My name is Michael Shumate and welcome to logo design theory.
Let me ask you a question: how did a huge, world-class and famous corporation like Xerox
pay so much money and get such a non-functional logo? Let's talk about it.
Xerox is a global company selling in more than 160 countries and has been consistently in the Fortune
500 list. Let's have a brief look at Xerox's logo history. Xerox was originally founded as the
Haloid Photographic Corporation and mostly made photographic paper and equipment. It had several
logo designs over the years. The company changed direction in 1946 when it acquired the rights to
a new dry writing technology and developed it and finally changed their name to Xerox.
The first good identity in modern design terms was designed around 1961 by Lippincott.
Then in 1968 the Xerox word mark was modernized by Tom Geismar of Chermayeff and Geismar.
In 1994 a logo was added designed by Landor Associates. This logo and word mark were
designed according to the Core Principles of logo design, and as such, could have lasted forever
and always looked good. But for reasons I can't understand, Xerox decided it needed a new logo.
In 2008 xerox got a new signature and logo designed by interbrand.
The 2008 signature is fine, but the 2008 logo had all sorts of problems. Anyway you cut it,
from Xerox's huge duplication machines where digital files are put in at one end
and finished books or documents come out the other end to the smallest office photocopier,
Xerox is in the reproduction business. How ironic, therefore, that Xerox's 2008
logo didn't reproduce well in all sorts of situations where a logo should reproduce.
Just let that sink in: a reproduction company has a logo that can't reproduce well. Hmm!
Here is the 2008 identity from one of Xerox's own cartons of photocopy paper.
Cardboard cartons are often printed with flexography which is basically rubber stamps
on drums. Note how the criss-crossing lines in the logo are distorted.
That pretty much always happens with lines printed in flexography.
Fine lines are one of the Deadly Sins of Logo Design. Strike one for the 2008 Xerox logo.
Once you open that carton you find reams of official Xerox photocopy paper,
each in a printed paper wrapper. These appear to have been printed in letterpress, no doubt to hold
up to printing the millions of wrappers that are needed each year. Note how the black crisscross
lines are out of register with the rest of the logo. If any logo and signature were different
colors and got printed out of register by only a few hundredths of an inch no one would notice. But
if a two color logo only a half inch big is out of register by that much it looks terrible like
it does here. Colors getting out of register is just a fact of life. For that reason, two color
logos are another one of the Deadly Sins in Logo Design. That's strike two for the 2008 xerox logo.
Every Xerox machine is identified with a logo badge or nameplate.
Note how the 2008 signature shows up really well, but the 2008 logo isn't very clear at all. Again,
subtleties in logos, related to contrast, is one of the Deadly Sins of Logo Design.
This is the control screen from a Xerox printer/copier. Note how the logo subtleties
just cannot be reproduced even on Xerox's own screen. Poor internal contrast is another one
of the Deadly Sins of Logo Design. That's strike three for the 2008 Xerox logo.
Unlike in baseball, it only takes one Deadly Sin to ruin a logo to make it so that it will not work
or be clear in a situation or in a reproduction method where all logos should be clear.
This logo was not designed according to the Core Principles of Logo Design.
I told my students back in 2008 when this logo was introduced that Xerox would change it in 5 or
ten years. They'd discover that their logo just didn't work, couldn't work, would never work.
I was wrong. It actually took 11 years to abandon that logo, which they did in 2019,
and just go with their signature alone. Now, ditching a logo may not sound too
painful to you, but consider this: the cost of implementing any new or changed identity
designed for a company this big will be many times more than any design fees involved.
All of the packaging for all Xerox products had to change.
Can you even guess how many vehicle Xerox owns? It has to be in the many thousands.
They all had to be changed. And signage for all their manufacturing
and administrative facilities had to be changed. The identity badges for each and every Xerox
machine also had to change. The total cost for all these changes must have been astronomical.
When any company has to change its corporate identity, and pay for all of those collateral
expenses, someone has to answer. To the CEO. To the board. And ultimately, to the shareholders.
But paying for a logo that might last forever is not throwing away good
money. Buying the poor logo design in the first place was throwing away good money.
Too much of logo design today is hit and miss. But it doesn't have to be that way,
and not just with solo designers and smaller design firms. Xerox's failed logo came from
one of the biggest branding agencies in the world. How could such a thing happen?
Because they don't understand the Core Principles of Logo Design.
The Core Principles of Logo Design have been discovered. This is not yet widely known in the
graphic design industry. But these principles transcend fad and fashion and always work.
Look how long some of these logos have been around.
logos that have looked good for decades–even many decades–always conform to these Core Principles.
Designing logos according to the Core Principles does not guarantee an excellent logo every time.
But violating the Core Principles does guarantee a logo will not work and will need to be
replaced or abandoned like the Xerox logo. The Core Principles of branding design are
universal and immutable, like the law of gravity. They cannot be ignored.
Ignorance of the Core Principles–just like with the law of gravity–will not protect
you from the consequences of violating them. But the Core Principles of branding design can be
learned and they can be taught. That's what I do. Stick around and watch the rest of these videos
and you will see. For more information go to logodesigntheory.com. If you found this useful, be
sure to like this video, subscribe and share this with anyone who needs to know about logo design.