A blog by Ben Gilman

So MoneySupermarket.com, the financial comparison behemoth has made a bit of a splash by starting its first physical real-world presence with a touch-screen booth on Oxford Street for the Christmas season. To be honest, it looks pretty lame - but apparently we can look forward to them on high streets everywhere.

Kudos, then, to MoneyExtra or their marketing representatives for this bit of guerrila piggybacking that I spotted this morning.

Now to go cut out that jester stencil.

Erm…. it’s taken a while but I’m starting to quite like the London 2012 Olympics brand and logo. Despite my desire to avoid the masses, I was firmly in the “huh” camp when it was revealed in 2007.

With the marketing activity kicking into gear I think the brand is starting to show its strengths. Firstly, the shape is so unmistakable no matter what the fill is. As a designer, that sort of freedom with a logo shape is rare and I think it really works nicely in some contexts.

The use of the logo in corporate sponsor’s marketing materials also works well for me - so well in fact that you get the distinct feeling that that was a major factor in the design process. Either way if that was a requirement, the logo is achieving its aim.

Despite my general softening towards the look and feel, there are still errors out there to be made - this, for example, is a step too far in my opinion:

The explanation goes that this is the first time that the Olympic and Paralympic brands have shared a brand identity - it seems to me that in this case they could actually have fully shared it with the quick addition of the Paralympic Games strapline. For me the extra swirls and hatches have totally compromised the bold simplicity of the lines of the original logo.

So what have we learned?

All of this proves to me that whilst first impressions can only be made once they’re not always correct - I think there’s a new-fangled phrase that beat me to this. Brand development is as much about long-term feeling as it is short-term impact.

But how does that sit with user-testing in brand development? What can you learn from immediate exposure to a logo or a colour scheme? Without the courage to weather an initial storm of criticism, the London 2012 brand may have been a far less adventurous one? A brand that didn’t fairly represent UK design on a global stage maybe.

Ah, a chance to ape the fine Brand New with a rebrand review!

Apparently one of the most tumultuous days in recent world finance history is a good day for UK-based credit-card-company-come-payment-processor Barclaycard to release their new visual identity.

As a first impression I do quite like it, the new typeface is nice and the shade of blue appeals in a finance 2.0 way.

The Barclaycard press release talks about the globe depicting “a world that is calm and confident on the outside, whilst warm and vibrant on the inside.” Unfortunately for me the globe looks a little like it’s falling apart… maybe very prescient given the current situation. Also, as alluded in my blog title, it’s very hard to look at this and not think of AT&T - even over this side of the Atlantic!

Overall though, for me it’s an improvement - it’s maybe a little too shiny and contemporary and it will be interesting to see how it pans out in the future but the new simplicity and clean lines are a definite step forward from its curvy credit card predecessor!