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After establishing a Corporate Branding Division last year, Japan’s 53-million-customer NTT DoCoMo is undergoing a major re-branding that will be rolled out July 1st — the cornerstone of which is their new logo. DoCoMo’s company name, previously divided in three syllables and now united as one word, comes from the word dokomo, meaning “everywhere”, and is an abbreviation of the phrase, “Do Communications Over the Mobile Network.”
Their recent press release states:
“The new logo’s color is red, which symbolizes the company’s energy and dynamism. The logo, along with other branding elements, embodies DoCoMo’s commitment to achieve customer satisfaction by understanding the needs of customers and building stronger relationships with them, and to maximize the creativity of the company’s workforce and remain a leading innovator in the mobile communications industry.”
The previous logo, with its broken up camelCase and tri-colored graphic swirlyness, was always a bit noisy and disjointed. The spacing between syllables more jarring than solidifying and articulate. However the new logo is refreshingly restrained, well balanced and concise. Even the puckered up “d” kind of works alongside the other geometric forms. Through removing some of the flair and frenetic energy of the previous, this new simplified wordmark manages to call more attention to their name and reflect their grown-up, parental position in the marketplace. While some may claim that this mark is dull and uninventive, it takes a fair bit of foresight to retain a cool, timeless hand in this time of shiny 2.0 trends.
You can visit their press release here and a range of images from their FOMA line and others. And, as Tony Spaeth reports, there is no disclosure of who was in charge of the design.
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Dan’s comment is:
Looks like Conoco.
On May.12.2008 at 02:42 PM
Chad K’s comment is:
Perhaps its just the similarity in names that creates the association. Or maybe not:
Could it also be a new branch of these guys:
Other than that, I am diggin the detail on the lower part of the 'd' although it may detract from the overall roundness you get from all the other letters' baselines. The NTT is should have just been dropped instead of looking like a TM symbol. That said, it is a %100 improvement.
On May.12.2008 at 02:48 PM
Chad K’s comment is:
Sorry for the previous disaster of an image. Here it is, a lot smaller:
Oliver’s comment is:
Meh. Uninspiring. Way better than their old piece of junk though.
On May.12.2008 at 03:11 PM
Jung’s comment is:
I like the fact that new logo is simpler and more stable. And the old logo is disaster. But doesn't it at least trying to show energy?? (although it is horrible)
On new logo, Looking at the letter "d" is quite horrifying. I am not sure what that cute decoration is for in the first place. Secondly, if there was any reason for doing it, that thing is so tiny, and rather looks like a mistake to communicate to any degree.
On May.12.2008 at 03:31 PM
Christopher’s comment is:
The old logo was probably too 80s Pop. I liked that about it, but probably doesn't position them well to be at the forefront.
Red, of course being one of the two national colors of Japan, is an obvious choice for the number one mobile company there. Red is immediately understood as taking pride in country. Red is the color of the rising sun, the future and the power of the warrior. It works well outside of Japan in other parts of Asia where Red is a symbol of power and luck. It's a fairly obvious choice and not surprising that you see it in other Japanese companies: Honda, Toyota, etc.
On May.12.2008 at 03:36 PM
ScottS’s comment is:
"The logo embodies DoCoMo's commitment to achieve customer satisfaction by understanding the needs of customers and building stronger relationships with them, and to maximize the creativity of the company's workforce and remain a leading innovator in the mobile communications industry."
Uhhh...it does? How exactly does it do all of that in this completely ordinary-looking and ultimately forgettable redesign? Sure, it's simpler and more cohesive and more mature than the original. In that respect, it's no doubt a vast improvement. Other than that, though, it does little to impress.
On May.12.2008 at 03:39 PM
Darrin Crescenzi’s comment is:
Yes, that "d" makes me weep.
On May.12.2008 at 03:42 PM
rek’s comment is:
Isn't 'docomo' Japanese for everywhere and nowhere? That's what I was told when I travelled there a few years back.
On May.12.2008 at 03:45 PM
Colin’s comment is:
I like the mark, overall. And although I find it silly when people here start getting picky over letterforms and kerning, that "d" bugs me as well. It bugs me as a designer, though, and not as an impressionable consumer. I think the similarity with Conoco's mark could help them out a bit. It might not hurt to leverage off the equity of another mark, if you can get away with it.
On May.12.2008 at 04:00 PM
dg3’s comment is:
It's DOES sorta look like a Conoco word scramble.
That being said, the new logo BLOWS the older one away.
