- We talked about the reasons for a redesign.
It may be due to a change in leadership,
new goals, or a different audience focus.
But there are times when the business itself
is changing direction.
In these instances, the equity of the old brand
is weighed against the positives
of a new product or service.
Let's look at a few case studies.
For the first part of the 20th century,
broadcast companies worked in radio.
Their logos and communication materials
were microphones and electrical symbols.
In the early 1950s, the addition of television
forced a change.
Now they needed to communicate the idea of visuals.
A good example of this is the
Columbia Broadcast System.
The name was shortened to the CBS acronym.
This removed the word broadcast and is less specific,
allowing CBS to move into any business.
The logo evolved from an illustration
of a microphone to a simplified symbol of an eye.
More imagery of the new television stars
replaced copy-heavy advertising.
Today, we think of CBS only as a television network,
not a radio broadcasting company.
In the late 1990s, I was asked to redesign the logo
for VH1, MTVs sister network.
I looked at the logo and visual materials,
spoke with the executive team,
gathered information from users,
and looked at ratings.
It became apparent that the problem was not VH1's logo.
The programming itself was unclear.
Comedy specials, recordings of concerts,
music videos, and reruns of sitcoms
gave the viewer and advertisers a muddled sense.
The solution was to change the focus of programming
from this mashup to an idea VH1 could own
the history of American popular music.
I redesigned the logo to include the words music first
to remind the internal and external audience
that the only focus was music,
no comedy specials, sitcoms, or random programming.
The visual materials integrated classic rock-and-roll
and documentary-style photography,
a nod to classic Rolling Stone magazine,
and different from the standard PR photos
supplied to everyone.
And I made a pallette based on blue.
This referred to the blues,
Elvis Presley's Blue Suede Shoes
or Linda Ronstadt's Blue Bayou.
The network saw 150% increase in ratings.
The in-house department had a clear sense
of the communication and the audience associated VH1
with the shows like Behind the Music
or Concert of the Century.
If I had simply designed a new logo,
nothing would change except the logo bug
in the corner of the screen.
It was my job as an expert to point out
the need for a change in the product.