Kodak's New Logo

[Jeff Morfit]

Has anyone on this forum seen Kodak's new logo yet?

[Steve Clark]

No, but does it have anything at all to do with photography? :~)

[matthew blais]

Yeah, there's a thread over on APUG.org with an image of it.
I'm surprised they remembered how to spell it correctly.

[John_4185]

http://www.engadget.com/media/2006/01/kodak_logo3.jpg

Article: interviews.engadget.com/2006/01/07/kodak-unveils-new-logo/ (http://interviews.engadget.com/2006/01/07/kodak-unveils-new-logo/)

What is the Y generation, anyway?

[robc]

many years ago I worked for ICI. They got themselves a new chairman who made a few changes including the logo. The old logo was a circle with a couple of wavy lines in it and the the letters ICI. The new logo was a circle with a couple of wavy lines in it and the the letters ICI. What was difference I hear you ask. Well the new logo had an extra wave in the wavy lines. So whats the point of the story. Well ICI is big company. A very big company. They have huge stocks of stationary. They have huge stocks of advertising literature. All their products have their logo printed on them. It all had to be changed. It cost the company millions of pounds just for the sake of putting an extra wave in the logo lines.

If I were a an EK shareholder I would like to know how much this little exercise is costing the company. Will every retailer have to change every kodak logo in their store. They won't like that unless Kodak are paying.

[John Kasaian]

Hey Rob,

It looks like they're trying to save on yellow and red ink!

I don't remember how it goes in latin, but theres a great phrase that translates into something like : "If I labor to be brief, I become obscure."

That notion kind of fits in with Kodak's new logo :-(

[Lee Hamiel]

I think it's a good move on their part as the previous TM resembled K-Mart style graphics.

Now - if Ford would kill the blue oval ... Bring back a simple script like before

[Brian Vuillemenot]

Reminds me of when KFC updated the portrait of the colonel a few years back.

[Frank Petronio]

I like type logos and humanistic fonts, so this is a step in the right direction. The dumb thing is that they probably paid Siegel & Gale (http://www.siegelgale.com/) millions to do what any sensible 23-year old graphic designer would have done for a tiny fraction of a million dollars. I would have eliminated the lines and set the red type against a field of gold myself.

All type logos make a lot more sense these days, when a brand identity has to be legible in a 50 pixel gif online. I'm just glad they didn't do anotherdot.com swish or something really stupid like AT&T (http://www.att.com/welcome.html) or the worst (http://www22.verizon.com/) logo in the universe.

Of course their best logos were circa 1935 when they were also the most high tech company in the world and their quality control surpassed anything the Germans could do. What a pity they lost their way and fricking General McArthur gave away the American optical industry.

[Jerry Flynn]

I have a vague recollection (they all seem to be vague now) that the red shape symbolized something like the Instamatic cartridge being inserted in a camera or something. That would not be very much in keeping with their current business focus, I suppose.

I think as Frank suggests, an all-type logo works better these days for Internet legibility.

[Joakim Ahnfelt]

As an Art Director and graphic designer I must say that I think the new logo is totally bland. Will you recognize it in a split second in the corner of your eye? The old one had a clearly distingtive form. A CEO with balls would have orderd a slight revision of the old one, a tweak here and a tweak there to modernize it without loosing its expression. Coca-Cola tweaks their logo every three years. No one ever notices, but on the other hand, it never looks old. Now the Kodak logo does look just like a 23-year old graphic designer has done it. Indistinguishable from anything else.
If you set up your camera in a way that removes everything in the composition that stands out and draws the eye. Would it be a good picture?

[robc]

minimalism? What about the old adage "less is more". I'm not saying that works here, because I don't think it does, but it can do if done well.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Red, yellow, and white--seems kind of McDonalds or Burger King to me. The font is more McDonalds.

[David Luttmann]

David,

Considering they cancelled their DSLR line to just concentrate on point & shoot (with the exception of some LF sensors for backs), they probably are going after the Mcdonalds crowd.

[John Kasaian]

Old stuff, ancient history---does anyone remember those Kodak "photo-op" markers that are (were?) located on all the typical postcard panorama view points in every tourist area in the U.S.? They were very easy to identify with the bright yellow and red logos screaming "shoot film here!"

The new logo is nowhere near as effective IMHO. Then again, how much film does Kodak plan on selling to digitally armed tourists?

Ahhh, to be a young lad, newly weaned from mama's milk bar only to find one's self seperated from my parents in a crowd, at the Kodak Hula Show in Waikiki! The old trademarks hold very fond memories for me! ;-)

[robc]

david i see what you mean...

http://visualperception.net/misc/kodak.gif

[David Luttmann]

Rob.....that is perfect!!! ;-)

[Walt Calahan]

LOL

Can I get cheeze on that Kodak burger. Also want fries and a shake.

Ha ha ha

I perfer a nice green Fuji salad instead. HA!

[David A. Goldfarb]

Given the reception of the last 13.8 Mp DCS Pro SLR/c built on an EF-mount Sigma body, it's probably best that they stay out of DSLRs. B&H had 10 of these in stock a few months ago, and can't seem to sell them at any price. They were about $3000 at the time, now marked down to $2495.95.

[Lee Hamiel]

Joakim:

I agree that the new logo is bland - also a bit too safe from a CEO's perspective - also could have been done not by a 23 year old but rather a 10 year old. However - I do feel that it's an improvement over their recent mark & also allows for easy internet usage per Frank's comment.

I of course would have done a totally different style of mark myself - a look that I could easily identify with as well as considering buying as well.

I have been an illustrator in the intellectual property field for almost 30 years. We primarily are technical illustrators but also have done countless trademark drawings for my corporate clients as well as small companies. Although our function is to replicate the original trademark for filing & legal protection purposes I have been exposed to countless examples of what I feel are good or bad logos/trademarks.

A good example would be the "IAMS" pawprint logo for dogfood as a readily identifiable mark without even using words or letters. Another would be "Johnson & Johnson" in script form which has been used for many years & has been slightly tweaked is still essentially the same mark. There is no simple font for this type as the original was done with a combination of brush & ink pen.

My proposal for the mark would have been more simplistic and only use the letter K along with a means to convey imaging; perhaps a gold background with the original 100 year old font "K" in red & then maybe a mirror image to the right with a gold "K" on a red background.

I'm not going to waste more time at this point - just that changing it period was a good thing for them.

[Richard Ide]

Lee

The CEO is watered twice a week so his perspective is a little potty.

[Victor Samou Wong]

Yeah I think that the logo is too safe.. dead bland from another designers perspective. The pity is that the old logo has so much 'good will' behind it. That is a large amount of collective memory of pictures, good and bad, attached to the logo. I have pretty good memories of kodak slide (especially kodachrome), I associate the warm bias of kodak films with this logo. Now I'll associate the new logo with their really crappy quality digital cameras.... bleh. Smells almost like the beginning of the end for a certain company.....

Cheers.

[Conrad Hoffman]

Opinions on blandness aside, the new logo looks weak or out of balance on the right hand side. IMO, there's a huge amount of history and design expertise behind good typefaces, and this one isn't destined for greatness or longevity.