BESIP logo redesign fail

A bit of local design news for you. BESIP is an authority for road safety, part of the Department of Transport in Czech republic. The new management (Ondřej Valenta) decided to throw away the “old” logo, which has served for 44 years, and come with something MODERN, DYNAMIC, JUICY etc. to communicate better.

“We redesign the old look to a new, modern logo of transport authority, corporation, a company with modern managerial management and advanced internal and external communication” says the owner of the “communication” agency.

And now just look at it.

This is the most typical redesign fail. Throw away everything what has been working (because you got it right!), throw a couple of VERY poor designs on the table and let’em choose. Do a horrible typographic job, and choose an emptied color scheme. “Three people were working for four weeks, six variants to choose from” stresses the agency. Boy they must’ve been sweating with effort.

A breathing logo

“We like the kerning for the chosen typeface, and it’s well chosen, in our opinion” says the owner, as he is defending the tragic composition with “our intention was that the logo could breathe and wasn’t so cramped”. (interviewed by idnes.cz)

The new slogan is somehow more insistant and alarming, thus reflecting modern news-breaking media fear. The old “For the life on the road” was replaced by “…because life’s at stake!”

My manners are at stake!

Btw, do you remember obama’s logo?

Resigned losership is the cancer we learned to love

I know it’s not as juicy as a hunger strike or government corruption scandal. But as a designer and an aesthetically responsible person, I cannot be silent. Not anymore. We were mumbling about our little injustice for to long. There is hope. Look at the GAP case, redesign fail. And look at the community, which reacted whose reaction’s were 1) WTF 2) I can do better. It produced results.

Czech designers, art directors, typographers, this situations is not hopeless. We can change it. Let’s kick some responsible ass. Share, blog, tweet, do your own redesign. Please, don’t be silent.

~~I decided NOT to name the agency yet, to prevent the bad-ad-good-ad effect. It’s all in the dot.~~