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In April of 2003, UPS released what has since become a very hotly debated brand update. Summarily, UPS retired Paul Rand's iconic 1961 package-and-shield logo and replaced it with "a two-tone, 3-D-look shield topped with a quasi-swoosh [and a wordmark] set in a customized version of [the common logo font] FF Dax..." (Source*)

* As evidence of how positively engaging this identity redesign was, the discussion on this article received its first comment April 7, 2003 and got its last one on November 9, 2007!

The great UPS logo debacle of 2003

The responses to this re-branding varied from declaiming FutureBrand, the New York-based designers of the new logo as glorified Paul Gaskills to flat-out declamation that "the new logo is better," and subsequently that, "you typography/graphic/illustrator bullies need to relax." (Ibid).

A couple of more gems from this really swell discussion, for your consideration:

The old one was stale, but it reminds us of a time when quirkiness and personality were still allowed into the world of commerce. The new one expresses absolutely nothing, and quite well. It's the perfect emblem of this age.

The old one always reminded me of a face, and the package was like a hat with a little bow in front. It said "straitlaced efficient guys in uniforms delivering stuff." The new one reminds me of a kid with the haircut I had in my skateboarding days. Coupled with the brass-badge look, it gives off a strange mix of incompetence and official self-importance.

However, for my money, the situation was best summed up preemptively (you heard me) by Susan Kare, most widely known as the designer of the Windows 3.0 iconography as well as for the infamous "smiling Mac" and MacPaint icons. In a 1999 issue of Fast Company magazine, she opines, "[a]t one point, some years ago, it seemed as if all the logos that had any personality - such as the winged horse of Mobil gas stations - were being replaced by death-star shapes that supposedly looked high-tech. UPS didn't need to make that kind of update."

Well it turned out some three and a half years later that they made it, rendering the question of whether they needed it or not immaterial.

Signal to Noise

Or so it would seem. As it turns out, UPS has provided the design culture with a rallying point against what I believe have become endemic behaviors on both sides of the design equation: Both designers and their corporate benefactors, when charged with the identity (re-)development process, too often take the "safe" road, phoning-in the de facto message-less identity (see above) instead of taking the opportunity to do some mental unpacking and come up with a better solution. What we lose in this situation is what Paul Rand stood for, the human parts of the design. What we get instead is assembly-line brands - brands with a very low risk of catastrophic failure, but also with an equally infinitesimal possibility of "standing out from the crowd".

I believe this phenomenon to have flatly negative consequences for corporations, and I'm going to evidence that belief [quickly] with an appeal to information theory, and specifically with an appeal to the information theory formulation of the concept of redundancy.

Redundancy in information theory is the number of bits used to transmit a message minus the number of bits of actual information in the message. Informally, it is the amount of wasted "space" used to transmit certain data.

Gradients, lens flares, faux-3D elements, and overused fonts can, as a result of their relative overabundance in our design ecosystem, officially be classified as noise. This means that about 90% of the new UPS logo is "wasted space." Whereas, with the Rand logo (and in this way, like much of his identity work), it's all signal, baby.

About six months ago, Adobe launched its CS3 line of design software, the first revisions of its products since the company acquired their primary competitor, Macromedia. Inevitably, new versions mean new branding. (I mean, how else is someone going to know it’s new, right?) So what did they do that is worth blogging about?

Imagine Adobe’s task for CS3. They already have dozens of products, all centered around design. They merge with the next biggest guy in the game, which adds even more products. Macromedia’s brands have strong identities and associations of their own, and, at the time of the merger, these are more unified than Adobe’s. How does Adobe successfully assimilate these new brands?

This raises a valid question, what were Adobe’s brands, up to this point? I bet you have a hard time remembering. I don’t think they did a good job of developing or managing them. It’s difficult to remember because it wasn’t clear what their brands were supposed to represent. Moreover, each product’s brand or logo was so different from one another. It was difficult to get a sense of what was “Adobe” about them.

When the switch to Creative Suite came, Adobe’s brands became somewhat more consistent, but it was still challenging to associate them with their products. Photoshop had an eye motif for a long time—then suddenly it became a feather or a quill or something. Illustrator’s branding was, what, Botticelli? And then for some reason, it became a flower. What do any of those symbols say about the product? Why do they keep changing so much? It appears Adobe did have a strategy, but I doubt people understood what they had in mind.

The first rule of branding is consistency; Adobe violated that rule. They showed a lack of consistency across their entire software line and within the individual brands themselves. Which brings me to the big reveal: Adobe’s new branding strategy.

As you can see, Adobe went from artistic renderings of nature to a reductionist wordmark; consistent from piece to piece. Their product line becomes a wheel—a color wheel. People are split across the noosphere on whether they like it, but I have to say that I approve.

It’s just so logical. It’s a Pantone chicklet and an abbreviation of the program name—about as minimal and informative as one can get in 16 x 16 pixels. To me, it says something about the utility of the programs for design. It says “paint” or perhaps “pixels”—elements of composition, but not compositions themselves. I get it now. Adobe literally means building blocks.

And it’s usable, too. Before, it was sometimes difficult for me to identify which Adobe program I was clicking in my taskbar, but these new icons aren’t confusing to me at all.

What they’ve done is created a system – an algorithm, one might say—for branding their products. It doesn’t get much more consistent than an algorithm. Yes, it’s not fancy or expressive, but it is understandable to people. Most of all, it is extensible. Apply it to anything and it becomes Adobe. That’s the genius.

And, folks, that is a brand.

I was on campus today taking care of some business and I had occasion to indulge myself with a Red Bull. While I stood there drinking, I started to think about which direction the label was facing. I could say I did this because I’m a designer and I’m always thinking of such things, but the truth is that I was concerned with how I looked holding that can in my hand—I’m narcissistic like that. I mean, this is an expensive soft drink; movie stars drink Red Bull. So can people tell that I’m drinking it? Do I look cool?

In this case, the answer was no. The label was facing me, so people were getting an eyeful of Nutrition Facts. I thought to myself, “what a wasted opportunity”. But as I began to think about it, the problem was more complex than I’d first thought. It's a narrow can. There's only enough room for a label on one side. So which is more important? Having the label face the customer so it builds association from the shelf to the first drink? Or facing the label outward, to advertise to others that someone is drinking the brand? I think it’s a tough choice. Fish or cut bait, right?

As I quaffed my caffeinated corn syrup, I turned this problem over in my head, but I couldn’t come up with a solution that would satisfy both goals. Everything I thought of was too complicated. When I came back to the refrigerated case for more “research”, I stumbled upon a profound solution, Zen-like in its perfection.

Do nothing.

What I noticed, as I looked over the cans, is that the placement of the mouth is completely random. I assume this is just a quirk of the manufacturing process. On average, the label will face out half of the time and face the drinker half of the time. Pretty elegant, I must say.