As a design alum, I can say that the brand book contains a lot of BS. This guy’s post sums it up nicely:
http://www.nunesmagician.com/2014/5/29/5761778/ten-things-acc-logo-branf-announcement-swofford-book
Here’s the company that created the logo and other stuff:
http://www.smebranding.com <—-Although, with offices on 5th Avenue and in London, they may be full of BS but they know how to sell it!
Of note, the rebrand SME did for the America East conference supposedly symbolized the AE as “progressive and forward leaning toward the future”. Meanwhile, the ACC logo is “Set in a custom-designed font created specifically for the league” and “leans hard into a brilliant future”. Hmmmm. Somebody copied and pasted a bit.
My 20yo was looking over my shoulder as I wrote this and said “A logo needs to look cool and be memorable”. That about sums it up. Seriously. I have no doubt that design and marketing impact communication, business, popular culture and decisions people make, or else I wouldn’t have a career. But attributing all that symbolism to the logo is a huge stretch.
From a very practical standpoint, they have created the two-color version with METALLIC SILVER ink. With the increased quality and speed of digital printing, hardly anyone prints with spot colors anymore. So 98% of the time that exciting Silver line becomes Pantone Cool Gray 6. Stunning!