On May.12.2008 at 04:00 PM
Wünderwoman’s comment is:
The new logo is much more stable and well designed. It symbolizes a company that is maturing. I like the etymology of the name. It's brilliant.
On May.12.2008 at 04:34 PM
Alfonso’s comment is:
I agree that it's much cleaner than the previous logo, yet actually manages to have even less character.
Surprisingly, though, I don't mind the alteration to the 'd'. At least it's in keeping with the general stroke-width/curves rules established by the rest of the letterforms. (Perhaps I'm still hurting from a recent logo redesign for a local bank, which actually took a similar lowercase, sans serif 'd' and violated the living crap out of it. [link in spanish])
One comment regarding the article, I don't think the term CamelCase applies to the old logo, as each syllable is separated by spaces. I may be wrong, but I think CamelCase applies specifically to compound names whose words are set close together (ie. no whitespace between them) and separated only by the uppercase letterforms. That is why it's written CamelCase, instead of Camel Case. Otherwise, what would be the point of giving it its own term?
On May.12.2008 at 04:41 PM
Jeff’s comment is:
Agree with the person who pointed out the jagged piece on the "d" -- a bit distracting. Nonetheless this is a significant upgrade from the LSD trip of a previous logo. Smart move compressing the phonetics into one word -- much less daunting to verbalize.
On May.12.2008 at 04:57 PM
Jeff’s comment is:
Dot Com O Dot NTT?
On May.12.2008 at 04:59 PM
Jung’s comment is:
To comment about people here being picky, and consumer impressionable...
I think designer without concern over detail should not call themselves designer. It could be viewed as very small thing for people without design knowledge, but spending considerable time on "kerning" which could be view as an unimportant stuff to normal people, that should rather be lifetime habit for designer. It is no different than craftsmanship of the Charles and Ray Eames.
If non-visual person really understood the need for investing time on being critical, anal whatever you want to call it, then they would have design whatever they need wouldn't they?
On May.12.2008 at 06:06 PM
CJ’s comment is:
Can these company's please skip the ridiculous press releases and just say... "Here's our new logo thing... whenever you see it, think of us."
On May.12.2008 at 06:07 PM
Paul Riehle’s comment is:
CJ, should be nice and easy if it were like that, but they have to make sure the stock holders feel nice and squishy inside, so they have to back it up with some explanation on what the new look brings to the table.
On May.12.2008 at 06:22 PM
Christian Palino’s comment is:
To Alfonso, you are correct in your articulation of camelCase being unspaced, which is indeed its entire code-driven purpose. However I see the spacing of the previous logo as entirely a visual element, as they have referred to themselves as "DoCoMo" (in plain text) for some time now.
On May.12.2008 at 06:33 PM
T-Bone’s comment is:
solid. that will work very well at small scales, ie on a mobile phone. nice work.
On May.12.2008 at 09:37 PM
Abdul Saboor’s comment is:
good
On May.13.2008 at 01:29 AM
marko savic’s comment is:
Two* Minute Rebrand™
Cap D mirrors the C, though it feels decidedly mixed case now. The m feels very McHappy. Initially I thought they should stack the type to emphasize the name as DoCoMo and bring in Japanese inspiration, but then it turned into a snowman.
* Actually 7 minutes, had to draw the characters and make the snowman.
On May.13.2008 at 03:35 AM
CJ’s comment is:
I know, I've written them myself.... just being cranky! Sometimes the writing is actually meaningful, other times I know it's not... just there to make people happy.
On May.13.2008 at 09:42 AM
Evan Rowe’s comment is:
That "d" is slaying me. Although, the previous logo made my eyes bleed each time I saw it, so this is still an improvement. Unfortunately, it still looks like a standard telecom logo from the 90s to me. This is kind of a bittersweet rebranding, as it looks far better than its predecessor, but still comes up short in the originality department. Baby steps, I guess, eh?
On May.13.2008 at 01:23 PM
IgorM’s comment is:
DoCoMo in Japan was a lot about experimenting and playing with mobile services. I liked the old logo (I'm not a designer), it was unusual, poetic, positive and made me smile. The new logo lost this playful character, it's more formalised, corporate, focused. As a stakeholder I would probably trust the new one more, but as a (maybe not a typical) user I would pick the old DoCoMo.
On May.14.2008 at 06:13 PM
Michael’s comment is:
barf...
On May.14.2008 at 11:42 PM
MiSc’s comment is:
It should have had much more in common with the old logo, visually... shouldn't it?
On May.15.2008 at 03:30 AM
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