Requiem for the Nickelodeon Logo
After 25 years, Nickelodeon has redesigned the famous “splat” logo. When I first heard the news – and saw the new logo – the first question that came to mind was, “Why?” What possible reason could there be for redesigning one of the most recognizable and beloved trademarks in the world?
In an interview about the change in Variety, “According to Cyma Zarghami, prexy of Nick and MTV Networks’ Kids and Family Group, the decision to streamline the network identities came after they started putting all of the channels’ logos on the same business card – and decided that it looked like a mess. ‘We wanted to clean it up and allow Nick to be the stamp on all of these channels… In asking ourselves if everything could live under the splat, we decided that the splat was dated. It just couldn’t be done in a streamlined way.’”
So I guess this is the answer. The design of the business card is driving the expression of the brand. And the brand that is known for being on the side of kids is telling us that the fun is over. It’s time to clean up our room.
It’s difficult to be objective about this change. The original orange shape logo was designed in 1983 by my former partners, the late Tom Corey and Scott Nash. They worked on the visual identity with Fred Seibert and Alan Goodman, the team that created the MTV logo. (For an excellent account of this collaboration, check out Fred Seibert’s blog.) I joined Corey & Company (soon to be renamed Corey McPherson Nash) in 1987 and collaborated with Tom and Scott on key branding and design projects for Nickelodeon during the 1980s and 1990s. Our studio (and our sister studio Big Blue Dot) also was behind the launches of several Nickelodeon sub-brands, including Nick, Jr., Nickelodeon Games and Sports (GAS), Noggin, Nick at Nite and TV Land. I was creative director for two branding/graphic standards projects, “How to Nickelodeon” and the more comprehensive, “How to Nickelodeon: Rules and Tools.” We had the pleasure of working directly with the founding visionaries of the Nickelodeon brand – Gerry Laybourne, Bob Pittman, Linda Schupack, and Herb Scannell, Scott Webb, and many more – so we were very invested in the success of the brand.
Given the transformation of Nickelodeon from a scrappy cable channel to one of the leading global entertainment brands, I should probably be amazed that such a protean visual identity system lasted as long as it did. For one thing, the so-called “splat” logo was never supposed to be just a splat shape. The whole spirit of the identity program was to create a visual mark that could assume thousands of shapes – a cloud, a bone, a rocket, a dirigible, a dinosaur – and maybe even a splat. It was supposed to be squirmy, changing, imaginative, and silly. Nick fans were encouraged to create and submit their own logo shapes, and they did. The only constants were the bright orange color and the distinctive logotype (based on Balloon). And unlike the version that is used above to represent the “splat” logo, the logotype was never to bleed off the edges of the orange field and circular shapes were discouraged because they didn’t accommodate such a long word. (The circular splat version should be in the “Don’t” section of the graphic standards.)
Yes, this creative concept was challenging to execute, especially compared with most corporate logotypes. That was the idea. The essence of the brand was to encourage imagination, invention, diversity and fun, and the logo was a key element in that mix. If the new logo is as core to the brand as the old one was, I’m afraid it’s Nickelodeon, R.I.P.
Michael (it’s Michael writing, yes?), I thought maybe I should weigh in on a few things here. I’ll leave it to you or others to conclude what you will about the future of Nickelodeon and it’s brand. I’m too close to it all, having started working with them 29 years ago; today I’m still a (pretty non-active) consultant and a producer of some of their top rated shows.
Disappointed? You bet. Just like you are, just like the millions of kids who have gone from childhood through parenthood with the orange thing throughout their lives. Do I agree with their decision? Not on any level. My point of view says stick with them that brought you.
That being said, Nickelodeon showed me the logo change (they called it a “branding change”, just more uneducated, designer baloney; a logo is a brand, if the sheet metal on your car defines it’s power, speed, and comfort) and asked my opinion. Kill my baby and ask me to kiss yours? No, thank you. However, I was a little more polite and said I didn’t think it made any difference whatsoever. Nickelodeon, like most other strongly branded cable networks, established the values of its brand with viewers and business partners 25 years ago. It was reinforced through relentlessly creative promotion and programming from 1984 until about 1992. With the advent of their powerful, original programs around the turn of the 90s they began the abandonment of viewer empowerment and replaced it with continual support of their business assets. Smart? Maybe. Wise? Not so much. By the turn of the century, the assets were the only things that counted, and viewers merely became the necessary element to keep the business lubricated.
