely has that pre graphic design kitchen sink vibe.
vpribish 4y ago
did no one point out that the new logo is looking down a rifled gun barrel - hardly a visual metaphor for education. Maybe they were trying to connect with the globally revered UK institution of James Bond?
- phnofive 4y ago
  Yeah, after I saw that I couldn't unsee how it looks like a partially masked illustration of rifling. Money well spent.
jdlyga 4y ago
None of the new logos on this page are necessarily bad.
kesava 4y ago
Another example of "everything looks the same".
lo_zamoyski 4y ago
"That iconic beauty and excellence was the province of rich white dudes—and can only be expanded by lowering our standards." That's egalitarianism for you.
flenserboy 4y ago
Yet another example of designers not being happy until they've rooted out the work of other designers.
inChargeOfIT 4y ago
A camera shutter? Are they getting into photography?
nbzso 4y ago
There is no logic in the madness.
kwhitefoot 4y ago
Even if one accepts the general idea of the design the execution seems very poor. The letter spacing seems very odd to me; there should be a little less space between the O and the X.
fergie 4y ago
I quite like it. It has a progressive feeling that reminds me of the Open University, and harks back to the idealistic expansion of British higher education in the ‘60s.
ARandomerDude 4y ago
Oh good, now they're easily visually distinguished from Raytheon [1], Frost Bank [2], and the other turbofan logo companies. [1] https://www.rtx.com/ https://www.rtx.com/ [2] https://www.frostbank.com/ https://www.frostbank.com/
- Eduard 4y ago
  A further entry in the turbofan logo category: https://www.hertie.de/ https://www.hertie.de/
  - AnonymousPlanet 4y ago
    I had completely forgotten about that logo. Shows how old the turbofan motif is really. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertie_Waren-_und_Kaufhaus#/media/Datei:Hertie_sonne.svg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertie_Waren-_und_Kaufhaus#/me...
przemub 4y ago
Do you really need a sans-serif font here? The old font looks like something you could see in an academic book, especially so that a similar one is used for printing in the UK. The new one looks like for... anything and therefore nothing.
deleted 4y ago
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snowwrestler 4y ago
> “Try to be brutally honest with yourself: is the goal actual innovation? Or is really to appear innovative?” I have asked these questions of many senior executives now, assuring them I am not being glib This type of reaction eats itself. If you're a person who prioritizes "actual innovation," why are you spending so much time complaining about a fucking logo redesign? > explaining that these objectives are often in fundamental opposition to one another. No, they're not. Is Apple innovative? Is Google? Both examples of companies who have demonstrated tremendous amount of investment in design updates over the years. Heck, they even created custom fonts for their blog posts. I totally understand and appreciate design critiques. Aesthetic opinions are valuable in and of themselves. I even happen to agree with the author that the new Oxford Press logo is worse than their old one. But I have to jump off the wagon when this sort of exaggeration shows up.
- birksherty 4y ago
  > If you're a person who prioritizes "actual innovation," why are you spending so much time complaining about a fucking logo redesign Because that logo redesign does not produce any actual innovation. > Heck, they even created custom fonts for their blog posts. These companies have lots of money, lots of managers, lots of designers. Those people would have nothing to do if they don't rebrand, create new fonts etc. They can't just sit idle in office and take salary. If those fonts were not made, nothing would have changed right now, the company would not have any less progress in any way. People also do these to have something big on their resume, to get promotion. This is what lots of humans do now, bullshit jobs even though there are much bigger problems to fix in the world.
Dig1t 4y ago
>signal commitments to (1) digital transformation and (2) diversity & inclusion Just another victim of the ongoing cultural revolution we are living through.
- uni_rule 4y ago
  What of those platitudes makes you feel victimized?
  - Dig1t 4y ago
    I do not personally feel victimized, the shitty logo is the victim. The point is that a redesign wasn't necessary, it was a good logo with a long and interesting history. But it was redone to signal that they are falling in line with the prevailing ideology of the day.
    - systemicdanna 4y ago
      My guess is that there are many reasons to redesign a logo like that. It looks: 1. Elitist (who speaks Latin?) 2. Forgettable (show this logo to a student from India and then ask to pick it out of 10 similar coats of arms) 3. Ugly (subjective, but... thick curves everywhere, all caps words with hyphens, 3 crowns?..) 4. Hard to adapt to new global use cases (too detailed to make small, too confusing internationally) 5. many more reasons...
      - Dig1t 4y ago
        Those are indeed valid reasons, but they literally stated exactly why they changed it: "to signal commitments to (1) digital transformation and (2) diversity & inclusion". That quote comes directly from the people who changed the logo themselves.
        systemicdanna 4y ago
        The sensitivities of the modern world require careful phrasing. My guess would be that "diversity & inclusion" means things like it's too elitist, hard to grok to people in new global markets, and the "digital transformation" bit means that it's too hard to resize and too hard to reuse in different context (e.g. the new logo could zoom in on screen and act as a portal into a virtual experience, the old logo is very cumbersome).
booleandilemma 4y ago
I hope it doesn't take us too much longer to swing back to the trend of having detailed, interesting logos again. There's more to logos than making sure they look good as a favicon.
- systemicdanna 4y ago
  Yes, any time now... Right after we swing back to composing pompous classical music and eating fowl dishes out of gold encrusted bowls.
nullc 4y ago
It's a toilet?
Krisjohn 4y ago
If they want to appear modern and inclusive, why does it look like the inside of a gun barrel from the opening sequence of a Bond film?
hodgesrm 4y ago
This is so sad. The motto "Dominus Illuminatio Mea" (The Lord is my light) on the logo is beautiful. It's on dozens of books in my house.
wilg 4y ago
There should be a mandatory 30-day waiting period for complaining about redesigns.
rozab 4y ago
Looks like a fake corporate logo on a crate in a bad triple-A sci-fi game.
cafard 4y ago
Last night, I had a look at my shelves. Several hardbacks had the old logo. However, four volumes of poetry--Jonson, Byron, Bunting, and Tomlinson--have only the word OXFORD across the bottom of the spine. Several paperbacks have a capital O with stylized crowns on the four sides, pointing out. One, from a "Galaxy" series has a black disks with a white band circling it, off-center and tilted. And books from the Oxford World Classics series just have OXFORD running down the spine.
FrontierPsych 4y ago
I'm not sure why everyone is all about the logo. I'm looking at the story and see the second reason to change it as: (2) diversity & inclusion Everything is all about diversity & inclusion, especially in academia, but at all levels of Western culture. Nothing else is important. Don't like the logo? So what, it's not about that. The only thing that is important is to get rid of all vestiges of Western culture, that's the point. If it means a bland meaningless thing that doesn't mean anything, good enough. But might as well get rid of the name "Oxford" as this is part of the whole Western culture, and just change the name to "The Big O". Works perfectly with the new logo, too.

