Elbowruminations Graphic Design Trends, Tips and Reviews

Today the new identity chosen by the Province of Alberta went live to the jubilation general disinterest of the population.

The new brand is cursive wordmark that aspires to embody a concept described by the tagline, “freedom to create, spirit to achieve.” According to the brand’s official website, AlbertaBrand.com, the identity development process was a 5 month long procedure with a budget of $4 million dollars. This budget was allocated towards the establishment of an advisory panel and focus groups consisting of normal citizens like you and me, oh and graphic design was in there somewhere too.

Let’s take a quick tour of the options that became runner’s up:

The Albertan may have proved unpopular due to it’s mixed messages. It’s certainly not clear what it’s trying to say. It’s very formal and corporate in it’s approach as well.

This version of the logo is very current in the way it uses gradients, just add a little shine and it would pass as a fancy new web 2.0 start-up.

The lowercase square treatment could make this version of the logo the corporate image of any North American technology company. The use of the period in the “t” is such an uninspiring concept and copied from an abundance of non inspirational sources. This could possibly be the weakest of choice in the set.

Meet the rainbow option. Symbolic of Alberta’s Leprechaun pioneers. That may or may not be true, but it would be very difficult to stand by a decision to appoint this logo for the cost of printing alone. It’s difficult to know what the designers were getting at here.

The Conclusion

Overall, the new brand for Alberta seems adequate. It doesn’t amaze and it certainly does not show off in any way. It’s disappointing that more inspiration wasn’t not shown in very many of the choices, there is no attempt at double meaning or any specific geographic mirroring. Ironically, the creation process of this identity, judging from the results, seemed linear and static, with very little motivation to come up with something new. Even orange was recycled and repackaged from the license plates. Perhaps at best, we’ve put a new suit on our old logo, which had much of the same reserved and bland personality the new one has. The lack of inspiration seems ironic considering we are looking to represent “freedom to create, spirit to achieve” to the world.

The Justification?

Sometimes, being a graphic designer and a normal citizen, I can’t help wondering what an invoice for this project would look like and how it would be itemized. If one graphic designer was hired for this project, the government would be paying him or her $50,000 per hour based on a 40 hour work week. If a team of 10 people worked on this project, for forty hours per week, for 5 months straight, tax-payers would be looking at an hourly rate of $5,000 per hour.

If you ask me, this final product does not deserve that kind of financing. The value of graphic design is not based on who the customer is, or what the final outcome is being used for. It’s based primarily on the time it takes to produce a result and the demand for this service. The concept of getting what you pay for in the design industry has very low ceiling and yet the cost of branding and identity development seems to be driven by the insecurity of clients to feel as though their logo must be very expensive to be good. Fueled by the greed of marketing professionals who are happy to propagate these sentiments through excessive fees, makes affording a graphic designer very difficult and trusting one even less plausible.

Do you have any thoughts on the industry or the logo? We’d like to hear them.

I think corporations are tired of being viewed as “The Man.” In an attempt to humanize themselves, giant companies have been trying to get all cuddly with us lately. “We care about the environment,” they insist, rolling out green-ish corporate responsibility policies. “And we care about YOU, too.”

Lumbering multinational corporations might be able to get all green and huggable on paper, but convincing the consumer that they’re friendly and accessible is a bit harder. That’s why we’re seeing a whole lot more attention being paid to the visual rebranding of the world’s most gargantuan retailers. Let’s start with Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart is looking to swap out their dominating block letters for a logo that looks more like a spunky start-up. The new logo, which hasn’t been rolled out in Canada yet, puts a lot of distance between Wal-Mart’s bigger-is-better look they’ve embraced in the past. It’s a clear attempt to stop being seen as a towering retail monster. Now, only the W is uppercase, which is certainly a lot less threatening.

Will the new brand make a difference? I doubt it. WalMart’s brand begins and ends with being known as a giant store with cheap products. New colours and a new font might paint WalMart as a friendly giant, but it will always be a giant.

Electronics retailer Best Buy is trying to get chummy with us, too. Walking away from the tacky yellow price tag, Best Buy’s new look uses a typeface you might expect to see on one of the store’s many digital interfaces.

The old yellow tag became an urban icon, thanks to the company’s exceptionally consistent implementation of the identity at every single store location, but it has always reeked of bargain-bin, dollar-store cheapness. I’ve always felt queasy whenever in the presence of The Tag, and I am relieved to see it go.

Will new logo change the image of Best Buy being a monolithic monstrosity? It actually might. The new look feels more personal and more digital, two elements which suit the iPod generation perfectly. These days, you get to know your friends through the filter of a digital interface, whether it’s your phone or your Facebook account: interfaces are intimacy. Best Buy might be onto something.

Ever since Wendy’s founder and spokesman Dave Thomas passed on, Wendy’s has been short of a public face and voice. The idea of grandfatherly “Dave” being in charge of Wendy’s AND cooking the burgers was the restaurant’s best bet when it came to convincing us that Wendy’s was part of our family. When Dave gone, it created a significant problem for the company.

That is, until this year. Now, for the first time ever, the principal spokesperson for Wendy’s is Wendy herself. Wendy started talking and moving back in January 2008. The everpresent face on all of Wendy’s signage and packaging is now animated, and her laughter and quips are given a voice through the voiceover work of Louisa Christian.

It was a natural transition, one done with such subtlety and confidence that I doubt many of us even noticed. But next time you’re zoning out during the commercial break and a spot about hamburgers comes on, wait for Wendy to do her “it’s waaaay delicious” thing.

Not sure I believe her myself, but that’s not the point. The million-dollar question is: does the new talking logo convince us that Wendy’s is anything less than the third-largest hamburger joint in the world? She’s no Dave, but with the flawless transition from Static Wendy to Talking Wendy, it’s a good start.