How to...

...Ruin a Great Design

This article makes some interesting points. The enlarged "D" in the biking sign is distracting and unnecessary, two qualities you do not want to see on a traffic sign. It is also interesting that the original designers of the signs in London seem to have known what they were doing and the article's author approves of the job that they did. It is the subsequent designers who messed up.

However the criticism of UPS's new logo seems pretty harsh. The previous logo looked dated, and even the package with the strings holding it closed is obsolete. The fact the new logo is in color is more in line with UPS's branding (What can brown do for you?) and matches the UPS logo that existed previous to the black and white 'present' one. It may be more generic, but for a company that is global, corporate, and trying to expand, appealing to the most people makes sense. If Rawsthorn finds that depressing, she probably has more of an issue with globalization than just logos. The same thing goes for the Citroen logo. It isn't necessarily bad, it is different, which Rawsthorn takes issue with it. The association for her, personally, is ruined, so the design is bad. Not the best logic.

You can't resist change for the sake of nostalgia, nor can you be surprised when McDonald's gets an iconic chair to be part of their image. Nor should Fritz Hansen be annoyed when McD's decides to buy a cheaper version of their chair. It's MCDONALD'S. That's like giving an alligator a kitten and getting mad when it gets eaten.