Blow torch and a wire coat-hanger bent into the word "Parasite".

_New_ham.

The University of Southampton spent 160k on rebranding. Now there is no logo at all - http://images.newsquest.co.uk/image.php?id=853905

Which is a truly odd thing to say when it's quite obviously about zeroness.

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1019158_council_tax_fears_spark_cutbacks

Any idea where I can get one of those?

(Paris, cos i'd give her one)

Shouldn't there be a "beta" somewhere in the logo?

but she knew the way to Oldham.

Ok, I'll gerrit misself.

Surely there is some issue that councils rebranding just costs too much, what with the cost of the marketing consultants, then the signage on village names, council vans, offices, roundabouts, letterheads, forms stationery, pens, keyfobs, passes, websites, and I am sure I am only scratching the surface. Can you guess who pays for this

Just as well we have a wealth of services that are well funded as we seem to have all this spare money around just gathering dust.. no wait...

Kirklees (Huddersfield) have gone through exactly this process.. looking forward to seeing the final cost

Mines the one with the soapbox underneath...

Let's see how long it will take Target (http://www.target.com/) to sue them...

It's Target alright. Behold: http://www.target.com/

Paris, 'cause everyone aims at 'er.

I love Target. Great prices, and it's not Wal-Mart. Oldham *is* just becoming one big Target store, right...?

why does that remind me of a monochrome RAF insignia......

oh hang on yes, it was round circles, with a different colour, red I believe, just like what oldham people are no doubt seeing at the money wasted on this...

PH, as its all about an expensive image............

Usual misreporting by the media (the MEN in this case). Logos do not cost £100k. It may cost £100k to print material and relaunch websites, but about £10k of that it creating the actual brand.

Unless you want to spend £10k and have a pretty logo on a piece of paper, there's no point. If you're not to going to implement the brand it's pointless.

If there's one place that does need rebranding, it's Wythenshawe and it's cracking strapline:

"Still Wyth-it after 30 years"

this (and Target) is just a Rip-off of the RAF logo?

...straight from Argentina's Coat of Arms.

Putting the owl in the middle there (as that woman suggests) doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Then it'll just look like an owl being used for target practice.

Hardly the message they want to convey, I think.

Typical Oldham Council.

No money to do anything that matters, but can find 100k to blow on a crap logo. They also get the bonus of the publicity, declaring to the world the extent of their utter crapness. It wouldn't surprise me if the consultancy firm is owned by a close friend of our glorious leader. Every other service is.

I've long said we should give the town to the RAF as a bombing range.

"The main picture that people will see is a circle. It's a circle of unity, it's about oneness, it's about saying, 'We're about many places but one destination,' for example."

Indeed, a circle does only have one destination... and that's back where you started.

Paris 'cos I bet her circle leads somewhere nicer than Oldham

Can't do real work?

Afraid of learning the detail?

Haven't got a clue?

Get into branding!!

- Get a high company profile

- Talk about nothing all day

- Good pay

- Plenty of cudos

- Avoid all real work

a white circle on a blue background, representing the pride of Oldham, a tubular bandage. Also symbolising healing and unity. But as this is a commercial product that can't be seen to be endorsed with public money, the whalesong explanation is required for consumption outside the town.

Rick

Sheesh! Guys, I hate to rain on another pint-sized think-fest but if any of you worked in the industry you'd know that the cost always covers far more than simply 'making a logo'.

It's like you're confusing the cost of an international flight with the cost of the paper ticket in your hand; confusing the cost of your software with the cost of the DVD it comes on; the cost of a wedding with... well, you get the idea.

Branding is not a synonym for a "making a logo".

P.S. I don't have any connection with any of the businesses in the story.

Oldham's claim to fame is that it is the birthplace of the tubular bandage. Handy really considering the number of heads that cracked open in Oldham pubs each night.

Mine's the raincoat... coz It always rains in Oldham.

If this logo is supposed to imply "NEW" why it is they have chosen to use 1940's blue on a monochromatic WW2 RAF motife, and if "Blue Circle" cement are gonna sue? Bombs awaaaaaaaay.

Branding is:

a) Not easy

b) Not quick

As PH says, you are being morons. The real issue here is how a council was talked into / desperately trying to spend so much public money rebranding. They could have got it cheaper, or not done it at all. They could have rebranded to a style that doesn't already look dated, to save future costs. They could have used the freaking town owl mascot. They could have smoked less joss stick.

But all of that only shows incompetence, greed, and masturbation by the council and the consultants involved. It does not prove anything about the concept of rebranding as a whole.

Ask Nike how much value they got out of their Swoosh, and how much they paid for it. Ask Skype if it was easy grabbing ridiculous amounts of mindshare in a market occupied by giants. Picture the golden arches of a certain hamburger company, you can can't you? Clear as day. Only takes 10 minutes to draw it, but does that mean it takes 10 minutes to design it? You don't know, because you're a moron.

This thread is full of the kind of idiots who look at a Jackson Pollock and say "faaaakin ell, my 4 year old daughter could do that wiv her own vomit, fuksaiiik"

I could maybe copy out 5,000 lines of code in a day, if you provide coffee and biscuits. So shall we start laughing at applications that cost more than £50 to produce from scratch?

I hope they realise that they've stolen this symbol from another organisation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_Air_Force

This could be the bloodiest trademark dispute in history...

Black helicopters, because the Argentine rebranding consultants will be landing in Oldham very, very soon

Does PH stand for Paris Hilton? Just wondering because she'd probably use this kind of logic too.

It's like polishing a turd for 100k - of course the cost isn't just for the polished turd, it's for the polish, the cloth, the polisher's hourly rate, consultancy & focus groups to derive the optimum polish type etc. Doesn't change the fact that it's still polishing a turd.

Like a previous poster mentioned, the money would have been better spent getting the bins emptied on time, litter cleared, better policing and so on ad infinitum. Then the perceived value of the 'brand' might actually stand a chance of going up instead of hitting rock bottom and starting digging.

Go on then please explain to the people who are watching the kids doing graffiti because they are bored as the council can't afford to run the youth centre, or the guy that goes a pisser when his bike goes down a pothole, where the hundred thousand went.

Why do they need to spend 100K "rebranding", regardless if it means repainting vans, doing new letter heads, having action days, piss ups down the pub for the thought shower or whatever.

I don't give a shit, what my councils logo looks like. I don't suddelny wake up, find the streets covered in litter and go, F**K if only they had a new pretty logo then I'd be a bit less pissed off.

it's our money and I don't want to see it spent on making a letter head look nice!

I love it when organisations do away with long-established branding, tradition being the one genuine and often priceless thing that can't be bought at any cost, and replace it with something modern and up to the minute that within 5 years will look "so 2008" (or in this case "so 2002" already). So have heart, people of Oldham, you'll only be stuck with this for a couple of years, then maybe you can buy the rights to the London 2012 logo when they've finished with it.

As an aside, I can't wait till they extend the PR attempts to modernise the Royal Family to include a replacement of the Royal Coat of Arms. Maybe rather than use the College of Arms they could run a competition on Blue Peter?

And finally, thanks for reminding me to top up my Oyster Card.