Last Sunday, while a certain football match was being played, a quaint little television show, that some of you may have heard of, Top Gear, was on BBC2 and they were testing three super saloons, the gorgeous Maserati Quatroporte, the equally scrumptious Aston Martin Rapide and the not to put too fine a point on it frankly hideous Porsche Panemera. This undoubtedly impressive car has to be one of the ugliest and unresolved pieces of industrial design I have seen, possibly in my life. (thats not true, see Ssangyong Rodius ) Not far from where I live there is a used car dealership that has a Mansori modified example that they have been trying to dupe some style-less millionaire into parting with 165 000 of their hard earned Great British Pounds for. (Rather unsuccessfully as it has been sat there for nearly two months now.)
What gets me about the Porsche is where do they think their design language is going? They have a basic profile and a "family look" that have been around for sometime now and are firmly established in the sports cope market. Say what you want about the Porsche 911, Cayman and Boxter and I frequently do. Their design although admittedly long in the tooth is comfortable, easy on the eyes and to some, a real design classic. Where they are struggling is to incorporate their design language onto other body shapes. The accomplished but equally unattractive Cayenne is another example. Porsche have been unable to make an executive sedan or a large piece of agricultural machinery look like the diminutive 911. That isn't really so surprising, in fact I would like to be generous here and say that if they did manage to pull it off there should be some kind of Nobel Prize for auto styling and they should get it.
Porsche's closest competitor BMW, mercifully does not feel the need to make all of its cars look like the 7 series. For that matter no car designers do it; because its stupid! While all premium car makers have a distinct "family look" and an established design language which allows them to take elements of the design and introduce them across the entire range. This is sadly not something that Porsche GMBH have been able to do so they keep trying to get a flexible silicon mould of a 911 to fit over different sized vehicle platforms.
If an otherwise forward thinking and innovative company, with buckets of money to spend on development can get caught in such a deep hole then surely it can happen to any of us in our businesses. Perhaps when you think about it and do a little rooting about you may find some processes, policies or products that are labouring on outside of their original design spec and may even be damaging your business.
Specifically from a design point of view, there are lots of very outdated logos and letterheads out there in the business world, not quite old enough (or good enough) to be retro. It is not always necessary to do a complete re-design, in fact it would be better to find the essence of your existing design and use that to create a new brand that evolves out of the old, moves the game along and uplifts your brand, that has doubtless received much investment over the years.
It is commonly accepted that you should regularly look at your web presence to ensure that you are getting the most from on-line media. Why not use the next opportunity to look at your branding too. Most good web agencies are also skilled at branding and graphic design and I am pretty sure that you will save a bit on the redesign if you are doing it as part of a web job.
I for my part am always happy to chat to a prospective customer about any aspect of their design and branding needs so feel free to get in touch.
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