Logo& Corporate Identity | A Child’s Scribble. Separated at Birth?

By Dian Hasan | January 18, 2010

It never ceases to amaze me that companies spend significant investment in logo make-over, commissioning work by well-known branding specialists, and end up with a new logo that looks nothing more than… a child’s scribble!!  Just take a look at Telecom New Zealand‘s and tell me it doesn’t look like crazy scribble, or an asterisk. The other three logos are from different organizations around the world who most probably had a similar idea, but executed it at a fraction of the cost.

We live in a visual world, where every logo, symbol, sign, coterie of words with interesting fonts and even a single letter, has a meaning, and is used to communicate a message. This is all part Semiotics, the study of signs and signals. And in business, it’s wise to understand the role of Semiotics in brand-building.

The art of designing an entire company’s ideas, ethos, knowledge and future in one logo and corporate identity is an integral part of the visual branding. Of course there’s more to branding than meets the eye!

Most of today’s organizations are well-versed in this communication medium. Some are still struggling, however, to put into a logo the values and positive traits they want captured. And there are some others that are very similar looking, albeit representing completely different organizations.