This is a Japan Air Lines Boeing 747.
"Well yes, I can see that. Thank you for pointing out the ruddy obvious," I don't hear you say because that's not how text works.
The reason for this photograph is that I want you to take note at what appears upon the tail of this magnificent bird. The JAL logo, which was introduced in the 1970s, went away for a period in the late 1990s and if you look at current JAL planes, has come back again.
Of itself that is nothing special but when you consider that when airlines do special throwback liveries, or when railway companies do throwback liveries, or when sporting teams do special throwback jerseys and uniforms, or when motor racing teams do special throwback liveries, in every single case when someone shows off their own branding then I always ask the same question; namely:
If the livery, branding, logo, or other design, is good enough that that you want to remind us of how good it was, then why did you ever get rid of it? Why go through the effort and expense of rebranding something, if you've made it worse? Why not just go back to the old logo forever and be done with it? Why not keep the old logo?
If you have got the company logo, the company branding, and design language right the first time, then why not employ inertia and leave well enough alone? If you have settled upon something which looks good, then that is a solved problem. You get a Skippy badge. Good job. Well done.
The general case here is that this just doesn't apply to airlines and sporting clubs but every single thing which is going to be around for the long haul and live in the cultural psyche. I have complained long and loudly that the roundels should be put back at Circular Quay railway station; not because I hate the current burnt orange Hail Corporate branding all over the station but because it was right the first time; that also goes for the entire station dress on the Eastern Suburbs Railway line.
Probably one of the reasons why Pepsi which used to be No.2 in the Cola Wars and is now an irrelevance, is that they have had seventeen thousand logos; all of which have come with loads of sound and fury but signify nothing. I note that Pepsi's latest rebrand is something closer to what it was in the 1970s and 1980s; which is what it should have been all along. Pepsi's rival in the red corner, Coca-Cola, has kept the same Spencerian Script word logo since 1885 and the same distinct bottle since 1915; which means that it has survived two World Wars, and several world cups (doo-dah), and apart from the odd clean up here and there, it is still broadly the same.
In principle, the corporate branding of a thing has to communicate the presence of a thing in a hurry. The purpose of a brand is to create ongoing recognition of some corporate endeavour or person, so that that communication of the presence of a thing happens more effectively. You simply can not create ongoing recognition if the brand keeps on changing. Slow an incremental evolution to change with the technology or location might very well be advisable, but humans are pattern recognition machines with salty meatbag thinking muscles, pattern recognition can only happen if people can recognise a pattern.
The reason for any of this rant is that as I am sat sitting still underneath the approach to Runway 16 at Sydney Airport while the train network goes into meltdown, I noted that a JAL plane arrived and that it looked like a JAL plane because they had undone their mistake and rebranded JAL planes to look like JAL planes again. Qantas is progressively breaking its branding and the Flying Kangaroo logo on its tails, no longer has any hands, nor wings from its previous iterations. The whole point of a Flying Kangaroo logo is that it is supposed to look like a Flying Kangaroo. JAL has conceded the point that its rebranding achieved nothing and that the crane of peace should have always flown everywhere.
Retro branding is the concession that you got it right the first time. Why change?
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