24 spot-on reader comments to “Not IT my name - Italia logo”

1. Jessica, on February 26th, 2007 said:

   It looks like a big, green pickle.

2. minxlj, on February 26th, 2007 said:

   hmm. Can’t quite believe that came from the talented Landor Associates!! I don’t like it, and I don’t think it says anything about Italy, and my gut feeling is that since this whole rubbish and trashy 80’s trend/fashion/look is coming back, that it is somehow inspired by that. It’s just too…cobbled together! It looks like some amateur with a copy of bloody Microsoft Word has been messing about.

   In context, on the buildings etc it doesn’t look AS bad, but it’s still awful. Far less than a beautiful country like Italy deserves!

3. Chris, on February 26th, 2007 said:

   That’s pretty shocking.

   I’m dating myself here, but compare the green bit to Mr Fussy, one of the ‘Mr Men’ characters…

4. David Airey, on February 26th, 2007 said:
   I agree with all of you.

   Italy’s known for things of beauty. This, unfortunately, is not one of them.

   Some of those article links might not be working. Probably due to high traffic on a low bandwidth.

5. muriel v, on February 26th, 2007 said:

   Thank you David for your info and links. I had an Italian colleague telling me about this story sooner today. And then I found your post. Now, I know more about it, i decided to post something on my French blog.

   By the way, I do really appreciate your work !

6. David Airey, on February 27th, 2007 said:
   Thanks for your kind words Muriel. They’re very much appreciated.
7. Eve Sheridan, on February 27th, 2007 said:

   Mmmmm…green pickle and cherry tomato. I might go and have some nibblies!

8. davidthedesigner, on February 27th, 2007 said:

   You know, just sometimes, very occasionally, you feel ashamed to call yourself a designer. And that’s when one of your peers produces something sh’IT’ like this.

9. Jen, on February 27th, 2007 said:

   I think my biggest problem with the logo is that, to me anyway, it makes no sense. Not “IT” my name. Is that just bad translation or does it really not make sense?

10. Pinksy, on February 27th, 2007 said:

    Is it a courgette?

11. Lorissa, on February 28th, 2007 said:

    Seems like one of the tag lines is “Italy leaves it’s mark” (rough translation) - which in this case is rather sad considering the mark. I’m honestly not sure if much can be salvaged. The colours are what they are and will probably always be used, but I just would have thought that something more would be done. With a country as beautiful as Italy, and with the art, fashion and design she creates, I was expecting a lot more from the “mark” that would represent her.

12. Marc, on February 28th, 2007 said:

    Wow.

    I would love to defend LA in assuming that this was completely client-driven ( which could be the case ) but I can tell it’s a conceptual piece. But far to abstract. And aside from the look, why has the ‘Italy’ been shortend to ‘it.’

    ‘it’
    The country formerly known as Italy

    Ma
    ( The creative director formerly known as Marc )

13. Dinner, on February 28th, 2007 said:

    When I first saw it I almost cried it looked so horrible. After looking at the examples of it placed in different context it wasn’t all that bad.

    It’d be alright for some sort of art design place, not at all for Italy. I’m sure there were better they could’ve chosen.

14. Old Jacques, on March 3rd, 2007 said:

    The unsuitability of new logo is not nearly as scandalous as the €45m. Italian Tourism Portal for which it is the banner (with a different payoff: ironically “the country of quality”), filled with misinformation, inaccuracies, and technical difficulties. It is not minimally accessible, it has large portions of its technological backend which are non functional or are misfunctioning, it is subject to XSS injection, loaded heavily with pretty, but useless Flash animations of Italian landscapes, and the English section is littered with typographic errors, non-translated Italian words/widgets, and a linguistic quality for which my high school English teacher would have flunked me.

    Viva l’Italia

15. Nathan Nash, on March 29th, 2007 said:

    It would look so much better if they used the actual outline of their state.

16. Derrick Daye, on April 22nd, 2007 said:

    David,

    Thanks for your thoughts. Landor is also under scrutiny for its work with the City of Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

    These assignments are very complex. We’re talking in depth about the brand positioning phase of the place branding process here:

    http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/2007/03/branding_rally_.html#more

    Which completely influences the creative phase.

    The bottom line is that there is a group of high level stakeholders that approve of this logo. They deserve the same amount of scrutiny.

    Derrick

17. The world’s best logo designers? : Creative Design ::, on April 30th, 2007 said:

    […] What is probably Landor’s most famous logo is that of Fedex (shown above). The negative space ‘arrow’ has been well documented. The peoplepc logo (also above) is another that I enjoy. However, today Landor Associates don’t always get it right, such as their awful attempt at Italy’s national logo. […]

18. goldcoaster, on April 30th, 2007 said:

    I am guessing all the other logos suggested must have been really awful.

    goldcoaster.wordpress.com

19. Marco Tours, on May 2nd, 2007 said:

    Ugly and shocking. Italy deserves better than that.

20. Stefke, on June 18th, 2007 said:

    Like many others say…This logo is awful….and I’m quite sure it’s been very expensive too!!

21. Paul Morris, on September 12th, 2007 said:

    My first thought was, ‘Is this a joke?” Is that a pickle with a bite out of it? Then I spent some time reading and re-reading the phrase trying to figure out the hidden meaning …to no avail. As a 3rd year design student I can tell you that our class didn’t produce anything this bad even in first year.

22. Marc, on December 12th, 2007 said:

    Imo, not as bad as the 2012 Olympic logo though.. Which has been described as Lisa Simpson giving head. How do they pitch these logos? My clients wouldn’t be clients very long if I presented them with that.

23. David Airey, on December 24th, 2007 said:
    I agree, Marc - not as bad as the London 2012 logo, but still pretty bad.

    Thanks everyone for stopping by, and I hope you all have a great festive period.

24. Vicki, on January 21st, 2008 said:

    It looks like Gumby’s arm playing handball or something…It’s atrocious!

    Vicki’s last blog post..Get It Done The Bionic Way

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