Carrot Creative Blog

After the Super Bowl yesterday (congrats, Giants), we were channel surfing for a few minutes and saw that the “Puppy Bowl” was re-playing. However, it was difficult to enjoy as intermittent views of an awful logotype appeared. Apparently, we were seeing Animal Planet’s brand new logo…

According the this NY Times Article, Animal Planet is using words “like ‘gut-driven,’ ‘completely immersive’ and ‘unexpected’ in describing what it will be like once the new roster is introduced on Feb. 3.” That’s fine and all, but the drastic rebrand is at best “unexpected,” and not in a good way. A general rule of good design is to not do anything without purpose (particularly where small, simple marks/logos have to say alot about what they represent)… and unless it is just lost on me, the quarter-clockwise turn of the ‘M’ seems pointless. The condensed ‘N’ and ‘A’ look awkward… all in all, it transmits a vague sense of ‘wild’ and a strong sense of terrible.

What is most unfortunate, is that it also breaks the relationship that the former Animal Planet logo had with the Discovery Channel logo:

UPDATE: A nice article from Brand New takes its own look.