281 points by vitabenes 4y ago

Looks like Oprah’s brand logo but in blue and a bit of tat.

It's interesting to see the discussion unfold. I used to do a lot of logo design, some for the replacement of time-honored logos even. Spicy jobs those were, both on pro and con sides! One thing I learned was that new, individual, and fresh leadership psychology often brings new logos into being. Differentials in psychology can't help but expose new perspectives on organizational concepts. And that's what a logo is, a conceptual organization pointing to a new or updated organizational concept! :-) Some of those fresh perspectives are normal elsewhere, but have been ignored in a given organization for so long that they seem prophetic when a leader considers them. And so sometimes even the doomed new logos I saw developed were like prophets sent from on high. They might not have been well-loved, they might not have lasted 5 years, but they meant something, and it was often a big something. In my experience, when the new Director of Whatever deemed that the amazing old woodcut logo had to go, it wasn't usually that this individual hated history and tradition. It was their expression of an obvious need for a new concept. To the outside world, the need for radical change is not always as obvious as it is to even just a small set of insiders, people who have developed what you might call "woodcut PTSD," along with some damn good ideas for how the org needs to change, and soon. So, to me--no opinion on the graphical look, since it's often a red herring in a bunch of ways. But some big "!" interest in the individuals and perspectives behind the scenes, due to the nature of the change. (Also, seeing people redesigning the new logo to much applause is kind of a cringe. Again a big risk here is that they are unwittingly reconnecting a really unhealthy feedback loop, based on assumptions from an outsider's perspective/demand on the organization.)

logifail 4y ago
> One thing I learned was that new, individual, and fresh leadership psychology often brings new logos into being Could it be that new leaders feel they have to demonstrate they're in change, and initiating a logo replacement is unfortunately much easier than doing something that is genuinely positive for stakeholders and shareholders?
- themodelplumber 4y ago
  You mean you think that's the main reason for any given logo change, or one of many possible reasons? While not outside of the realm of possibility, it's actually rare to see that kind of thought process play out in practice of working with businesses & NPOs on their logos. Much more common is that there is a base of support for change from above, outside, and below. Maybe related to the fact that "I changed our logo to suit myself" isn't broadly seen as a masterstroke in objective leadership practice.
  - logifail 4y ago
    > there is a base of support for change from above, outside, and below I'm sorry, I have no idea what that statement actually means. How do you quantify "a base support for change"? Would you ask staff if they'd prefer a pay rise ... or for that money to be spent on a new logo? Would you ask customers if they're prefer improved products ... or a new logo? There is a reason I wrote "initiating a logo replacement". If a new-in-the-job boss pitches up in a meeting and announces "I think our logo is old. I think we need a new, fresh, relevant, inclusive logo", then who do you suppose is going to tell them they're wrong? The yes-crowd of middle managers just nod and agree. And there's your logo replacement process started. No need for data, no need for any actual reasons to do something, just someone new in the neighbourhood marking their patch, like a dog at a lamppost.
s1mon 4y ago
Sometimes it's just some new big dog pissing on a tree. [I worked at Pentagram for a while, though not on branding. I have seen plenty of vanity projects from big CEOs.]
- Nathanael_M 4y ago
  You worked at Pentagram! That was kind of my dream employer for a few years. I'd be super interested to know your role if you can talk about it.
mturmon 4y ago
Let’s follow your hint. The CEO of OUP is trying [https://www.thebookseller.com/news/oup-rebrands-it-becomes-digital-first-publisher-1278740 https://www.thebookseller.com/news/oup-rebrands-it-becomes-d...] to effect a transformation to digital distribution and digital “tools and resources” which I assume means going beyond digital versions of books and journals. So yeah, the coat-of-arms/bookplate format of the old logo is not where he’s headed. Absent from the OP is consideration of the new logo on its own terms. I get an O for Oxford, the turning pages, and hint of a Möbius strip. It works for me. On the other hand, the translation of the Latin on the old motto is “the Lord is my light,” paired with the crowns invoking royal fiat. Traditional, yes, but… Another signal in the new logo may be a declaration of independence from the University of Oxford itself, because the old logo was just the University’s coat of arms.

tokai 4y ago

Another ring logo. Its hilarious how many low effort logos, with a ring, graphic designers fool people into accepting.

vehemenz 4y ago
To be fair, "Oxford" begins with "O", and, as far as contemporary/flat ring logos go, this is one of the better examples I've seen. It is an attractive logo, even if the ethos of the previous logo is lost.
- helsinkiandrew 4y ago
  It reminds me of the Burrs from my Rancilio Rocky Coffee Grinder: https://www.google.com/search?q=rancilio+rocky+grinder+burrs&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwil4tO_8qP7AhXGmYsKHRWyDBAQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=rancilio+rocky+grinder+burrs&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzIHCAAQgAQQGDoECCMQJ1DJAljJAmCuEmgAcAB4AIABXogBtwGSAQEymAEAoAEBqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWfAAQE&sclient=img&ei=GRRtY-XxKcazrgSV5LKAAQ&bih=986&biw=1800 https://www.google.com/search?q=rancilio+rocky+grinder+burrs...
- themodelplumber 4y ago
  Also a ring == a circle, and organizations are looking to circular-philosophy holistic changes as a broad change since roughly the start of the century. Circles are _the_ graphical element/symbol of holistic energy with few others coming close. Generally when I see a move to a circular logo in a new design brief it's a sign that the organization perceives that it must quickly heal from damage/protect itself from danger and put some aspects of the past behind. It is usually attempting to build capacity for a new direction as well. IMO this is usually not a fully conscious decision by the team. "This is the world we live in"
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    That honestly all sounds like mumbo jumbo.
    - 4y ago

frakt0x90 4y ago

Who cares? It says Oxford University Press which is the important part. The little image above it is just fluff and literally doesn't matter. I certainly wouldn't call it 'unfathomably bad' considering it's not a child's drawing or a some obscene gesture.

