3 Reasons Why Xerox’s New Logo Is Just Fine

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I love it when a well known company announces a revamped logo! The design blogs go crazy. For just a few brief paragraphs, we get the opportunity to rant about the butchering of a well known corporate logo, or rave about the beautifully executed modern interpretation of a stagnant brand. For a brief moment we are free to cast judgement, with-out fear of reprisal (unless someone calls us out in the comments).

Unfortunately for me however, I’m about a week late to the “Xerox screwed up on their new logo” party. All of the best comments have already been made. Nearly every conversation I’ve read contained remarks about the ‘ridiculous XBOX-like sphere’ - and here I thought I was was going to be so clever in my blog post…

Well, since I’ve missed the rant party, I’m going to take a contrary opinion and support the finer points of the new logo. Call me the Devil’s Advocate, or a trouble maker, but I’m going to debate for the logo as a viable brand element and defend (some) the designers choices in spite of the overwhelming outcry from the vocal design community.

Here are 3 reasons that the new Xerox logo is just fine.

1. It’s new.

A new logo, good or bad, provides much needed PR (and linkbait for you SEOers out there) for a company who is striving to restructure not only their literal brand image, but also their brands overall public conception. Additional attention during such a transition helps to ‘get the message out’.

Not that Xerox is any stranger to re-branding, having gone through a succession or new branding every decade since their inception. First the blue & black ’Xerox’ corporation, followed by the clean & simple blue ’Xerox’, then the sudden and inspired switch to the digitized red “X” that helped define them in the digital age, then the introduction of “the Document Compnay” tagline, and now…

2. It’s now.

The symmetrical structure of the characters & the word ‘xerox’ as a whole, the even, heavier weighted rolling strokes and the richer crimson all lend the logo a modern freshness, that while, perhaps not as timeless as the original, is much more ‘today’. This departure from the ‘old’ and embracing of the ‘new’ is in keeping with Xerox’s struggle to establish a foothold and an identity in the saterated digital marketplace and to reiterate their stance as a digital ‘document company’ rather than the old school ’copier company’.

3. It’s got a sphere.

Everybody knows that spheres make ANY logo cooler, hipper, and more approachable… er I mean… every logo with a sphere is.. better and more Web 2.0-ish. Studyies show that 9 out of 10 people prefer spherical shapes in logos to trapizoidical shapes… and… Okay… theres not much I can say to defend this choice. Sure … I read that the illustrative ‘X’ represents the connection between the various parties, and all of that but… I have to agree with the whole ‘XBOX’ argument here.

BONUS REASON :
4. UnderConsiderations “Brand New” doesn’t hate it… completely.

No review of Xerox’s rebranding effort would be complete with-out a look at UnderConsideration.com’s “Brand New” Xerox Logo review - check out their post which outlines the possible source of the new logo’s sphere.

UnderConsideration’s proposed Xerox Sphere equation

Okay, so the new Xerox logo might have issues

Fine. I must concede that overall the new Xerox logo does lack the strength that I had hoped for when I first learned of the redesign, and it’s getting quite a ‘working over’ from the design community, but appears to be gaining acceptance amongst most public circles.

Personally, I had hoped to see a comeback of one of my all-time favorite logomarks - the digitized Red “X”. Oh well - give them 5 years, they’ll be rebranding again.

For those interested in more details or discussion check out these other posts:

Related Tags:
branding • Design • logo • logo design • xerox

Related Posts:

Monday January 14th, 2008

Niyaz PK

So actually you to look like coming to the same conclusion. The logo is just “new”. But it will soon be old. Right?

Tuesday January 15th, 2008

David Airey

You had to look hard for those good points, didn’t you?

AzAkers

Heh - yeah. With re-branding being such a hot trend these days, there is bound to be another opportunity to toss well-deserved critial hand grenades. I’ll be there, the voice of reason in the sea of critique - standing in defense of the underdog.

Wednesday January 23rd, 2008

Yury Akulin, logo designer

I have mixed feelings about new logo. The typography of the wordmark is excellent. It has much less edginess and tension then the previous one. Slightly curved X’s add to the originality of the font. And the accusations of plagiarizing the new Kodak logo are far-fetched.
But the ball… it is useless and ugly. How does the ball with a cross conveys a message that Xerox is not a document company anymore? The only thing it conveys is that the logo was made by Interbrand, the branding company strangely addicted to balls in logos (e.g. the AT&T redesign). Do they think that wrapping an old mark around the ball makes a new contemporary mark? And by the way, the wrapping seems to be wrong geometrically, as if the ball has some angles on its surface.
Well, I miss the Big Red X too.

Friday April 11th, 2008

Katy Wolfer

I have a fondness for the old digitized X logo. I miss it already. I hope it comes back. I am really beginning to wonder if Xerox is a company worth working with. If they continue with decisions such as the one to approve their current logo, I wonder where they’ll be headed.