PriceWaterhouseCoopers:
"The biggest name in professional services"

A use of identity, by a leader

New: PricewaterhouseCoopers

Launched: July 1, 1998

Formerly: Price Waterhouse, and Coopers & Lybrand

Story in brief:
Further consolidation in accounting, for better or worse.

Credits:
C.E.O. - James J. Schiro
Identity counsel, naming, design - Interbrand's Newell & Sorrell

First Impressions:
ToolongbyFar and clearly, not well considered. The launch pr said "Our external advisors confirmed our belief that it was critically important to preserve the substantial equity and value associated with the names Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand" which sounds a lot like "We heard what we wanted to hear."
Roger vandenBergh clipped this, from the Economist (July 18, '98): "PricewaterhouseCoopers (which seems, confusingly, to call itself PCw for short) is the longest recent example of ...corporate breathlessness. Mr. Lybrand, one feels, is well out of it." One suspects Mr. Coopers won't last long either, communicatively speaking.

And what is a designer to do with a name like this? Interbrand found its solution in the playfulness of 18th century typography, and threw in a dated monogram for good measure.

I will miss the beauty, simplicity, stature and progressiveness of Gene Grossman's Price Waterhouse logo.

Other comments:
From Ireland, seven years later, Antoine O Lachtnain notes that Mr. Coopers is still there and thinks "the identity has weathered in pretty well. Although maybe it could do with being simplified." It is "a big joke at the expense of corporate mergers in general and PwC in particular," funny especially because "it's companies like PwC who go around making P/E calculations used to convince shareholders that these big mergers are a good idea."

From Connecticut, ten years later, Jerry Kuyper adds this to his All Time Worst list, saying "This long name undoubtedly has equity but how did they get from Price Waterhouse and Coopers Lybrand to PricewaterhouseCoopers when the companies merged? I can't figure out why waterhouse appears in lowercase in text? And as with most long corporate names they default to the initials PwC, an equally awkward shorthand, yet while they refer to themselves as PwC in text the symbol reads PCw. In the logo the multiple type sizes jammed together suggest a car crash. The font and ligatures add to the confusion (the neutral gray manages to tone the mess down)

In their business, trust is essential. This logo reminds me of a ransom note.
It doesn't get any worse than this identity.