If you’d like to follow the design parallels, it was around this time the creative direction went from the happy chaos of the original CMN logo approach to what has become known as “the splat.” Interestingly, “the splat” was a typical corporate response to what was seen as a bit of ‘mess.’ Let’s institutionalize *mess* and make all the logos a mess. The same mess. “The splat.” That way we’ll look messy, but without being messy!
“The splat” was the real logo change. It took a design that was intended to be in motion, a real television brand –television is moving pictures, the logo was too– and froze it. Sure there were lots of splats, but, you know, once you’ve seen one splat you’ve seen them all.
I really like the senior creative team at Nickelodeon, having worked with them closely across two companies. They’re well meaning, and they have an authentic point of view as to why they made a change. I disagree with it, vehemently, but that’s life. It won’t make any difference to Nickelodeon. The difference has already been baked in.
Well said!
It’s sad but I don’t think the current regime realized what a great brand they had.
I can’t possibly summarize the great affection I have for all the people who were there when this all began — I hope everyone involved in our business has an opportunity, once, to experience creative invention like the type that poured from Tom Corey and Scott Nash, and to work alongside a brilliant innovator, graphics pioneer, and courageous advocate like Fred Seibert. I got to do it on a daily basis, and it changed my life. The animators we employed created IDs that have never been duplicated for their disarming beauty, comedy, and originality, and we had some amazing, trusting clients in the Nickelodeon management team. But I think my friends and colleagues are missing an important point. They are looking back across the work we did together, and the work others did with us and after us, and are saying “What a great logo Nickelodeon had.” Yes, it was distinctive for its time and our rules for it were different, but what made it great is the work we created. Aside from that, it was graphic art. The logo didn’t make that channel’s attitude, environment, and point of view. We did. There is nothing at all about the NEW Nickelodeon logo that prevents their creative team and creative suppliers from making surprising, bold, and original identification for their many television, internet, publishing, live entertainment, hotel, and consumer product needs. Like the original logo, it’s a piece of graphic art until you do something with it. I think it’s way too early for us to decide that it can’t be done. Why not, instead of condemning the decision, issue the challenge the way others (probably swallowing hard) issued it to us, to do great work and make us proud?
The first thing my son said on turning on the TV today is “Mom! There’s something wrong with Nick Jr.! They changed the logo!” He thinks it’s worse. I think it looks like every other wanna-be web 2.0 logo, and it’ll be outdated in at most a year or two. Their old logo was fantastic.
I have to say this saddens me beyond description. The Nickelodeon logo is quite certainly one of the reasons I’ve become a designer today. Most simply, I wanted to make something so cool and energetic as that changeable orange mess.
I can only hope that in the end the Nickelodeon brand wont be stifled by a less playful logo. There, is after all, a difference between a brand and a logo.
THE NEW LOGO?! IT MAKES PEOPLE WANTS TO QUIT WATCHING NICKELODEON!
Oh my, I am happy to not be the only one incredulous about this. One day circa 1985-6 Cy Schneider (the guy I replaced) called me after we had successfully changed to the brilliant orange, transformational logo (he had spent a fortune on a multi-colored slick fat logo that no kid could attach to a few years before. Remember the silver ball? ) and said “well, it’s ugly, but it just goes to show that If you stick with something it can work. ” And work it did. Corey and Co were brilliant, Fred and Alan were brilliant, the orange transformational logo was brilliant. We owned Orange and we thought like kids. Sad day.
Listen, At me list comment, I Was rude, and I didn’t mean to let the logo to spread the merchidse, and let me just say, that is year, change it into the bigger splat, hmm? And even if you don’t I Just I’ll stick to Orignal Nickelodeon in the past, even it’s not TOO Much and well, I Would like to say, think about it, just change it back one day, and please, make it good this time.
u all right no one can defeat the old logo silver ball, orange splat i miss that logos pls change it back 2 many hate the new logo
i miss the other logo i dont think they should have changed it);
I am doing research for my college thesis, thanks for your helpful points, now I am acting on a sudden impulse.
- Laura