Apofis 4y ago
I can't open a logo generating website and not get that as a result. It's trash.
hackeraccount 4y ago
It's probably good for a few seconds of confusion on the part of people who see the logo and don't recognize it because it looks like a zillion other logos and has no continuity with the old logo. So no big deal. Although. There is Steve Jobs line. Where's he's trying to get engineers on the original Mac to eek out just a slight faster boot. We're going to sell 100 million of these things, can you make it boot 25 seconds faster? If you do that will save cumulatively 90 years worth of time. That's a human life. Can you save a human life! I mean it's dumb and maybe funny but a minor annoyance over a long enough time and enough people could be worth complaining about.
tablespoon 4y ago
> Who cares? It says Oxford University Press which is the important part. The little image above it is just fluff and literally doesn't matter. I certainly wouldn't call it 'unfathomably bad' considering it's not a child's drawing or a some obscene gesture. It's modernist, minimalist crap, indistinguishable from all the other modernist, minimalist crap. Everyone might as well rebrand as solid-color circle distinguished by a numerically unique RGB value. Their old logo was much better, since it harkens back to a literal coat of arms, which isn't something you see every day.
- pvg 4y ago
  which isn't something you see every day. Undoubtedly influenced by Oxford and Cambridge but it's a design style adopted by so many universities it's practically generic for 'some sort of university thing logo'. I don't have strong feelings about the new logo either way but the idea the old one is some distinctive masterpiece seems misplaced.

taeric 4y ago

> That iconic beauty and excellence was the province of rich white dudes—and can only be expanded by lowering our standards. And what a load of horseshit that is. This feels like a stretch. And almost breaks what little interest I have here. :( Also, why do folks always impart way more significance to logo/label than makes sense? I can get the desire to want to change. That is natural. The idea that all changes matter is silly, though. Especially to the degree this one will be talked about. Probably less vitriol and energy is put into the literal buildings of the institute.

KMag 4y ago
> Also, why do folks always impart way more significance to logo/label than makes sense? I'm not sure we can imply importance from the volume of communication; perhaps the opposite. After colors and names, logos/icons are probably the third easiest thing to bikeshed.
- taeric 4y ago
  Fair. I just also view it as one of the easiest things to just accept and move on from. Especially since it would be relatively easy to just change again later. In fact, I would fully support any organization I'm in having a change most every year. I do appreciate the connection to the past and something old that many get from it. That said, it is easy to metaphorically make that connection by acknowledging what came before. The control and autonomy that you give to the next generations feels way more important.
prox 4y ago
If you are a dev, than you probably miss the extend of in which branding can have an effect. Sure, from some practical viewpoint nothing changes. But consider a logo part of a language, a culture, a visual statement. In design, it’s what we do In this case Oxford Press changed an iconic statement with a stupid generic say-nothing that could be a tire or a bagel company. Think of it like a banner of an army. You don’t want stand behind a banner that says “I am with stupid” It’s hard to convey to non design folk, but design does have an impact, even if it doesn’t bring world peace, it’s culturally significant.

shove 4y ago

There's some fine (not great, just ... acceptable) ideas in the new logo, but it's pretty sloppy for an institution of this stature. A few things I could point to that are probably subjective, but objectively the kerning desperately needs attention.

CharlesW 4y ago
The kerning doesn't look terrible to me. The exception that stands out is the whitespace between the OX and XF pairs, which is optically a bit unbalanced.

cpcallen 4y ago

I am trying to to think of a single rebrand / new logo / new icon that I actually liked at the time—that didn't seem to signal a degradation in the integrity, quality or trustworthiness of the entity represented. (There are some cases where the new brand has grown on me, to the point that I have come to prefer it to the old one. The most recent examples I can think of are the 1999 rebrand of Northern Electric as Nortel Networks—I do still love that globemark!—and the 2015 sans-serif Google logo which has become so ubiquitous as to make the previous serif version look weirdly quaint. But I liked neither of those at the time they were unveiled.) Am I just a stick in the mud? Can you point out some rebrands that have been so wildly popular that I might begrudgingly admit that I actually liked them?

taeric 4y ago
I'm trying to think of a rebrand that I truly hated and that led to actual decline in something. I... can't. There are plenty that I confess I don't like. But I would be struggling to put any actual significance to a label. The new street fighter one, as an example. I agree that it feels off that they are ditching the styling that they have used for literal decades. That said, I fail to see how that is at all important to the success/failure of the game they are building. The MIT Press had an amusing amount of thought that went into their logo. But... I would wager the vast majority of folks just don't see it. Reminds me of that parody pepsi logo document. (At least, I think it was a parody?)
- Null-Set 4y ago
  As far as I know it was real, but Lemon Demon's take on it is some classic parody. https://youtu.be/fu3ETgAvQrw https://youtu.be/fu3ETgAvQrw
- cpcallen 4y ago
  > I'm trying to think of a rebrand that I truly hated and that led to actual decline in something. I'm not claiming that a bad rebrand spells doom for the entity (though I guess there are probably examples of that)—only that I can think of few rebrands where the new brand _made me more positively disposed towards the entity in question_. And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one; consider this list of brand U-turns: https://www.yourprojector.com/rebranding-u-turns/ https://www.yourprojector.com/rebranding-u-turns/ The last one is particularly hilarious, because I attended the University of Waterloo in the late 1990s when they rebranded from a crest even older than the one shown as "original". In fact, that older crest looked just like the "final" crest. I'm glad they've finally brought it back; pity it took more than a decade to rectify the error. > Reminds me of that parody pepsi logo document. (At least, I think it was a parody?) No, I'm pretty sure that was actually real. At least if it was a parody, even CBS fell for it: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pepsis-nonsensical-logo-redesign-document-1-million-for-this/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pepsis-nonsensical-logo-redesig...

