A new logo for Italy
February 24th, 2007
Last Wednesday morning, Italian president Romano Prodi and his minister of culture, Francesco Rutelli, unveiled a new logo and slogan for the country. The slogan reads ‘Italy leaves its mark’ and the presentation coincided with the launch of the Italy portal, www.italia.it.
There are plenty of views expressed on designer’s sites and on the whole they are negative. The attention is hardly surprising given the wide ranging views people will have surrounding how a country is represented by a symbol.
Prodi comments that Italy should have “a graphic symbol which delivers a message”. What message does the symbol portray to you? How important is a logo in determining the success of a country’s brand? Does the green shape remind you of mini golf, the shape of Italy or something else?
I came across the new logo yesterday afternoon and after a second look today I’m perched on the uninspired side of the fence. One of my main criticisms is the use of four fonts, differing weights and mixed cases. It emotes a tired, complicated and inconsistent feel.
For a short while, I wondered if the green shape symbolised the Italian land mass, however, the intended meaning of the soft lettering is to represent “movement, flexibility and imagination”. This may be the case nonetheless it instilled a degree of confusion.
The long and the short
The logo above is the full version and the abbreviated two letter configuration to the right will be the primary identity, a practical approach bearing in mind the country’s top level domain is .it.
How does the logo reflect my view of Italy as a potential visitor?
I’ve been to Italy on only one occasion, a week backpacking through cities and tourist attractions on a much forgotten but fondly remembered train trip. The hustle and bustle of Rome certainly ties in with the manic like feelings stirred up by this logo. Art and design, culture, history and fashion are areas that come to mind as Italy’s key strengths. These elements evoke sophistication and craft not apparent in this logo.
Italy is already one of the world’s most desirable tourist destinations, coming third in the second global Country Brand Index of 2006, therefore does it matter that much if the rest of the new Italy brand is strong? Not really.
However, I don’t think that’s the point – I believe an opportunity has been missed to create a more unified statement.
A poster comments that the ‘it’ mark as a standalone works well with the three elements and certainly the shortened version is not as convoluted. He makes a point that the green shape may intentionally be shoeless, to go in the face of the boot cliche and that it emphasises the more accessible north, where more major tourism destinations are located. Not sure of Italy’s tourism statistics but I would think areas such as Tuscany and Sicily, amongst others, make up a high percentage.
Leaving aside the inevitable, insatiable demands of designers, creating a logo for a country must be an incredibly difficult and challenging exercise and time will tell how the logo supplements the international and wide ranging branding efforts that will follow.
Links
- Italia: Like you’ve Never Seen it Before – Opinions on corporate and brand identity work.
- designerblog and SocialDesignZine – Italian design blogs discussing logo, recommend Babelfish for translation.
- Ansa.it article covering the launch of the new logo and slogan.
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March 5th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
I think that it is all much ado about nothing. To me Italy offers so much to the visitor in terms of history, culture, scenery that it hardly needs a strong logo. Just as well because this logo can in no way, shape or form be described as memorable and appealing. I bet a lot of money has been spent on coming up with this new rather strange and bland looking logo. The green t looks like a long thin green face in profile with a protruding nose.
March 5th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
According to a post on the Under Consideration blog (hhttp://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/italia_like_youve_never_seen_i_1.php)
the contest winner was paid between €80K and €100K.
My first impressions of the partnering Italian portal are poor and the site is failing badly in trying to promote the country. The painstakingly low load time, poor English and ridiculously long URLs stood out. (342 characters!)
March 12th, 2007 at 9:03 am
Here you can find two projects that try to suggest some improvements to this site(by the Italian bloggers community):
http://www.progetto-david.com/
http://www.pugia.com/replay/italia_it/
March 12th, 2007 at 9:18 am
I realised that other day what the i in the new logo reminded me of, it is the i in the logo of the supermarket Lidl. The i in Lidl is all red and lying on its side.
March 14th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
It’s ironic that in the ‘land of design’ the great Italian graphic artists can get it so badly wrong.
I wrote about Brand Italy needing a big brand idea to lead its great regional and city brands into an exciting future. Here’s the URL if you wish to read all about it. http://brandopia.typepad.com/brandopia_destination_for/2006/01/ciao_italia_stu.html
March 14th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
@Martina – thanks for these links. My Italian is non existent but Marco looks to have created a tableless and standards compliant version of the portal home page. And with 50% less code.
@Karen – good spot, I’ve had another Lidl leaflet posted through the door and see what you mean. Not impressed with their website, perhaps they concentrate on direct marketing…
@Alan – thanks, enjoyed the ‘Des and Tina’ chat and going to work my way through the others. Wonder how the World Tourism Rankings looks for 2006.
March 15th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
@Dominic – Yes, it’s correct: Marco has created a “what if portal homepage”, showing how Italia.it could have been, if it had been done better and according to the correct criteria.
So, many Italian blogger are working to try to improve the portal, but… try to imagine with what keyword the portal is first in Google.it…!
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:35 am
Wow! This is the most expensive noodle I have ever seen!
February 11th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
[...] a year ago to the day, Italy launched a new national logo. The design agency who won the tender was London-based Landor Associates, and they came in for a [...]
December 2nd, 2009 at 7:01 pm
It is nearly impossible to travel in Italy without encountering something historic – Italy has the most UNESCO World Heritage Sites on the planet, and there are tons of things that UNESCO doesn’t get to numbering that are in all probability older than anything you’ve encountered before. Italy is a nation with history.