“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” – something a lot of students and alumni of APC are now exclaiming as the school’s Twitter account manages to post the new APC logo.
First off, let’s look at how Asia Pacific College’s logo was when we left it via TMS
Now let’s look at how it is, or at least how people are proposing it to become.
I don’t get it. Mainly going with a redesign but they opt to simply cope with the old logo’s sans serif font, highlight the letter “P” for some reason, still use a breaker like the old logo which creates a bad negative space due to the P’s tail, then fill the information gap, by putting the meaning APC under the breaker, in the serif typeface used in the school’s crest.
As of time of posting, all the twitter comments above were deleted. Not a single positive one within hours of post. And from there I thought they took a great hint. But I guess it’s tough cracking their shell to get the message through. Couple of hours later they tweeted (probably based on reactions and comments)
… I guess people back there are confused and clearly undecisive of the direction they want towards this redesign. Somehow, for a school that’s building itself as THE School of Multimedia Arts (SoMA), they probably are under utilizing the designers at home base.
Even former AB Multimedia Arts Director, Gerard Cadlum, can’t help but feel ‘sad’ about this attempt for a redesign – Post1, Post2 (FB posts)
With all due respect, there are a sh*tload of great designers and artists this school can boast about. But really, going in this kind of direction and producing mediocre output is rather sad.
One suspicion most of us are having is that it’s probably because it’s under SM. Like BDO and NU, Henry Sy, or whoever is in charge of this, probably wants APC to have the same color treatment or feel. That’s fine – it’s their business. But at least find designers, they don’t even have to be from the school, who actually specialize on this.
Still, it boils down to the purpose of the mark redesign. Does it actually serve the brand’s purpose or what? Until we actually know if this is actually functioning well for APC, it’s simply just plain old bad design aesthetically. It feels rushed and forced.
If you’re from this school. There’s a great deal why you should care and complain. Plain and simple – the school can reflect you. Bad design = bad designer.
Now what can we do? At least let them know how we all generally feel. Tweet them. Or use one I prepared so you won’t have to type:
Dear @apcrams. New logo proposals are fugly. We love change/improvement but that won’t do. Design and Decide Better. via @iKenDesign [Tweet]