As its original name implied, Union Bank has a big presence in the state of California but as the organization has grown, expanding into neighboring states like Oregon and Washington, and with two international offices and six in other states of the U.S., it was time to drop the “of California.”
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“Two of the most powerful names in wealth management,” begins the About Us page on the newly formed entity that is Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, “have joined forces to create a new industry leader.” It continues, “In a financial world that’s being remade, Morgan Stanley’s global wealth management business and Smith Barney have joined forces to offer you thinking and resources to fit the times.” How about we tell it like it is: “Things have gone horribly wrong and this is the best we can come up with.” As challenging as it may be to run an organization of this complexity is designing a logo that consists of 24 characters making up two names that both need equal attention. The new wordmark derives mostly from Morgan Stanley’s old logo with a subtle evolution and the result is surprisingly decent and even adventurous: Notice the right tapering of the “h, m, n” giving the wordmark a gentle fluidity. There is also something nice about the double “ey” ending, like a happy rhyme. Certainly, by today’s visual standards this is as boring a logo as one can get, but for the industry and the need to appear conservative this is, actually, as exciting as it gets.
“The world doesn’t need another bank, it needs a better bank,” reads the latest well-written press release touting the launch of Ally, “a new brand for a U.S. online bank designed to disrupt the status quo and challenge win-lose practices in the banking industry. We are launching a new brand with a new approach of treating customers with total transparency,” states Chief Executive Officer Al de Molina. Either Mr. de Molina is confused about the definition of the word transparency, or he is simply lying; either way consumers are being duped by this “launch.” The “groundbreaking, disruptive philosophy” at the heart of the new brand is the mastermind of GMAC Financial Services, the 90-year-old holding company that created Ally. The new bank states that they “will not bait and switch depositors;” in fact they are doing exactly that. Ally is simply a tactical, albeit clever, name change for the older, less reputable bank. The friendlier nomenclature is accompanied by a fairly sturdy, well-designed lowercase logo, with just the slightest hint of Web 2.0 peeking through. While the new identity is certainly an improvement, sadly, it seems the holding company’s values have remained intact. “Given the recent financial market turmoil, people are looking for a safe, honest and efficient place to save and grow their money.” Perhaps, in a truly concerted effort to be “honest,” GMAC should rethink the use of the word “honest.”
Fiserv, the largest provider of technology, logistics and information management for the financial services industry has recently updated its 25-year-old logo which, rather painfully, demonstrated its 1984 roots. Designed by Landor, the new wordmark is an excellent corporate design: It is simple, confident and has just enough quirks to make it unique and ownable. The condensed sans serif is a great way of creating a compact wordmark that has as much punch as an icon. The period at the end is my favorite part, it clearly states “the line ends here, we are the best.” In contrast, my least favorite part is the missing dot over the “i.” I have never liked that move. An “i” needs its period, otherwise it’s just a stick, and in this particular case, it looks like the dot was transplanted to the end, so as much as I like the period, it feels like the “i” had to sacrifice its own. Nonetheless, this is a simple, strong corporate design and major bonus points for ditching the industry-issued color blue in favor of orange.
Thanks to Jarrod Wubbels for the tip.
I was going around a few web sites yesterday and I stopped by Tony Spaeth’s Identity Works where I spotted this beauty. It looks like it was completed and launched back in September, so it’s not completely fresh, at least not just in its date. Ixe Grupo Financiero, established in Mexico in 1996, is one of the strongest financial groups around at the moment (or so I am told, and so I understand) perhaps because of their corporate and high income audience, and they have opened El Banco Deuno. It translates very roughly as “One’s (own) Bank.” And it is targeted to the burgeoning middle income class, which until a few years ago was not as prosperous as what is known as middle income class in the US or Europe. Point being: El Banco Deuno is a friendly, accessible and modern bank with strong roots in Mexico. The identity has been designed by Saffron and it is quite fantastic.
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Early in October, the 150-year-old Bank of New Zealand unveiled a new identity as wall as a name change to BNZ, which is apparently how people refer to it, but I wouldn’t really know, I’ll defer to our NZ readers. The change, as is clear from the before and after logos, is meant to take the bank from the perception of a stodgy, traditional bank to that of a friendlier more contemporary one.
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Owned by financial services firm Barclays, Barclaycard is one of the largest credit card providers in Europe and India. And it recently unveiled a new identity designed by The Brand Union that is as much about moving the service provider forward as it is about mimicking what other brands have already done: Kodak, Xerox, AT&T, Ericsson, blah, blah, blah.
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This is almost two months old, but it’s something I meant to post when it came out and somehow forgot to. The Community of Madrid, which is one of the 17 autonomous communities of Spain, unveiled a new logo that they will use to promote Madrid-based businesses in other countries, complementing the launch of a network of offices around the world that will support the international endeavors of these businesses. The Community of Madrid already has a logo, a red square with the seven stars of Madrid’s flag, which some people argued would have been enough instead of having to make a new one — specially a new one with such an odd message.
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I have to begin by apologizing for the tiny logos you see above and for the more-than-usual lack of information. Since this identity launch is not official yet, there is little to no information, much less supporting graphics. But an update this… hellish, deserves special advance screening. According to this page, buried deep somewhere in the capitalone.com server, the new look (which you can delight yourself in while visiting that URL) will take place in late February, while, one of our tipsters informed me that the logo had been released internally since last summer. Regardless of when this will be official, it will not be a second too soon to bask in Swooshiness 3.0 — yes, it’s on a revival course. The old logo was nothing to admire, with its extended italic sans, and flimsy, subscript, italic serif [you can see a detail of it in this pop-up] but at least it didn’t have a swoosh. As I write this, I am actually glad there is no press release about the new logo, as I can’t imagine it being anything less than infuriating. Nothing, in the year 2008, can justify the use of a swoosh. Much less a swoosh with gradients and bevels. Even less for one of the major financial players in the U.S. — next time you check to see what’s in your wallet, really, check that you don’t have this in it. Perhaps we’ve been living in purgatory since 2000 and Xerox just opened the gates to hell — and hell looks like the Capital One logo.
It is a sad day in the world of identity design: A day in which we say goodbye to the beautiful, and now defunct, Bank of New York logo and usher in the new Bank of New York Mellon logo. On July 2, 2007, Mellon Bank offically merged with The Bank of New York and on October 1, 2007, the Bank of New York Mellon launched its global brand program — one all the more challenging as both banks have storied histories that include great identities with great legacy.
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(Total Number of Pages in Finance: 2)
