4 ms·

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 lo

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.

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.