Logos
New Zealand
Typography
Clean and Green Kiwi’s
by Lindsay Yee on 26/04/2012
Celebrating 10 years of service (yes, it’s been that long), Kiwibank has introduced a new look for their brand. The tip of the brand iceberg is always the logo and there is a bit of change here, the words are moved to be both contained within the square graphic device. The use of the period is a point (uh, unintended pun) that feels a little out of place. The change of typeface has been well done, ditching ‘DIN’ and using a contemporary Sans-serif ‘Metric‘. Not stopping at one dose of Kris Sowersby goodness — the Kiwibank website uses FF Meta Serif (Designed in-conjunction with Erik Spiekermann and Christian Schwartz) through-out the site, and is a very nice update by Springload.
Above is another point of discussion, the TVC that accompanied this change. The advertisement features children talking about ideas such as being different and standing up for the ‘little guy’. It is very different in style and tone to previous campaigns featuring the smart-car-like-vehicle-with-Megaphone-type ads. The ad was done by Ogilvy.
Having just picked up top bank in the Consumer Satisfaction Awards, does this change warrant Designers satisfaction?
“The rest of the font does not have ’rounds’”
What do you mean by this?
Your right Chris, something is not right typographically. In my opinion whats throwing me off is the round ‘tittle’ marks above the i’s and round full stop. The rest of the font does not have ’rounds’ it just does not quite work for me. Also when using K & I next to each other I think you will always run into trouble using a ‘bold’ font. I have always found a ‘condensed’ font works best for those two letters side by side. Also does the ‘a’ look fat & lazy or what haha.
I’m not such a fan of the change. Something seems not quite right with the kerning of the new logo, and the top of the ‘a’ appears to be cowering back from the ‘b’. And is it just me or is the fullstop larger than the dots on the i’s? It just looks a bit clunky and unpolished to me.
I like the new website, but the FF Meta Serif font used reminds me a little too much of Cambria (the default font in Word) which is not a good thing.
Am I being too picky? Probably…