I don’t know that this is bad design, as much as it seems like a missed opportunity.
It’s not new news that United Airlines and Continental Airlines have merged. And their new tag line, Let’s Fly Together, is pretty smart. It’s the new logo that concerns me. 
They took the name United, the font and symbol from Continental, and formed a mash-up of the two. It seems to me that they have taken “merger” to a literal extreme.
Both logos have interesting histories, although opinions vary widely. From a visual perspective, the wire frame globe symbol that has been Continental’s for many years is a bit too common for the 21st century. Globes, and especially wire frame globes, have become as common as clip art. And when that happens, it has less to add to a company’s identity. It does little to help identify the company as unique or special or different.
Brand New by Under Consideration is not a fan of the new “mashup.” And Fast Company gives us a nice time line of each logo’s history, as well as each logo’s famous designers.
Famous designers and mashups aside, I don’t think this logo is any more or any less special or interesting than either of the originals. It’s vanilla and non-descriptive. Perhaps they wanted a very visual way to say the two have merged. Let’s just hope that this is a temporary solution while they work on more permanent, more well-thought out branding solution.
Tags: branding, continental, logo, merger, mindshare, rebrand, united
June 15, 2010 at 6:15 pm |
Brett Traylor has a great post about this “identity crisis” here: http://bit.ly/aXECOY He’s harsh, but he has a good point. Several actually. I think a lot of designers right now are wondering if there was a branding professional involved in the merger/identity conversation. Based on the outcome, I’m guessing not.