Not Very Professional

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being a Graphic Designer, I always take an interest when I come across an updated identity for a well known local brand. Usually this change is an improvement, the mark may have been in use for over a decade or more and needs to keep up with the aesthetics of the time, the company might have grown or been bought by someone new who wants to update the image to meet with their business criteria – in any case, what the business would hope for is a new mark that is at least as effective as the old one if not a vast improvement. Then you come across something like the new logo for The Professionals Real Estate and you wonder what the hell they are trying to achieve. Their old logo (as such) was made up from a serviceable use of san serif type and those 1970s modernist parallel colour bars prevalent in the design of those times, so there was no doubt that an update was justified. What they have ended up with looks like they got the receptionist to knock it up in her lunch break (my apologies to any receptionists out there who have forsaken a career in graphic design to work front of office). I can excuse a small business knocking up their own logo out of Publisher on their home computer to stick on a sandwich board outside their shop (well I can’t really, in fact I usually think they’d be better off if they hadn’t of bothered), but The Professionals are a large national real estate firm, They even call themselves The Professionals with a mark that says they are ‘anything but’. First off, is that friggin’ Comic Sans that they’ve used for the typeface on the mark? I’m pretty sure it isn’t actually, they’ve only managed to discover a similar typeface that is even uglier. Lots of designers use a handwritten style in logos to denote a personable, approachable personality to the mark, I guess it’s like when you receive a handwritten letter, it’s saying ‘this is just for you’. So that approach is probably not so bad when you’re trying to sell someone something as personal as a home. A computer ‘handwritten style’ font isn’t going to do that, the whole idea is negated by the fact that it’s characters are exact duplicates, for example, in Professionals you have three ’s’ that look exactly the same – you don’t get the different nuances you would if they had actually bothered to pick up a writing implement and handwritten it.

Secondly, let’s make this logo really difficult and expensive to reproduce by making it work only in five colours for the hundred odd offices around the country who will need to be able to reproduce it in one colour newspaper real estate listings, making sure that when they do it will be even uglier.

I assume that smudge at the top is a star (signifying?) – either that or their colour printers ink cartridge has leaked.

I’d be very surprised (and embarrassed) if a dedicated design firm produced this – I’m assuming the Managing Director’s 8 year old son brought it home from art class and hung it on the fridge just when daddy was looking for a new identity for his firm. If this was produced by a designer, then they must have the biggest balls imaginable to get this through, either that or it’s meant as irony (I just can’t tell anymore).

Filed under: Logos

Big Bank Dabbles In Irony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe I’m looking into this too much, but I can’t help but be bemused by The National Australia Bank’s decision to abbreviate to ‘nab’. The bank has seen it’s share of troubles over the last few years, too boring to go into here, the name change seems ironically appropriate. My dictionary defines ‘nab’ as to snatch or seize suddenly or without knowledge. I don’t know if I’d have a lot of confidence putting my money into an institution so named. Perhaps it’s meant to be social commentary on those sudden bank fees that seem to hit my account if I go anywhere near an ATM machine? Or the sudden massive layoffs of bank employees that are becoming an all too common occurrence? If that’s the case I’ve got to praise them on their honesty at least.

The logo with it’s all lowercase letters is an odd looking mark as well, inelegant to look at and to say – ‘nab’? Roll that over your tongue a few times, this is an improvement over ‘The National’? At least that carried some authority. I’m sure a lot of money was thrown at it to come up with this, so obviously I’m crazy and the nab’s coffers will overflow with the milk and honey of the re-branding success. Now I’m going to go ‘nab’ me some lunch.

Filed under: Logos