It is beyond me why an interesting organistion would wish to make itself appear more dull than it actually is, but nevertheless my heart sank when I saw the outcome of NESTA’s recent â??re-brandâ??. From the corporate and lifeless logotype to the clichéd stock photography, this is a classic example of an idiotic and uninspiring brand-led approach to commissioning design. As someone who has benefitted from the vision and talent of several Nesta staff, and by extension the organisation as a whole, I am at a loss as to why it has decided to portray itself as being one dimensional and monosyllabic.
Ironic that NESTA support some of the most interesting and dynamic entrepreneurs in the country, and that their headline states; “Innovation thrives in a culture where risk-taking and enterprise are encouraged”, when not only the outcome of this re-brand, but the whole way it has been commissioned and worked through, would seem to point to an organisation where the culture is exactly the opposite.
I’d love to see the brief for that project…and compare it to my most recent one for a management consultancy firm. Even my management consultant clients are averse to clichéd or irrelevant imagery.
Yes, most often it’s easy to blame the design company for these outcomes, but quite often its the mindset that a client enters a project with, and the way the project is briefed/structured that leads to this kind of dissappointing outcome, (though that is not to absolve the designers of all responsibility).The Management Consultancy comparison is apt as while some of our traditionally ‘corporate’ organisations are thinking much more expansively about what identity means, our cultural institutions seem to be wedded to an idea of design and branding as it existed ten years ago.
you also have to factor in the possibility that it’s not the brief nor the designers which have resulted in this, but the senior management who sign off. you could present a dazzling piece of imaginative design work which never makes it past the board.
true, so you’d have to question whether that rigid extended heirachical structure is appropriate for undertaking tasks like this.
This is the company’s third re-brand in less than 7 years. That says to me that the senior management have no idea what they want the organisation to be. At present it appears that they want to be a venture capital firm.