My Twitter feed this morning was lighting up with a post from At Issue Journal on the ‘UK Space Agency Logo Controversy’, (tweeted by @dotmariusz). You get the usual commentators instantly assuming that the latter copied the former. Without any information to base this criticism, they go ahead and slam whatever logo and designer is in their sights.

Fortunately in this case, the article in question is a constructive and forms a reasonable view, rather than joining the fray. It’s always hard to make a considered opinion when lacking all the details, specifically words direct from the designers.

For sure there is ‘influenced’ and ‘copied’. The actual logomark looks ‘influenced’ and ‘improved on’ from the Doctor Who logo. Any time you create a logo for a ‘major’ brand, and it happens to look similar to other logo designs, it will be subject to ‘comments’.

Some people are just plain rude and naive and will say it’s been ‘copied’ others will be more constructive and reasonable, such as the post from @Issue article.

Unless you have a direct line to the designer to get comments and info on the situation, or you have seen the brief and been part of the creative process, back off on the accusations. There are people out there that have nothing better to do they spend their time trying to find things to rudely criticize.

And who knows, maybe the creative team ‘approached’ the designers of the Doctor who logo version and asked permission to base their design on it. Doesn’t look like it in this case, but things like this are always possible.

First visual impressions

Based on first visual impressions, something about the wording being aligned right, yet the logomark placed centrally. Looks a little top heavy and unbalanced with the bottom left arrow tip creating more unbalance as it swoops into the wording over the ‘U’. This has upset the central balance of the logomark.

How I would ‘tweak it’

Image above is my ‘tweak’. It’s always easy to point out things in hindsight, so these are just small things I have noticed that I would personally change, at least to see the results.

I think aligning the logomark right with the wording may look more balanced. Doing this, means the lower left arrow tip now follows the natural line angle of the ‘K’ and actually seems to be more tied together. Have also increased the width of the logomark a wee bit, so that it now matches the full width of ‘Space’.

Just a small tweak, but seems to make a difference to the overall look and feel. Doesn’t feel so awkward now. Curious to know if there were any specific reasons why they opted to place the logomark centrally. And when placed on the website, looks neater and more integral.

But I will stress again, it’s easy to point out things to change after the fact. Sometimes the most obvious eludes us until after we have finished the logo and design and presented it to the client. So this is hopefully just viewed as constructive feedback. :)