New Logos!

We marketers just love to make new logos. It's fun! It's refreshing! Liven up an old brand!

Sometimes it works quite well, actually, but after reading about the demise of the old Civil Defense logo, my reaction is a heart-felt "eh." Here are the old and new logos:

The old logo was getting a bit long in the tooth:

The CD insignia, which the association called “a relic from the cold war,” was eulogized by Richard Grefé, the executive director of the American Institute of Graphic Arts.

“The old mark fits in the same category of simplicity and impact occupied by the London Underground map,” Mr. Grefé said.

And now it's not "civil defense," it's "emergency management." You can see both logos in the Times article that I linked to above.

I would have liked to have seen something simpler and perhaps an homage to the old logo. The new one suffers from "tart it up" syndrome, with its perky stars and dangling tagline: "Public Safety [another star!] Public Trust."

It seems like a bit of an aspirational tagline; I wonder how it will be received in New Orleans. Though the stars a bit reminiscent of the Crescent City's crescent and star symbol: