Sony Asked People to Redesign Their Logo And Failed

Fast Company (via The Verge), has an interesting article that details Sony’s efforts to redesign its logo in 1981.

Sony decided for its 35th Anniversary to launch the “Sony International Logotype Design Contest” – a competition that gave anyone and everyone the chance to redesign the company’s logo. 30,000 people submitted their designs from across the world, with Sony cutting that down to 59 of the best. From those, they had planned to choose one design to replace their current one, but decided against it. You’ll understand why by looking at 3 of the best, shown above.

What they did do in the end, to their embarrassment perhaps, was split the prize money between those three and publish an ad in Time Magazine thanking all of the contributors. The article is an interesting look into a future that could have been. A future with very bad logos.

Source: Fast Company 

Featured image courtesy of Greg Pritchard