logo – Miscellaneous Details

What’s in a name #5

Every year, millions of people flock to the Netherlands, or more precisely, to just one part of it: Holland. In an effort to manage overtourism, the entire country is rebranding.

Why the Netherlands is ditching Holland as its nickname – Quartz
The government of the Netherlands has a message for the world: There’s more to our country than just Holland.

To ensure nobody forgets it, the country says it will stop using Holland as its nickname come January. The move, which comes ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the Eurovision Song Contest (which the Netherlands will host this year), is part of a €200,000 ($223,000) rebranding campaign to update the country’s international image.

The Netherlands reveals new identity and drops ‘Holland’ for good – Design Week
While the old logo featured an expressively drawn tulip, the new logo embeds the Dutch icon in a more subtle way through the use of negative space.

The N and L lettering forms a silhouette of the tulip’s petals. “The logo is intriguing, but at the same time solid and straight to the point,” Studio Dumbar tells Design Week.

In this way, the logo is “a true reflection of the Dutch mentality”, according to the studio.

Light at the end of the Tube tunnel

The country might feel a little gloomier and more stupid now but, if this piece of public art/graphic design/brand marketing is anything to go by, it’s not all bad.

The London Underground logo gets an inspired redesign – Fast Company
British-Ghanaian artist Larry Achiampong has reimagined the traditional transit symbol to reflect the rich and diverse African diaspora that makes up roughly 44% of London’s population. …

In an effort to celebrate not only his Ghanaian heritage but also other African and Caribbean countries, the artist has reimagined the British flag-colored bar-and-circle as a vivid mix of green, black, and red—the colors of the Pan African flag, representing the history of the land, the people, and bloodshed, respectively. A warm and buttery shade of yellow also finds its way into Achiampong’s designs; his use of this golden color is meant to suggest a bright and prosperous future for the diaspora and the UK, more broadly. …

In a country like the UK, which has a history as a violent, colonial power on the continent of Africa, Achiampong’s quest to look backward in order to move forward on a diverse and united front is particularly poignant. For centuries, the impact African people and their culture has had on European society has been erased from narratives about progress. Through Achiampong’s vision, the merged symbols (his flag and London’s transit logo) rewrite the story as a shared one.

Presidential logos?

Let’s have a break from UK politics for a moment, and take a look over the Atlantic.

The race to be the Democratic presidential candidate is now down from 23 to 11, and here is how The Center for American Politics and Design orders their branding.

Ranking the 11 Democratic candidates, by their logos alone
7. JOE BIDEN. Say it ain’t so, Joe. This logo may or may not look like it has a groping hand inside of it. But this side note has nothing to do with our expert’s critique. No, they’re more concerned that Biden’s logo looks too traditional.

1. CORY BOOKER. When I first received the ranked list from the Center, I honestly wasn’t sure if I was reading it in the right order. Was Booker first . . . or last? In fact, Booker’s stacked, two-block, blue and red logo, which reads “Cory” and “2020,” received the highest scores from every judge but one.

More to disability than meets the eye

We’ve had that wheelchair symbol for 50 years now, but that’s not really applicable for the vast majority of people with disabilities.

These designers have reimagined the ‘wheelchair symbol’ to include invisible disabilities
50 years on from the release of the International Symbol of Access, a new set of icons are launched to help highlight invisible disabilities. […]

Visability93 is a project designed to spot a spotlight on the 93% of the disabled population who aren’t wheelchair users, and who could be being prevented from accessing the services they need on a daily basis, including car parking spaces, restrooms and priority seating, because they do not appear to have a disability.

I don’t think it’s the designers’ intention that these symbols are used in exactly the same way as the wheelchair one — one car parking space for someone with Lupus, one for someone with systemic scleroderma, one for IBS sufferers, another for people with depression or Crohn’s or diabetes and so on and so on. Rather, that they will start a conversation around the visual language we use and see to depict disability.

A logo for introverts

A logo for introverts
I love the idea of a logo for us introverts. I’m not sure why, perhaps as a way of legitimising us.