[joezydeco]

I always go back to the Saul Bass presentation to AT&T over their 1970 logo redesign. He takes 30 minutes to explain the thought process and sell this design hard. By the end you're convinced it's the natural thing to do. I'm sure every executive in the room felt the same way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKu2de0yCJI

(Bass would return a mere 13 years later to do the AT&T "Death Star" logo after the breakup)

[dmd]

And then there's Pepsi. https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell...

[hashtag-til]

Right. What am I looking at? It seems clearly a case that it started with the final logo they wanted and finished with 27 pages of pure justification BS.

[Veen]

Yes, but that's just how it works. A respected designer brings talent and years of experience, expertise, theoretical knowledge, and intuition to their task. But like most of us, they aren't very good at introspecting to explain the real reason they arrived at a particular design.

They are, nevertheless, required by business types to come up with some sort of justification, and that's what you just read. It doesn't matter whether it's truthful or accurate, so long as it's plausible from a business perspective.

[Lammy]

Seems wildly successful to me considering we're all still talking about it despite the fact that they don't even use the logo any more.

[solardev]

Wow, attention spans were so much longer back then.

[joezydeco]

The AT&T corporation was massive back then. These folks were looking at rebranding every piece of equipment in the country, it wasn't going to be a cheap adventure. Bass did the right thing by making them comfortable with the cost.

[Eric_WVGG]

I met a designer at Verizon once, asked what the hell the deal with their logo was. He acknowledged that it was rock-bottom, worst-of-the-worst grade… and said that their own internal studies indicated a multi-billion dollar project just to change all the signs.

Like, just look at that one sign overlooking the east river in NYC. That logo’s gonna be around forever.

[Clamchop]

Incidentally, I went to their website to remind myself what the logo looked like, only to see that it has changed!

[Eric_WVGG]

What the… wow, how about that. https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/26/24186373/verizon-new-logo...

They found a way around the sign problem. All they have to do is change the V, and remove the checkmark. —_—

[schkolne]

yeah this Pepsi one (still a long time ago but not quite as far back) -- much more intense (and famous for other reasons) https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell...