UPS: A gender change

New: UPS shield (and don't call it United Parcel Service any longer, as if anyone did.)

Launched: March 25, 2003

Story in brief:
"UPS is a vastly different company today than most people realize" said CEO Mike Eskew. "Today we are bringing our look up to speed with our capabilities." That says it all. UPS provides a classic instance of the use of an identity change forcefully to redirect the corporate brand image, inside and out.

Credits:
CEO - Michael L. Eskew
Logo design - FutureBrand

First Impressions:
Both for its elegance and its content (the bow-tied package), Paul Rand's 1961 design was strikingly inappropriate for a global shipper. (From my childhood, I've associated it with Saks Fifth Avenue.) UPS notes that for several decades, they've rejected packages with strings, which snag the sorting machines.
The new shield is far more muscular, even militaristic... appropriate for expressing preemptive competitive intentions. The downside: now that they look more like cops, they'll have to work much harder to retain the "nice guys/personal touch" image the "brownies" previously owned.

The asymetrical cut, kind of an implied swoosh, gives the new shield its modern credentials and hint of dynamism; nice touch.

I'm a little unsettled, however, by the design commitment to a 3D rendering, with no apparent provision made for an alternative hard-edged line art treatment. Granted, 3D looks great on the Web and technology now lets us get away with it in most other media (though UPS admits the aircraft livery application pushed the envelop). Just because we can do it, however, doesn't mean we should.