Amid all the hue and cry over the new NBC Universal corporate logo, there are two voices actually worth listening to -- those of Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar, the designers of NBC’s beloved peacock. “I think the new one is terrible,” Geismar said in a recent interview. “Very bland.”
Of course, Wolff Olins, the firm responsible for stripping the peacock from the new NBC Universal identity, doesn’t see things that way. “I don’t think people quite understand the goal,” said Wolff Olins Creative Director Mike Abbink. “It wasn’t just, ’Let’s take this thing, rehash it and spew out something new.’ It has a lot of purpose to it. But ultimately, I think most people misunderstand the intent.”