10 December 2010

[logo] Comedy Central ReLogoIzes - But Is It Teh Funnay?

2550.
What you see is what you get. Comedy Central is redesigning its logo, and you'll either love it or hate it, me thinks. Here's a version I have screenclipped from the page where you can see a preview of next season:



The approach is clean, dressed-down and simple. You can look at it in two ways: cool and corporate, or zany within the bounds.

That the graphic component resembles the copyright symbol, ©, would seem to be intentional; the logo pops up just where you'd expect to see it in the video - above and to the right of the content of interest. Here's the clip:

Comedy Central: This Is 2011
www.comedycentral.com
Funny JokesIt's Always Sunny in PhiladelphiaUgly Americans


The dry humor I find in keeping it real tightly designed but flipping the type in the word "central" works for me. But it depends on where one's sensibilities lie, I suppose; Paul Constant of the PMerc finds it rather nifty; the first commenter equates it with the Gap logo faux pas of a few months back.

I disagree there. The new Gap logo seemed thrown together in Word as WordArt; this identity gives me the feeling that, despite its simplicity, there was a good deal of care involved in settling on that font. One does not choose Gotham lightly.

Read Paul Constant's article on it here: http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/BlogtownPDX/archives/2010/12/10/this-is-how-you-update-a-logo.

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4 comments:

Unknown said...

Wha? Is Paul working for the MERC now? (he was the Stranger's book editor)

Also, I'm surprised you haven't commented on them using this large, kind of weird (but attention-grabbing) serif font in all their imaging for show titles, etc. I certainly noticed it, but wasn't sure what to say about it.

Benjamin Lukoff said...

The Mercury and the Stranger are sister publications.

Samuel John Klein said...

@Ben(1): The video was pretty frenetic, yes. I didn't pay it much mind at first … I was much more tuned in to how CC wanted to use their new mark.

On reviewing that clip, I see what you're referring to. As far as it goes, my impression is that it forms a nifty counterpoint to the absolutely dressed-down sans-serif font that exists in the logo-wordmark itself. It's simple and unaffected, so even though it's serif and more "sculpted", it harmonizes with the sans serif in the wordmark itself.

Samuel John Klein said...

In Re:Paul Constant: yes, what Ben(2) said. the Merc and the Strangler are both siblings. The style of both are very similar, though the One Day At A Time Column in the Merc is much more whimsical and celebrity-gossip oriented than the Strangler's version (and is apparently written by a gestalt entity calling itself Ann Romano). It's also screamingly funny.