Monday, March 16, 2009

GarBadge: Smell Greatly

Think fast: can you spot what's wrong in the following sentences?


“With ‘Battlestar Galactica,’ we had such resistance from the fan base to changing it,” Ms. Hammer said of a series Sci Fi introduced in 2003, based on an ABC show from 1978-9.


“The upshot was, we ultimately won them over,” she added, and the series, scheduled to end on Friday, became one of the most successful on Sci Fi. It has inspired a spin-off, “Capricia,” to begin on Syfy in 2010.



If you think the second spelling of the network is a typo, consider the source: The New York fricken Times. Yessir, the SCI FI Channel is rebranding come July 7, ditching the iconic saturn logo and classic spelling in favor of a new name and wordmark.

I can't even count the ways this is stupid. The old logo, visible in the Times article, made for a perfect bug (the network logo on the bottom-right corner of the screen), felt both classic and modern, and made at least an ounce of goddamn sense. "SyFy" looks and feels like the kind of Web 2.0 encounter that makes me want to take a long hot shower to wash away the stink of inappropriate, cutesy, substance-less style.


I'm glad Battlestar Galactica will be over before this identity launches; better dead that branded with SyFy.


Think about it like this: "SCI FI" was recognizable and a good fit. Sure, it wasn't perfect, and probably scared a few people away. But the loaded term helped the network make an identity that fit itself and its viewers. Meanwhile, "SyFy" reads like a syphillus medication and reeks of current branding trends so as to make it indistinguishable from any of these companies. Seriously, can you imagine anyone thinking "Sci Fi is boring and geeky, but hey – I find this 'SyFy' strangely intriguing!"? I thought not.


But hey, if a new brand uses vowels sparingly and strangely, looks like it might sound like a word we recognize, and has a generic slogan set in a modern sans serif font, by golly it's got to be great.

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Daft Tron

Somehow I missed the news that Daft Punk is going to score the new Tron sequel. Hot damn, that is awesome. The only downside is I have to wait until 2011 to see it.

Blast!