Let’s Talk About It: Comedy Central
Hey guys and girls.
There is so much buzz about the new re-brand for Comedy Central. To my eyes it appears to be about a 50/50 split. As a guy that grew up his entire life seeing the iconic planet and cityscape I was taken back by the new clean minimal direction that thelab have taken with the logo.
Personally, I keep going back and forth on my opinion about it. There are times I’m floored with how beautiful and simple it is and all the potential it has for great movement and motion, then there are times when I can’t help but think it is simply the copyright logo with a little chunk missing. My other issue with it is that when I see it, I’m not immediately moved to think “Comedy Central”. With the planet and the buildings I could visually relate the objects in the logo to going to see a comedy show downtown somewhere. With that said, I can understand moving away from that because it seems like every time they’d want to brand a piece of their content it was a sort of overwhelmingly cumbersome shape awkwardly sitting at the bottom of my screen being maybe a bit more distracting than they’d like.
We could talk about this new direction and all the reasons why it is better or worse. When it is all said and done the name of the game is brand digestion. Personally, I feel like this new look is easier to consume. Simply because of all the motion I’ve seen so far using the new brand I can say I’m a huge fan of this new direction. From using the carousel slide projector to the simple rotations of the circles that build the identity I look forward to seeing what else they do with it.
from on .
So that’s my little rant on it. There is of course a nut-ton more to say about it, and I’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions about it. Please feel free to leave a comment below and lets start discussing and tearing this circular shape to pieces and see why it works so well, or fails miserably.
Be good.
Timmy.
The results of the poll are in!
When asked the question, “Do you like the new Comedy Central logo?”:
64% said YES
34% said NO
2% said NO OPINION
Thank you to everyone who voted!
Hello. My name is Timmy Allen. I’m a motion designer based in South Florida. Not much bio to give at this point, but I look forward to hanging out and talking with each and every one of you then maybe someday I’ll have something impressive to say about the time I’ve spent on this planet. But so far, I started a show called “Keyframe” and I’m a part of Triune Films‘ internet show “Film Riot“. I am blessed to say that I get to do what I love every single day for a living. I love and talking to cool people. With all that, to be continued….
I voted yes, to the logo working. After not watching TV for awhile and being re-introduced to the new modern logo, I couldn’t remember what the old logo was! It wasn’t until this post refreshed my memory. The direction change was very aggressive and I like their abruptness.
That’s great. It was a HUGE departure from their old look for sure. I personally think in the end after its “newness” has warn off everyone is going to be super happy with it.
Ehhh
Was watching Comedy Central with my buds yesterday and we were talking about it.
I don’t LIKE it per-say because I grew up with the old iconic building logo, but I will say I do like it better than the older one just with what thelab has done with it in promos.
I’m the same way. Growing up with their old one it held some strange special place in my heart. I did feel like it needed an update, I just was not expecting something this drastic.
I agree that it is too much like the copyright symbol. Perhaps if they changed the font.
But it will look great animated!
That is really the one thing that kinda gets me a little bit. However I understand the thought behind it in that they wanted to literally brand comedy with a badge that could be seen and immediately correspond with the channel itself.
I’m glad to hear that someone else shares in my plight of not fully embracing the new logo right off the bat. For me, it wasn’t so much that I saw the copyright symbol so much as it’s just far from an iterative design. The new clean, modern logo didn’t appear to have much in common with the old one at all. That being said, I feel the same way that the old planet and buildings logo was truly iconic for me growing up watching the channel, but in terms of where most other logos, specifically television, comedy central seemed due for an overhaul.
I hadn’t seen the video montage of them using the logo in bumps and commercials and just now, thanks for that Tim! It definitely helped me to see better where they were going and what they plan to use the logo for.
I guess I still don’t have a clear feeling on the logo but I will say this; it’s growing on me. In time I’m sure I’ll accept it for being a clean new design. Will this effect the brand at all? Time will tell.
Yeah, I’d feel too mindless if I simply accept something just because. I really enjoy diving into my personal thought and figure out why I like or don’t like something. It is even better when we can make a community discussion out of it and get all of our ideas together to really tear it apart. The montage is beautiful. I’m really excited to see where else they go with it.
I absolutely dig it. Could have went without the flipped “Central”, but see what they are going for. This logo can be used in ways the older one can’t. I’d much rather animate with the new logo over the older one, which looks like it was plucked out of MS Office.
HAHAHA! I don’t think I’ve ever heard it compared to MS clipart. That’s pretty great.
The old logo became so iconic of Comedy Central that when they changed to the new logo, I think it took many by shock. I know it shook me a bit, anyway. After seeing that video, however, it began to make more sense to me why they would change it. The new logo is definitely easier to animate and allows for more freedom, creativity-wise. I don’t think it properly represents Comedy Central–it too closely resembles the Copyright symbol or Comcast and it doesn’t even whisper comedy to me–but it’s a step in the right direction for them.
I agree. I saw it in print first and really hated it and wasn’t sure what they were doing. As soon as I saw it in motion it all seemed to click for me and it started to make sense. The way they worked it into their promos for their shows was great. They’d show a quick clip, hit the punchline, freeze, then brand the clip with the logo. I thought it worked perfectly.
I think the simplicity of the logo allows greater creativity of its use through web, print and motion graphics. As rightly mentioned the old logo had become iconic, yet with it’s city skyline and speech bubble elements, it doesn’t reflect the broadening gamut of shows it represents.
The new logo… which also reminds me of a target, holds so many possibilities in the way that it is utilised as shown in the video above.
Simple, easily recognisable and able to be manipulated for use with any promo. I like it!