Logo takes newspapers back in time rather than into future

Editor’s note: This blog has been clarified from a previous version to reflect that the group Newspaper Association Managers hosts National Newspaper Week.

Newspaper designers everywhere cringed Sunday when the Newspaper Association Managers kicked off National Newspaper Week with the kind of logo that appears only in nightmares.

The theme for 2009 National Newspaper Week, according to kypress.com, is “Newspapers: Carrying the Torch of Freedom.” The slogan, according to the site, is meant to represent the work newspapers do to represent the interests of the public and exercise the power of the First Amendment.

It’s a noble idea, I suppose. But the image attached fails to uphold the integrity of the slogan.

The logo breaks every convention of typography and graphic design. As one of my design professors once said, “It’s OK to be creative — it’s not OK to be ugly.” And this logo is straight-up, no-questions-asked, back-to-the-drawing-board ugly. I’m almost ashamed to be associated with it.

First, there’s the text. It not only has a light black stroke on it, it is filled with a gradient that fades from red to yellow. The text is so tight that the lines are practically running into one another. The typeface is bulky and fat, which makes it look outdated.

Then, there’s the color. There is absolutely no reason for the gradient. I get it, it’s supposed to look like flames, but in this case, simpler would have been better. If you don’t believe me, look at the black-and-white version of the exact same logo — it’s not perfect, but taking out some of the visual noise by downgrading to a single color helps immediately.

There’s also the big, fat, lowercase “n” merged with a “T” in the middle. What does that “T” stand for? Is it supposed to be a torch? Or is it a “T” that stands for torch? I’m feeling a little lost, here, National Newspaper Week.

There are so many things that bother me about this logo that I could probably write a novel, but the point is that I feel gypped.

There are newspaper designers out there who could have taken the cheesy theme, “Carrying the Torch of Freedom,” and made something truly great. Or, at least, something less awful. All of those people are being misrepresented. National Newspaper Week should have a logo that portrays that talent of the people in the industry, not a graphic-design project gone bad.