The National Insurance Guarantee (NIG) Corporation adopted a new logo design last month in a bid to rebrand their identity. Formerly a part of the Churchill group of companies, NIG was incorporated on 8th October 1894. It offers a broad range of insurance products for businesses, automobiles, and homes. It was acquired by The Royal Bank of Scotland Group in September 2003 and became the second largest general insurer in the UK.

Key Brand Values of the New Logo:

The Managing Director of NIG, Jonathan Greenwood, said:

According to the UK insurance company, the new logo design encapsulates the regeneration and transformation of their business. The rebranded identity revolves around the following four brand values:

1. Full of Life – The logo exhibits that their employees are full of passion to work for the customers.
2. Candid – Shows that the insurance company is true to its commitments and clear about what they can and cannot do.
3. Proactive thinking – It signifies that the company has a long-term and forward thinking approach.
4. Customer Closeness – we listen to our customers and help them find better solutions

UK television network Channel Five has recently undergone a facelift with a fresh logo redesign. Channel Five was initially set-up in 1997 in the United Kingdom with a variety of programs catering all age groups. Its logo design has been stripped down to its minimal form by substituting the word ‘Five’ with its numeral ‘5’.

Previous Logo – Five in Words:

New Logo – Five in Number:

NBC Universal is the result of a merger between NBC Network and Universal Studios formed in 2003. It was jointly owned by General Electric and cable giant Comcast. Following the majority takeover by Comcast on 26th January 2011, the new administration changed the name to NBCUniversal without spaces and also launched a new logo design.

The new logo design abandons the prominent peacock symbol that has been associated with the company for over five decades. It was designed by renowned logo designer Wolf Olins. The typofont used in the logowas designed by Mike Abbink.Explaining the new minimalist logo, NBC Universal’s chief executive Steve Burke told his employees that the old logo “seemed kind of busy.”

Evolution of NBC Logo – Rise and fall of “Peacock” Logo:

The Peacock logo has been linked with NBC since 1956, designed by John J. Graham. Over the decades the NBC logo has evolved into many forms, with the peacock logo being redesigned three times in the span of decades. Here is an illustration of how the NBC logo has evolved over the years:  

When a famous logo remains unchanged in the market for a significant time, it leaves a long-lasting impression on the minds of customers. For any corporate brand, an established logo design generates brand awareness and fame, which contributes immensely in making a company successful. But when a brand gets a logo redesign, it has two pronged effects on the corporate image.

A successful logo redesign can help a firm’s reputation to the skies, while a bad redesigned logo can spell disaster for a company. This year, we witnessed a host of new logos entering the UK logo design market…a lot of old ones were revamped while some were the outcome of different UK company mergers. One of the most controversial and debated was BP logo redesign, a parody by Greenpeace UK to ridicule BP. While elsewhere, Gap had its moments of redesigning blunders as well.

But that was as far as the new logo design could go. The logo faced a fierce reaction over the internet and was criticized to the extent that it had to be reverted.  

Which factors created the ‘gaps’:

A majority of factors were behind the failure of the Gap logo redesign. Aside from the fact that the new logo could not impress a sizable audience, its design elements created logo disaster. The elements did not adequately correspond to the image of the Gap brand. Following are the factors leading to the demise of the Gap redesign logo:

• • To begin with, the blue box with a gradient placed on the edge of ‘GAP’ letters was seen as amateur and naive. Feedback suggests that the general audience consider it as a logo designed on MS PowerPoint.
• • Another factor was the bad choice of fonts. Using Helvetica fonts was a shocking move for a fashion brand of GAP’s standing. Moreover, feedback suggests that the font seems to be pixilated.
• • Finally, using lower case proved to be a disastrous move after 20 years of brand legacy of GAP being in upper case.

Lessons to learn from GAP logo redesign:

Whether good or bad redesigned logos, there are always lessons to learn from the endeavor. There are several lessons that can be learned from GAP logo redesign disaster.

• • Never redesign your logo only because ‘YOU’ feel like it.
• • Always take customers on board before making any changes to your logo, especially when it’s of a sizable brand value.
• • Thorough market and consumer research is imperative before making a brand identity overhaul.
• • If your brand equity is stable, there is no point in adopting a fresh identity.
• • If you are not much confident about your new identity, then internet is not the right place to launch it.
• • And last but not least… sometimes ‘OLD IS GOLD’. Stick to what your customers like seeing.

Gap’s Future Plans – An Alert for Designers:

The President of Gap hinted on holding a logo design contest for their new logo, but ultimately postponed the idea for future, saying:  

“We’ve learned a lot in this process,” Hansen stated. “And we are clear that we did not go about this in the right way. We recognize that we missed the opportunity to engage with the online community. This wasn’t the right project at the right time for crowd sourcing. There may be a time to evolve our logo, but if and when that time comes, we’ll handle it in a different way.”

 

Your Verdict: Where do you think Gap went wrong in its effort to redesign its logo?

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