elijaht 4y ago

I found the Met's rebrand interesting to consider. I am on the younger side/moved to New York recently. Without knowing the history of the Met logo I have always found the (new) logo fairly iconic- the stickers visitors wear, and the various paraphernalia with the logo look good to me. I find it clean and sharp. I think I actually prefer it to the old logo (which I do not remember seeing before today)

elliottkember 4y ago
I like it because it adapted its image to its nickname. "The Metropolitan Museum of Art" is the museum's full name - embracing "The Met" formally is a nice, humanizing touch.
- FredPret 4y ago
  As a tourist, I prefer the full name. I never knew what "the Met" was until know. It clearly stands for Metropolitan. But Metropolitan what? Police? Works? The full name is much more accessible and less intimidating.
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    Sounds like a local nickname for a train line to me.
  - pastor_bob 4y ago
    It's interesting because there also are The Mets. So you have the Met and the Mets, but nobody familiar with both would ever think of the other when hearing either.
    - GauntletWizard 4y ago
      That would make for a great fundraising gala. The Mets at The Met
      - bradknowles 4y ago

virtualritz 4y ago

The curious but unsurprising[1] bit is that the typography, too, was replaced with a mundane and unrecognizable typeface. [1] https://velvetshark.com/articles/why-do-brands-change-their-logos-and-look-like-everyone-else https://velvetshark.com/articles/why-do-brands-change-their-... Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32040506 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32040506

sega_sai 4y ago

I don't like it as it seems to remind me of the James Bond intro. But it seems most (or at least a large fraction) of people don't really like rebrands. So it probably doesn't really matter (unless unreasonable amount of money was spent on rebranding).

civilized 4y ago
Even then it still doesn't matter. Anyone who spends an unreasonable amount of money on rebranding probably has a far more unreasonable amount of money remaining afterwards.
- sega_sai 4y ago
  In this case I kinda care if too much money was spent on rebranding, because OUP publishes science books and journals, so I don't really want pay extra of page charges for that...
- Ma8ee 4y ago
  My interpreter is that they lack any good ideas for real change.

andsoitis 4y ago

A big advantage of the new logo is that it can also serve as a recognizable (in time) letter mark, without needing to write out “Oxford University Press”. Whereas with the previous logo that’s not possible.

tigeroil 4y ago
Indeed. I can also see their new logo scaling a lot better. The new logo would become fairly unrecognisable, especially at smaller sizes. I'm a bit mixed about them moving to a sans-serif font, even as someone who usually prefers them, as I find for printed word serif can look rather wonderful but it's hardly the baddest of sins.

initself 4y ago

The removal of a hallmark symbol of tradition is anathema.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
petesergeant 4y ago
What exactly has been lost here? Neither the city nor the university is wanting for pedigree
pessimizer 4y ago
Icons should be smashed whenever they're noticed. The worship of images is blasphemous.
- Minor49er 4y ago
  There is no difference between recognition and worship?

stinkytaco 4y ago

It feels underwhelming to me, but unfathomably bad? This writer seems to fathom it quite extensively.

seydor 4y ago

So they went the facebook/Burberry style. But what is that distracting cycle above the carefully crafted sans serif all caps?

dghlsakjg 4y ago

I assume this logo is going on the spines of books. This means that you are taking a recognizable easy to spot image that says: 'this book is vetted and serious, trust it like you trust us', and replacing it with a logo that is less recognizable (and by my prediction won't be around in 100 years). For anyone who browses shelves this will, in fact, reduce utility. It's a small thing, but it is worth considering.

zach_garwood 4y ago
It will look like a little butthole at the bottom of the spine of a book.
- yamazakiwi 4y ago
  Perfect for grabbing attention
some_random 4y ago
For what it's worth, my only Oxford University Press published book just has "Oxford" written on the spine, no logo.

323 4y ago

The new logo is awful, but nobody really cares.

low_tech_punk 4y ago

Was James Bond involved?

karencarits 4y ago

As the saying goes: If you marry the spirit of your generation, you will be a widower in the next

mauvehaus 4y ago

Ooh, ooh. I have one to share! The infamous "Case" Fat Man With a Surfboard logo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_Western_Reserve_University#Case_Western_Reserve_University_(1967%E2%80%93present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_Western_Reserve_Universit... Is it as bad as the Met's new logo? Probably not. Is it pretty objectionable, and universally maligned? Yeah, definitely. Anybody else got one to share for our shared schadenfreude?

lelandfe 4y ago
> Fat Man With a Surfboard Wow, this took me a second but now it’s the only thing I can see. The 2020 MLB spring training hat logos were universally hated, but the Padres had a notably bad one: https://www.crossingbroad.com/2020/02/padres-changing-spring-training-caps-after-swastika-comparisons.html https://www.crossingbroad.com/2020/02/padres-changing-spring...
- artificial 4y ago
  It's a good luck charm.
finnh 4y ago
Serious Pie, in Seattle: https://www.seriouspieseattle.com/ https://www.seriouspieseattle.com/ scroll down until you see the man with his penis on fire. It's on all their signs.
- peatmoss 4y ago
  Wow, I can’t unsee this now. I guess I can thank you for some regular humor in my life as I go walking now.
- systemicdanna 4y ago
  I don't even understand what was supposed to be the intended interpretation. A man holding a tiny pizza on fire?
- toast0 4y ago

kabdib 4y ago

I remember when SGI (Silicon Graphics) paid a bunch of money to rebrand to . . . drumroll . . . SGI! The consultants must have been high-fiving each other after that one landed, it's like trading in your car only to find that the saleswoman has sold you your own car back, at a profit. (SGI later collapsed due to "Corporate Campus Syndrome", and other companies, including Google, now occupy the wacky buildings they spent even more money on. It's kind of like a higher order of hermit crab).

jonathanyc 4y ago
TIL Google occupies SGI's former headquarters. A college professor mentioned working for SGI, so I knew they existed and had importance, but I didn't realize their business had collapsed.
- jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
  The workstation market got undercut by the improving performance of intel PCs with accelerators from companies like 3D Labs. There's plenty you could criticize SGI management for, but all the unix workstation vendors ended up getting pushed out by that in the end. SGI continued on for a bit selling supercomputers, as they had some multiprocessor interconnect technology that was good for its time. But that got spun out as SGI died, and is now the Cray division of HP. It's sad what happened to them, as in their prime they really were a category of their own.
  - kabdib 4y ago
    SGI had some seriously cool tech that they could charge a premium for, then $300 3D graphics cards for PCs came out and ate their lunch (around the time that Windows NT was basically destroying the Unix workstation market). I remember sneaking over to their cafeteria, from the Landings office park across the street (where I did stints at some startups). They didn't bother to check badges. I met up with a bunch of old cow-orkers from Apple and just kind of hemmed and hawed when they asked what group I was in. :-) But the lessons are clear: Watch your competitors carefully, and don't build a stupid corporate campus because the gods simply hate that kind of hubris.

arketyp 4y ago

Going all secular feels a bit passé, but granted that move, and the move of renewal, the Möbius strip hits the marks.

lost_tourist 4y ago

That's awful for a university, it would have been fine for a standard corporate logo, but do you want your university press to look corporate?

