I cannot believe that Northwest Airlines is rebranding themselves (or have been for several month I guess) - complete with a new bullshit logo! I have held up NWA's logo for years as an example of elegant simplicity. It says so much in such a small space; you have the N or W depending upon how you look at it and then the little arrow pointing, as if on a compass, in the North West direction. Beautiful. Now what they currently have is just horrendous.
A comparison:
This is becoming a trend. UPS just swapped out their Paul Rand-designed logo for a shiny-new gradiated logo that takes away any sort of hint at what they do (perhaps intentionally, as the company seems to be communicating that more vaguely these days too).
The new NWA logo takes away the brilliance of the old mark. It was easily distiguishable without the name next to it, and had a subtlety to it that is certainly not there in the new approach. My guess is that a significant amount of "market research" told them that people didn't know who they were or thought the mark was old-fashioned. Having seen a significant amount of NWA's brand imagery over the years, I would say their brand mark held strong, even when the pieces and places it was used in may not have.
...at 04:46 PM on August 11, 2003
I agree 110%. I've always hated the NWA acronym as well, if only because it makes me think "Fuck Tha Police!". Lets face it, for people under 35 NWA is synonymous w/ ganster rap, not flying planes.
...at 08:33 PM on August 11, 2003
thats tops mike,
right on!!!
how did they make that first logo, its pure gold :D ?
...at 05:01 AM on August 12, 2003
Maybe the new guy who just started at NWA couldn't "see" that the N also is a W in the old logo. Maybe they thought it was too subtle - american's aren't known for being smart you know.
...at 09:17 AM on August 12, 2003
Whoever redesigned that new NWA logo should be shot. How dare they even attempt to redesign an already clever logo.
I'd like to get the number of that piece of shit design firm that did this!!
...at 02:38 PM on December 31, 2003
The "NW" scheme, introduced in 1989, is the best by far! Landor & Associates did a magnificent job! I have the brochure that introduced this logo and scheme and Northwest introduced it with much fanfare. This logo was only in use from 1989-2003 (April 3, 2003). During the introduction, several aircraft in the fleet wore "experimental" schemes highlighting the versatility of the logo. In 1995, a DC-9-50 wore this scheme revised, with an all over gray fuselage, red tail with the logo in its usual position, and a larger copy of the logo superimposed on the forward fuselage. "Northwest" titling in red. This looked great, as it used far less paint. This should have been the revision! Check your history! Not developing a cheap, hip logo that has as much credibility as Delta's wavy tail scheme-whatever the hell it is! There certainly was not any fanfare when ^nwa introduced this 2nd grade effort in April 2003. The DC-9s already have soot buildup blackening the whole rear portion of the cone-maybe it will cover the logo! I have dubbed the ^nwa new scheme the "LensCrafters" scheme. LensCrafters is an eyeglass store where you can get your glasses in about an hour! The logos look so similar. Need eyeglasses? Go to an ^nwa ticket counter! Northwest's new tagline above this logo is "Now You're Flying Smart". Not too smart implementing this logo.............
...at 02:30 PM on April 01, 2004
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You are reading a blog post on AltText.com from August 11, 2003 at 01:40 PM. There are currently 7 comments discussing this post. If you want you can add your own thoughts to the discussion.
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Yeah, the new one blows. I agree. It takes a lot of guts to take the great graphic identity you've put years and Million$ into, and flush it down the toilet.
...at 01:51 PM on August 11, 2003