When designing the logotype of a brand, it is important to define some limits to how much information it delivers.
Brand redesign is a task that can lead to inadvertently stuffing too many hidden messages into a logo, leading to what I call ‘brand mysticism.‘
Airbnb fell prey to that recently, with a redesign that was widely ridiculed for its references to genitalia; a clear result of attempting to deliver too much information with its new logo.
Very recently, the World Trade Center received its branding, and although the design, as covered by the NY TIMES, introduced us to the new visuals, the esoteric messages hidden within the new logo reek of Illuminati-like mysticism.
A brand’s visuals should be clear yet not plain, spartan yet not underwhelming, and sharp yet not stern.
While it will take a while for anyone who comes across the new World Trade Center logo and brand to process its basic visuals, the hidden symbols far outnumber the obvious ones, making the brand redesign – at a cost of $3,570,000 – a rather expensive lesson in design overkill.
For a great explanation of the World Trade Center’s hidden messages, click here.
No question!
Although I like the new World Trade Center logo, that price tag is an outright absurdity.
And some of the hidden meanings are embarrassingly trivial and contrived — for instance, the bit about the 17.76 degree slope representing the 1,776-foot height of the new tower.
How wide would the logo need to be to show even a 1-pixel difference in height between a 17.76 degree angle and a 17.77 degree angle?
tan (17.76) – tan (17.77) = 0.000192.
So you’d need a logo 5,208 pixels wide to generate even a 1 pixel difference due to the angle. Basically, the precision in the slope they’re claiming is bogus.
Joseph – Thanks for providing the mathematical proof of this absurdity 😀