Liverpool’s £70K 2009 logo
Imagined conversations on Liverpool new logo:
“So, we need a logo that mixes the old with the new, the vibrant with the classical, old architecture versus the new architecture. The Beatles AND The Wombats, The Cavern AND Cream, Protestant AND Catholic, Liverpool AND Everton, Yosser Hughes AND Danielle Lloyd, Yin AND Yang, forward not backward, blue and, er, light blue.”
“And we need to have some horrible tower blocks in it for, y’know, business and shit.”
“How about a two-tone pictures of some cool Liverpool landmarks, plus those shit tower blocks?”
“Wouldn’t that look like the Thames TV logo?“
“Yes. But lets get some slebs in to tell us what they think of it. Say Abby from The Zutons, that bloke from Cream, some woman who owns a boutique and the director of the School for Tropical Medicine.”
“What have they got to do with it?”
“Absolutely nothing, but we’ll call them brand ambassadors and say they form a wide cross-section of Liverpool society.”
“Love it! OK, I’ll send this down to design. By the way, how much are we going to charge for this?”
“Oooh. 50 grand? Plus £20K for research. There’s a recession on after all…”
OK, in all seriousness there’s nothing to get hugely worked up about here – unlike Liverpool’s ‘Third Best’ slogan – I’m irritated that Liverpool is apparently now being branded with those bloody tower blocks, which amount to rich people’s playthings, and the font is obviously rubbish.
But although it’s traditional to have a punt at new logos (this one’s by Finch, who did the 08 logo), as any rent-a-gob can sound off about a scribbled logo, I don’t doubt the value of branding and marketing. But £70,000? Really?
If Liverpool Vision had any sense it would have launched a competition for graphic designers in the city to submit their own and give the winner a grand as a prize.
The result would be just as good and £69K could instantly go on something more sensible – a statue of Craig Charles perhaps?
Edit: There’s a new website up all about the new 09 branding. I don’t want to be pointlessly snarky, so I’ll offer up the following without comment:
So who are we? We’re genuine. The only front here is the waterfront. The only airs we put on are the tunes we play. Say what you mean, that’s what we say.
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Comments
I completely agree – what a terrible logo. Too much detail: it’s more of an illustration than a logo, and it looks like a poor relative of the 08 brand. That was simple and clever, this tries to cram too much in and it’s far too complicated – it doesn’t degrade elegantly at all when made smaller and loses so much. What a waste of money.
Little Robin
It’s perfectly pleasant but to me it looks suspiciously like a photo montage that’s been messed around with in Photoshop for a couple of hours. Plus, the font is only slightly different to the one on the 08 logo.
How this can have cost 70 grand is a total mystery. Still, if the London 2012 logo cost £400,000, I guess it’s value for money.
Good point on the degradation – hadn’t thought of that. I think the font is the one serious problem myself. I think fonts are important – and this one’s shit.
Someone on Liverpool.com also said the arena and new museum look like two humpback whales being chased by a shark, which amused me.
Not sure comp for a grand is the way forward though?
Sounds suspiciously like ‘we’d like to see what you can do before we take you on…’ then turn around and say ‘sorry, you weren’t successful this time (but we’re happy to rip off the creative effort in your ‘sample’ in our final design)’
Assuming the tender process for this work was open and fair, then the logical conclusion is that Finch, at 70,000, was the best value for money?
I’d say that’s the logical assumption. But if you’ve get 10 companies lined up to do you a mediocre logo on the back of some stating-the-bleeding-obvious research and the cheapest one is £70K it’s a good idea to have a rethink.
I think a comp could be done quickly and easily. Get someone working for whatever quango oversees these things to draw up a list of ten submissions, print them in the Echo, Phil Redmond/Herbert/Steve G throws a dart at them, Bob’s your Uncle.
Love the shark and humpback whale comment! Almost as good as the comment I saw a while back saying that the London 2012 logo looks like Lisa Simpson giving head!
I’ve grown to see what the logo is about over the course of the day. I still think the font was a mistake, but the logo itself has improved with time. There’s some good information of the City Brand website – http://www.liverpoolcitybrand.co.uk/ that explains the thinking behind it. And I’m impressed with the way the logo has been designed so that it can be equally effective in either 1 colour or 2 colour versions. It doesn’t need to be blue – there are a number of variations in different colours.
So, I’m sticking up for it, subject to the point about the awful font, I reckon its a good brand identifier.
On the whole the logo isn’t awful, though the font is, obviously. I am interested to see what happens to it at thumbnail size too.
I genuinely don’t know what to make of all that brandspeak behind it though, apart from the fact that I don’t think it was good value for money.
And the Beetham Towers on the logo? Well, I think I made my views of that fairly obvious.
And why has the arena part got no reflection?
the logo is good judging by the following reaction. I’m from Liverpool but currently living in London, just showed it to some friends who were very surprised, said ‘wow, is that Liverpool?’. I showed them some of the great photography coming out of Liverpool at present, particularly of the skyline and they were amazed. One works for a multi-national and said ‘maybe we should relocate’. Purely anecdotal but I have never heard this sort of reaction to Liverpool in Britain before, perceptions are changing. (When I was living in China recently, the perception of Liverpool was 100% positive)
[…] again, if you listen to Dr Tasker. Following Liverpool’s various branding disaster of its logo and slogan, the people responsible for marketing the city must be close to jacking it […]