The Non-committal Brand

There is a disturbing design trend plaguing the internet. Millions are spent, publicity is rampant, and the results are deadening. The cities of Toronto and Atlanta have been the victims of the poorly designed identities promoting their respective cities pictured above. And your city could be next.

Why is it that such high profile rebrandings are resulting in the types of afterthoughts pictured above? One possibility is the committee. As Charles F. Kettering said: "If you want to kill any idea in the world today, get a committee working on it."

Through the narrowing down process often used by committees, the idea that everyone must provide their input, slowly what may begin as a good idea gets whittled down until the remaining design is as uninteresting and unenlightened as possible. When several people provide their opinions and all of those opinions must be implemented, the poor designer ends up with the instructions to "make it playful, but more corporate and more serious". The result is almost always something that no one in the committee feels very strongly about, either for or against, and the deadening new brand is launched to an unsuspecting public.

Save the brand, pick a single decision maker. Your constituents will thank you.