Another Australian logo becomes a brand
2008 has been a year that has seen many familiar Australian logos join the ranks of identities to be refreshed.
The Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) Australian‘s ethnic and multilingual media service has undergone an identity make over after seventeen years. The previous SBS identity (left design) was designed by Cato Partners in 1991 when the SBS was officially made a corporation — the graphic depicts an abstraction of the compromised projection map of the Goodes Homolosine rendering.
The new identity in seventeen years has morphed the existing graphic for a new found perspective and sense of dimension. The customised typemark has been dropped for a popular light cut of a typeface like Helvetica, and demerged from the symbol.
From SBS‘s media statement on 08 May 2008…
“We have retained all that was good about the SBS logo and simply evolved it but moreover we have put it into context and developed an overall look and feel for SBS and everything we do as a media organisation,“ SBS Director of Marketing, Jacquie Riddell said.
“The audience told us through our research that while they continued to value the services SBS delivers, we needed a contemporary expression to keep pace with their understanding of modern multicultural Australia.“
All one can comment upon is that the new design has no surprises for young designers looking for inspiration, not like when Cato‘s brand was launched when one’s career starting out. In recent times, the designers of such projects are lucky to get a mention, let alone get a chance to expand upon the design thinking, or the process.
The understanding of how brands operate in contemporary culture is extensive, brands are allowed to be innovative within fixed contexts — in the way in which they are aligned, positioned or applied. Yet the graphic mark itself seemed to have been locked in time capsule.
Contemporary symbols, typemarks, expressions seem to shift from one fixed familiar style to another familiar style — it is very rare to encounter a brand that attempts to push the bounds of the fixed graphic model. A new brand that challenges the bounds of a graphic identity — the nature of the symbol, the nature of the type mark or whether a product needs a fixed graphic to be an effective brand.
Maybe this new brand could be about a colour, or a specific type of imagemaking, a set formula of presentation, or maybe the brand is the product or service itself. Seventeen years ago many new big brands came into the community and influenced company management, marketing people, business owners, designers and they even won design awards.
When will the new graphic expression of brand infiltrate the maintream brands? Will mainstream brands ever shake the ‘60s symbol and type mark model? Will we ever find out who designed the new SBS brand?
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Always found the S in the B a weird typological pursuit, but it is a whole lot better than the Helvetica ‘freshness newness’ that studios seem to equate with it. The resurgent uprise of Helvetica and Century Gothic is astounding, they both live in the Arial intray of mishandled and overexposed fonts. Plus the whole cartographic map projection always has 5 panels – maybe it represents the 20% of TV time lost to ads every hour. Probably didn’t need a makeover.
As is the trend at present, we have lost another iconic identity to the evolution of a “brand“ in order for that organization to be seen as staying modern, fresh and fashionable. The original SBS mark, by my former employer Cato, is a classic, one of Kens best. Its the reason I wanted to work for him. This ground breaking mark formed an identity which flowed through to its on screen motion graphics. At the time this fresh, bold identity was very different (and confronting) for an Australian audience. Why evolve a corporate identity, (lets be true to the original term for a change and forget about the buzz word “brand“), into a mark which says less. Give me Catos mark every time, the structure of wordmark contained within logo, the idea and balance, a far better execution than Helvetica Neue with a new perspective. Catos mark embarks images of classics like CBS, IBM and the ABC. Thanks Channel 9 for having the common sense to bring back what should have never been evolved. Maybe Qantas will do the same?
It is very sad to see what was a good mark being bastardised. I think we need to teach clients to respect and consult with the original creators of the brand before embarking in stylistic upgrades.