DontchaKnowit 4y ago

I find it so fascinating using that people actually care about shit like this. Like when I saw the logo I had literally 0 thoughts about it. Whatever. It's a logo. Who cares. But then here's a guy who feels compelled to write a whole article about it and a thread full of people discussing it. Blows my mind. Not to demean anyone like it's cool that this matters to people I just cannot even remotely understand it.

harlequinn77 4y ago
But thats the point right? Why pay £100k for something that doesn’t matter?
- DontchaKnowit 4y ago
  fair enough. Fun story, I worked at (unnamed fortune 500 company) a while back, and they paid a consulting company something like 10 million to evaluate and suggest changes to the company's job titles. Not the actual jobs. Just the titles. So I went from : associate (generic engineer role) to (generic engineer role) I. Brilliant.
modriano 4y ago
I remember thinking this way when I was in undergrad. I wrote off branding, advertising, and marketing in general, naively thinking I understood those things because I didn't buy most products I saw in ads. I wasn't self-aware enough to recognize that, when in bookstores, I would gravitate to books with the "MIT Press" name or modernist logo, or the O'Reilly branding, or Harvard's Veritas shield. I'm sure there are books I only thumbed through because of some visual signal (besides the title) that made me feel "that university has probably been around for a while, so they've probably figured out how to deliver what the title promises". Extremely generic logos don't offer distinction, and it's a bad idea for a strong brand to not clearly signal that brand in their products and marketing, especially in fields where there are many competitors (ie elite higher education).
cafard 4y ago
If I am in a bookstore, the chances are that NYRB Classics volumes will catch my eye (if the store has them). The series has brought back into print a number of worthwhile books that were hard to find, it has come up with some excellent items that weren't previously out there (that I know--I'm thinking of The Jeffersonian Transformation). The logo is a small part of the "trade dress" (if I have the term right), but the trade dress of a good publisher is an asset.

bearmode 4y ago

I always love reading the angry rants from people who get angry about any change in an organisation's branding. Every single time. Absolutely every time there's a logo change, you can see the hoard of pointless blog posts coming over the hill. And they always fail to understand what actually happens in design, what it's actually for.

wnoise 4y ago
Well, why don't you explain what actually happens in design, and what it's actually for?

ape4 4y ago

They should have simplified the old logo - for continuity.

andybak 4y ago

First reaction upon seeing it - I quite like it. I haven't considered context or reputation or brand continuity - but the article seems to be claiming it's intrinsically bad and that feels like hyperbole.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

I don't particularly like the new logo, but nor do I particularly rate the old one. Brands update every so often, I'm not sure we need to take every bit of waffle they generate as part of the PR push seriously.

protonbob 4y ago

Nice looks like they took God (Dominus) out for literally no reason and replaced it with a generic swirl. Even from a historical perspective this makes no sense.

uxcolumbo 4y ago

Why the redesign? What problem does this new logo solve? Isn't there anything better designers or PMs can spend their time and money on? The old logo projects quality, heritage and looking at the symbol it resembles more of a library. The new logo - doesn't fit the image of Oxford and looks like any other 'modern' Dribbble logo. This is another case of redesigning for the sake of redesigning or to stroke someone's ego. EDIT: the old logo belonged to a family of logos. Check the Oxford Uni logo. The new logo doesn't fit that theme anymore.

xwdv 4y ago
Logos are always about ego, that’s the point. I don’t know why people expect anything else. If you’re truly egoless, you don’t need a logo.
taeric 4y ago
Why not? What "problem" did the old logo solve? False dichotomy? Does it? The old logo looked like any number of older logos. Lace around book with latin in it. Not bad, certainly. But "projecting quality?" I don't actually know what the image of Oxford would be. I suppose you could echo back to my "any number of older logos?" I oddly agree with this. But... I also don't see it as a problem?

blululu 4y ago

This is a bit hyperbolic. It's really not that bad of a rebrand. Brands are important. People care about them. They need to be updated with the times. Perhaps the author would care to show some alternative modernizations to illustrate a better way to do it.

oytis 4y ago
The implicit assumption here is that modernisation was required or inevitable which isn't obvious.
- blululu 4y ago
  Implicit? It is explicitly stated. Brand are a big part of marketing your product to your customers. Brands need to be kept up to date because the styles and tastes of your customers change. Things get old. New display/printing technologies enable and require new design patterns. Your customers start to expect different things over time. People stop noticing your brand if it feels like you aren’t keeping up with the last 20 years of fashion. You need to move constantly just to stay the same point.
TheFreim 4y ago
> They need to be updated with the times. Why?
Maursault 4y ago
The author says nothing about why the new logo is bad and the old one good. Frankly, objectively speaking, the new logo is much better from a design perspective whether the author likes it or not. A logo needs to be original, readily identifiable, and easily reproducible on any substrate. The old logo does not meet any of these standards, while the new logo does. The same can be said for the old Met logo. The newer Met logo is unmistakable and more easily reproduced anywhere. Author is obviously not a graphic designer or at least not one that was educated in design principles.
- boppo1 4y ago

yamtaddle 4y ago

Why is it that Japanese wave painting and/or an ouroboros and/or a tire turned half inside-out? Yikes, the old one was so iconic. New one's actually not terrible per se, but it's a huge step down in this case.

yamazakiwi 4y ago
It was and is in fact iconic

zeristor 4y ago

How relevant is having a Psalm as a motto? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominus_illuminatio_mea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominus_illuminatio_mea

