The Death Star is dead. Long live the Death Star.

That’s the message I’m getting from the new post-merger SBC/AT&T logo, unveiled today. Here it is, with its forebears:

(From left, the 1983 Saul Bass original, the 1999 “refined” version, and the new globe.)

Now, brand consultants usually have some high-falutin’ language about what the brand means and what it evokes and all that. (Example: “[CEO Ed Whitacre] says marketing people finally convinced him that the new look was more evocative of the Internet generation: ‘They tell me it’s more trendy and modern.'”)

I don’t know know about the “Internet generation”, but for me it says:

1. Look, we turned the globe inside-out. Sort of like how former AT&T-spinoff SBC gobbled up its parent. The student has become the teacher, see?
2. We liked Citigroup‘s font. And hey, lowercase seems to be working for them…
3. Sure, it’s ugly as hell — but aren’t you glad we didn’t make some unholy combination of the SBC logo and the globe? Imagine the Death Star with tentacles!
4. Hey, at least it’s not Verizon.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 21st, 2005 at 11:58 pm and is filed under Miscellany.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.