When A New Logo Goes Bad
I recently came across an online review/rant about a new logo design for the New York City taxi fleet. We all love that sea of yellow that comes rolling downtown in NYC, right? (especially when it's raining). Well, come to find out that what was to be an idea of upgrading the look of the cars and giving a new brand to a portion of the Taxi and Limousine Commission, turned out to be a typographer's nightmare.
Let's see it...
The uproar is over the mixed typefaces, mainly. Not only are the fonts wrong, but the spacing is also pretty bad. What went wrong and, more importantly, how could the Big Apple do this?
According to Core77, the firm of Wolff Olins got the job to do this, beating out Smart Design. (However, the TLC site gives credit to Smart Design - what gives?)
If Wolff Olins sounds familiar, these are the same folks who designed another rather controversial logo - the one for the 2012 London Olympics. You've seen that one, right? Here it is again:
Core77 also had an iteration of another logo that could've been used for the NYC taxis and it's quite good.
Who did it, though? I'm not sure. But, it is clever, classic, and I could see it on tshirts, proudly worn by cabbies and normal joes and janes alike. Oh, what missed opportunities arise when a brand or logo change is done by committee. Sheez!
i think it's just a designer who figures change is good - when this case it's not; plus...they pro'bad'ly were thinking "hey there's a million of taxi's in nyc, so my de-sign will now be out there!" I like the classic TAXI and the statue of liberty logo.
thanx for listening....BAMm GRAPHICS
Mark Jaquette
I'm by no means a guru of typography, but that taxi logo makes me cringe. It reminds me of something I would have made when I was first learning the text tool in Photoshop.
Faux bold + bold = usually bad
Designer friends who aren't designers have commented on the terrible taxi logos. The false bold crashing together is terrible and the letter spacing on T AXIE is scary. I wouldn't give a child a passing grade with these designs. I will give them credit on one front they are so terrible you notice them, I guess thats what you want from at taxi.
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