JasonFruit 4y ago
Relevant to what? Things aren't relevant in isolation. We're talking about the logo of an historic institution, part of an institution with an even deeper history, the sort of place where you might expect a person chosen at random to be able to understand that motto.
- yamazakiwi 4y ago
  Relevant to the common alive person. I'll be that person chosen at random; I don't understand the motto. How is it relevant to a school? Good riddance.
  - JasonFruit 4y ago
    Maybe you aren't relevant to Oxford University Press — very seriously, no insult meant. You're not the audience, and whether you understand it is not their concern.
    - yamazakiwi 4y ago
      That is likely, but you're alluding you know who the audience is when you don't. I'm correct in assuming you don't work for Oxford. I obviously lied and said I didn't understand to entertain the conversation that I was confused by the use of a psalm. If I'm honest, I mostly just find it archaic, which is maybe appropriate for a school as old as Oxford. Why do you personally think they removed it? Bad Design?

pcurve 4y ago

As far as rebrand is concerned, this one is actually good. The new icon is clever. I think they could've kept the serif font. The new type isn't doing it for me. The Met museum logo is brilliant. I've been going to that museum for 30 years, so there was emotional attachment to the old one. I like them both.

tsimionescu 4y ago
While I don't think it's as big of a crime as this article makes it out to be (and I personally prefer the look of sans-serif fonts), I still don't see what's "clever" about the logo - it seems like a generic O with an unpleasant proportion of full vs striped portions. The striped portion can be take to look sort of like the pages of a book being flipped, but only if you know the context - otherwise the first thought would be tire marks or perhaps a keyboard.
- pcurve 4y ago
  "The striped portion can be take to look sort of like the pages of a book being flipped, but only if you know the context - otherwise the first thought would be tire marks or perhaps a keyboard." I could be reading into the logo, but I think it's clever because the logo could be interpreted many different ways: 1. "O" for Oxford. 2. The striped portion is paper flipping, as you pointed out. 3. The round O evokes old mechanical paper press / publishing machine, machines, so it has connection to the word "Press" in the Oxford University Press. The stripes also create movement / motion.

spywaregorilla 4y ago

I have no stake in this race but I think it looks pretty good

tonmoy 4y ago

The whole article feels like profanity filled, nostalgia driven passionate drivel void of any actual analysis. As someone who was not familiar with either of the logos before today, I don’t think the new one is “shite” compared to the old one

Nathanael_M 4y ago
I think there are valid points against it to make. Interest, uniqueness, memorability all suffer with this new logo. They're throwing away an established brand with a lot of associations for people, but obviously they considered that and deemed it worth it. I think one of the worst things about is that it's already aesthetically dated, and, because it has nothing really unique or interesting or stylistic about it, it won't age well. But it's not worth a crusade over. I find it interesting how emotionally attached people (myself included) are to brands, sometimes. A bad rebrand (or even a clever, but sufficiently different rebrand) can feel a bit like cutting down a big old tree in your yard. Why are you getting rid of something so old and beautiful? There are some good reasons, but it still hurts.

matthewmacleod 4y ago

Imagine complaining about the design while having a fucking jittery user-hostile popover spam wall fading out and covering your content. Also the logo is completely fine, as is the example of the Met.

tfsh 4y ago

I profoundly dislike the new logo as it erodes an ever diminishing bygone-era of graphic design. Traditional cyphers, monograms and other iconography are time-bound to the pre-20th century (n < 1901). In recent years I've noticed an acute shift to brutalism, minimalism and a loss of individuality in all facets of life. One needs to look no further than something as mundane as bollards, forgive me for my tangent but consider these two examples, one from the 19th century [1] and another from the 20th [2]. Granted this is not a scientific or thorough analysis, it is surely riddled with bias, but there is an unmistable trend towards not just forgetting, but neglecting our history of design and ornamentation. Not everything needs to be redesigned, not everything needs a modern sans-serif font. Oxford University is the worlds foremost academic institute; founded in 1096; the Press founded in 1586! The previous logo represented this ancient authority and acts as a vessel to a far-away land in this present day. This type of craftsmanship can not be created anew for they are not of this time, the juxtaposition of such symbolism paired with a modern institute would be nothing less of disingenuous. Therefore we must - for the good of history - preserve these works. 1: https://assets.londonist.com/uploads/2022/06/i875/guard_post.jpg https://assets.londonist.com/uploads/2022/06/i875/guard_post... 2: https://kentstainless1.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/stainless-steel-bollard-main-image-KFTB101.jpg https://kentstainless1.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/...

pannSun 4y ago
Is it really 'neglect', when ornamentation is deliberately attacked and avoided [1,2]? When this [3] is what modern architecture thinks a church should look like? They'll give excuses that it's due to cost cutting, then build things like [4] when funding isn't an issue. Not that we should be surprised by lies - all war is waged by deception. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornament_and_Crime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornament_and_Crime [2] https://theculturetrip.com/europe/articles/ornament-is-crime-celebrates-the-best-modernist-architecture-in-the-world/ https://theculturetrip.com/europe/articles/ornament-is-crime... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Wilhelm_Memorial_Church#New_church https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Wilhelm_Memorial_Church... - The initial design included the demolition of the spire of the old church but following pressure from the public, it was decided to incorporate it into the new design. [4] https://www.format.com/magazine/galleries/design/best-contemporary-art-gallery-buildings https://www.format.com/magazine/galleries/design/best-contem...

duxup 4y ago

Some local sports teams have tried sort of minimalist new logos and jerseys. They end up looking like generic jerseys you get from some small town screen printer for your rec league. After every other team already made their choice…. I don’t understand the desire to drain all the character out of things. My cynical side says these are just resume fodder for executives/ comities.

dr_dshiv 4y ago

The Louvre’s logo is my favorite: a cleverly disguised Pythagorean Tetractys.

throw7 4y ago

Ah. A $2 million dollar virtue signal. Well, I hope they like their new anal sphincter logo.

AlbertCory 4y ago

It's probably a sign of the times that I looked at the new one and thought, "OK, in the context of modern logos, it's not that bad." However, comparisons to ANY other logo are meaningless. The Met has been around for 150 years. They need to keep getting donations from younger generations, and they want people to come and visit. OUP is not going anywhere. It's 500+ years old. It sells scholarly books and its financial picture is probably as secure as it's ever been. It didn't need a rebrand.

irrational 4y ago

Wow. I own a number of Oxford university press books. I always really liked the old logo. Very distinguished. The new logo really does look stupid.

systemicdanna 4y ago

An unpopular opinion: there are too many other logos that look like the original logo. Some amalgamation of Latin words and a coat of arms. It's also pretty unattractive visually (weird thickness exterior curves, all caps words with hyphens). First impression of the new logo: boring. Second impression: nice play on an open book and capital O, very clean lines, will look good in print (perhaps with some light gradient/shading). The new typeface reads very well.

mikkergp 4y ago
I imagine the new logo looks more appropriate on a book about computer science or theoretical physics.
kybernetikos 4y ago
I like the stairs feel to the new logo, which I think fits with a University Press's mission rather nicely.
Godel_unicode 4y ago
The new logo is borderline painfully boring, this trend is going to end in there being one logo for everything, and that logo will be a single circle. Clean, minimal, elegant, and capable of instantly putting anyone who sees it to sleep. It’s pretty amusing that this is on the front page at the same time as the below. https://medium.com/knowable/why-everything-looks-the-same-bad80133dd6e https://medium.com/knowable/why-everything-looks-the-same-ba...
- systemicdanna 4y ago
  That's were we started: all logos were coats of arms. And then all logos were something else. These are design trends.
  - Godel_unicode 4y ago
    That’s not true. While there have been fads in the past that some logos adhered to, the history of insignia is overflowing with what we would today call logos that were not coats of arms.

heywherelogingo 4y ago

In keeping with Oxford's preferences, the new one does look more woke than the old one.

petesergeant 4y ago

> It is worse, though, when such a logo replaces a world-class symbol of scholarly excellence. A maxim I remember from business school: a brand is a promise of a repeatable experience. Imagine thinking any part of Oxford’s notability came from its butt-ugly coat of arms

CGamesPlay 4y ago

> using a flat, ugly logo to signal “changing times,” let alone inclusivity? That iconic beauty and excellence was the province of rich white dudes—and can only be expanded by lowering our standards. Should have been the thesis statement.

jayant_kaushik 4y ago

The new logo reminds me of the Anaconda logo (https://anaconda.org/ https://anaconda.org/). The old logo was so much better, it displayed historical significance of the institution, it’s legacy, and the basic fact that it is related to education. The font had its own charm too. There was absolutely no need to change it. Wasteful expenditure of donations money.

WoahNoun 4y ago

It looks like a mobius strip. Not sure if that is intentional. I don't hate it.

whyleyc 4y ago

To avoid the hostile pop-over on the linked page: https://archive.ph/MhJGP https://archive.ph/MhJGP

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

webwielder2 4y ago

Every rebranding ever has been lambasted by armchair design critics.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Cupertino95014 4y ago

A logo change, like mergers, divestments, and reorgs, are one of the few things where the C-suite can feel important. It gives them something to do, issue a press release about, and give interviews to the BBC. Unlike those other things, it's hard to prove it was a mistake. Maybe over time, sales fall off and prestigious authors migrate to other publishers, but if you approved the new logo, you can find a hundred other things to blame for that.

kazinator 4y ago

It looks like something for a telco. Someone peeled the skin off a 3D model of the AT&T death star, and origamied it into a coffin wreath.

onetimeusename 4y ago

It looks like the old logo came from the University of Oxford's coat of arms[1] which has an ancient origin. The previous logo looks like it essentially tried to reproduce the coat of arms. I don't know why it's assumed that having a minimalist logo means you are more capable of moving into the digital era if you read the press release about it. That is strange reasoning. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_the_University_of_Oxford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_the_University...

Sunspark 4y ago

The new logo is actually quite good for a property management firm.

SergeAx 4y ago

> a brand is a promise of a repeatable experience Oh, really? I thought the promise of repeatable experience is user rating stars nearby, totally controlled by an online marketplace, by the way. /s

etempleton 4y ago

I feel like we are going to look back at logos from this time period and wonder what was going on and why everyone ceased to enjoy nice things. I understand why graphic design has taken this direction. Everything needs to be able to scale to the tiniest little profile icon on websites, but it doesn’t make it much better. I also think a lot more graphic designers these days lack a more traditional art background and so you don’t see the same amount of artistic flourishes.

blackhaz 4y ago
Add Royal Astronomical Society logo redesign to the collection: https://www.creativebloq.com/news/royal-astronomical-society-new-logo https://www.creativebloq.com/news/royal-astronomical-society... Because every damn hipster with a custom mechanical keyboard who can install Photoshop on his Mac is now suddenly a Designer. This is beyond appalling. These people must be beaten very hard with metal poles.
- chrstphrknwtn 4y ago
  The Royal Astronomical Society seems like a pretty good example of the opposite. The old logo was, well old, very forgettable and not particularly well constructed in the first place. The new logo presents the society as a modern scientific institution, and the logo itself is executed well. And the animation actually works, a rare example where logo animation is not gratuitous.
  - layer8 4y ago
    The new logo looks like an anime-typical eye with reflecting highlight.
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  That RAS logo is beautiful, stylish, intricate, and quite recognizable - especially with its clever use of telescopes as rays and of the empty spaces to remind one of celestial bodies. I have no idea why you think it's comparable to the simplistic unintelligible symbolism of the new OUP one.

DubiousPusher 4y ago

I don't know. I think you could make the argument that the only thing missing from the old logo was a pineapple. I mean it's not the most egregious examples of pictographic stuffiness but it definitely has that pre graphic design kitchen sink vibe.

vpribish 4y ago

did no one point out that the new logo is looking down a rifled gun barrel - hardly a visual metaphor for education. Maybe they were trying to connect with the globally revered UK institution of James Bond?

phnofive 4y ago
Yeah, after I saw that I couldn't unsee how it looks like a partially masked illustration of rifling. Money well spent.

jdlyga 4y ago

None of the new logos on this page are necessarily bad.

kesava 4y ago

Another example of "everything looks the same".

lo_zamoyski 4y ago

"That iconic beauty and excellence was the province of rich white dudes—and can only be expanded by lowering our standards." That's egalitarianism for you.

flenserboy 4y ago

Yet another example of designers not being happy until they've rooted out the work of other designers.

inChargeOfIT 4y ago

A camera shutter? Are they getting into photography?

nbzso 4y ago

There is no logic in the madness.

kwhitefoot 4y ago

Even if one accepts the general idea of the design the execution seems very poor. The letter spacing seems very odd to me; there should be a little less space between the O and the X.

fergie 4y ago

I quite like it. It has a progressive feeling that reminds me of the Open University, and harks back to the idealistic expansion of British higher education in the ‘60s.

ARandomerDude 4y ago

Oh good, now they're easily visually distinguished from Raytheon [1], Frost Bank [2], and the other turbofan logo companies. [1] https://www.rtx.com/ https://www.rtx.com/ [2] https://www.frostbank.com/ https://www.frostbank.com/

Eduard 4y ago
A further entry in the turbofan logo category: https://www.hertie.de/ https://www.hertie.de/
- AnonymousPlanet 4y ago
  I had completely forgotten about that logo. Shows how old the turbofan motif is really. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertie_Waren-_und_Kaufhaus#/media/Datei:Hertie_sonne.svg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertie_Waren-_und_Kaufhaus#/me...

przemub 4y ago

Do you really need a sans-serif font here? The old font looks like something you could see in an academic book, especially so that a similar one is used for printing in the UK. The new one looks like for... anything and therefore nothing.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

snowwrestler 4y ago

> “Try to be brutally honest with yourself: is the goal actual innovation? Or is really to appear innovative?” I have asked these questions of many senior executives now, assuring them I am not being glib This type of reaction eats itself. If you're a person who prioritizes "actual innovation," why are you spending so much time complaining about a fucking logo redesign? > explaining that these objectives are often in fundamental opposition to one another. No, they're not. Is Apple innovative? Is Google? Both examples of companies who have demonstrated tremendous amount of investment in design updates over the years. Heck, they even created custom fonts for their blog posts. I totally understand and appreciate design critiques. Aesthetic opinions are valuable in and of themselves. I even happen to agree with the author that the new Oxford Press logo is worse than their old one. But I have to jump off the wagon when this sort of exaggeration shows up.

birksherty 4y ago
> If you're a person who prioritizes "actual innovation," why are you spending so much time complaining about a fucking logo redesign Because that logo redesign does not produce any actual innovation. > Heck, they even created custom fonts for their blog posts. These companies have lots of money, lots of managers, lots of designers. Those people would have nothing to do if they don't rebrand, create new fonts etc. They can't just sit idle in office and take salary. If those fonts were not made, nothing would have changed right now, the company would not have any less progress in any way. People also do these to have something big on their resume, to get promotion. This is what lots of humans do now, bullshit jobs even though there are much bigger problems to fix in the world.

Dig1t 4y ago

>signal commitments to (1) digital transformation and (2) diversity & inclusion Just another victim of the ongoing cultural revolution we are living through.

uni_rule 4y ago
What of those platitudes makes you feel victimized?
- Dig1t 4y ago
  I do not personally feel victimized, the shitty logo is the victim. The point is that a redesign wasn't necessary, it was a good logo with a long and interesting history. But it was redone to signal that they are falling in line with the prevailing ideology of the day.
  - systemicdanna 4y ago
    My guess is that there are many reasons to redesign a logo like that. It looks: 1. Elitist (who speaks Latin?) 2. Forgettable (show this logo to a student from India and then ask to pick it out of 10 similar coats of arms) 3. Ugly (subjective, but... thick curves everywhere, all caps words with hyphens, 3 crowns?..) 4. Hard to adapt to new global use cases (too detailed to make small, too confusing internationally) 5. many more reasons...
    - Dig1t 4y ago
      Those are indeed valid reasons, but they literally stated exactly why they changed it: "to signal commitments to (1) digital transformation and (2) diversity & inclusion". That quote comes directly from the people who changed the logo themselves.
      - systemicdanna 4y ago
        The sensitivities of the modern world require careful phrasing. My guess would be that "diversity & inclusion" means things like it's too elitist, hard to grok to people in new global markets, and the "digital transformation" bit means that it's too hard to resize and too hard to reuse in different context (e.g. the new logo could zoom in on screen and act as a portal into a virtual experience, the old logo is very cumbersome).

booleandilemma 4y ago

I hope it doesn't take us too much longer to swing back to the trend of having detailed, interesting logos again. There's more to logos than making sure they look good as a favicon.

systemicdanna 4y ago
Yes, any time now... Right after we swing back to composing pompous classical music and eating fowl dishes out of gold encrusted bowls.

nullc 4y ago

It's a toilet?

Krisjohn 4y ago

If they want to appear modern and inclusive, why does it look like the inside of a gun barrel from the opening sequence of a Bond film?

hodgesrm 4y ago

This is so sad. The motto "Dominus Illuminatio Mea" (The Lord is my light) on the logo is beautiful. It's on dozens of books in my house.

wilg 4y ago

There should be a mandatory 30-day waiting period for complaining about redesigns.

rozab 4y ago

Looks like a fake corporate logo on a crate in a bad triple-A sci-fi game.

cafard 4y ago

Last night, I had a look at my shelves. Several hardbacks had the old logo. However, four volumes of poetry--Jonson, Byron, Bunting, and Tomlinson--have only the word OXFORD across the bottom of the spine. Several paperbacks have a capital O with stylized crowns on the four sides, pointing out. One, from a "Galaxy" series has a black disks with a white band circling it, off-center and tilted. And books from the Oxford World Classics series just have OXFORD running down the spine.

FrontierPsych 4y ago

I'm not sure why everyone is all about the logo. I'm looking at the story and see the second reason to change it as: (2) diversity & inclusion Everything is all about diversity & inclusion, especially in academia, but at all levels of Western culture. Nothing else is important. Don't like the logo? So what, it's not about that. The only thing that is important is to get rid of all vestiges of Western culture, that's the point. If it means a bland meaningless thing that doesn't mean anything, good enough. But might as well get rid of the name "Oxford" as this is part of the whole Western culture, and just change the name to "The Big O". Works perfectly with the new logo, too.