What's Meg Whitman fussing over: The fate of HP ... or the font on a DISRUPTIVE new logo? Meg Whitman, who will take the reins as CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise later this year, has unveiled the branding system for the soon-to-be-created company, and it's just as bland and lifeless as anyone could have anticipated. Hewlett Packard Enterprise logo The new Hewlett Packard Enterprise logo is short on razzle- …
The Green Rectangle is not only highly symbolic, but completely on-message and correct:
We will all be boxed in to the same shit that we are feeling sick about right now.
Flexibility will be limited to the infamous slide-ways slide to the point of collapse. Yes kids, you can test this at home with your very own open ended rectangular cardboard box - just place it on the floor with the open ends pointing sideways and place your hand on the top. Allow your hand to move in any direction left or right of the open sides and the box will collapse into a heap on the floor under its own weight. Just like this rebadged monster is likely to do..
If your enterprise is boxed up inside that collapsing metaphor, you will probably be feeling just as green as the colour that Meg has chosen especially for you...
To me it sounds like whoever came up with this held some kind of power over the CEO (poor relative with no job skills perhaps?) and so Meg didn't disagree and every other exec on the board was just as spineless as she was so they just nodded yes and proclaimed the artist a genius.
Or maybe they were conned and are too proud to admit it.
Those are the only two explanations I can think of for this pile of bull-shit that looks like somebody made in MS Paint in 5 minutes...
Crazy Operations Guy,
We'll know all about how they got foisted with the logo in a couple of years time, when they go the FBI and Serious Fraud Office, plus sue the people who sold it to them, and their auditors for allowing them to sign up for it...
Either that or it is a cousin with 17 fingers and no teeth or job prospects that's done it. And that person has now taken the paycheck home, and given a single downvote to every comment on this thread that's rude about the design or HP...
P.S. Dear El Reg,
Booooooo! Where's the Strategy Boutique or the mention of whalesong and joss sticks on this article?
This post has been deleted by its author
Presumably the empty minus sign is supposed to signify that there's nothing left when you remove the company's core business. It'll be interesting to see how they trademark it. I know the Bass logo of a red triangle is one of the oldest trademarks around, but these days they have to be a bit more distinctive.
The "joined t's means partnership" back-splanation seems more than a bit forced, but I've heard worse drivel and seen worse results come from many more dollars' and hours' work (I will assume few of either were invested here). Is she still considering a run for U.S. President? Maybe this can be part of her branding ("I'm not a square; I've got wide-view thinking so I must be a rectangle").
After staring at it for five or six hours yea, it's agile and transformative as a green rectangle with a name under can be. But I wouldn't suggest this technique be used by HP marketing or their advertising professionals less they be accused of witchcraft or something.
Good thing they didn't use a pentangle instead of a rectangle.
Look carefully at the name "Hewlett" in the first line. See how the crossbars on the two lowercase T's are stuck together? According to Whitman, this is the first time in HP history that this has been the case.
Um... Ok.. So?
"That connection is symbolic of the partnership we will forge with our customers, partners, and our employees – what we will do together to help drive your business forward,"
O...M...G... Check your Bingo cards!
"However could they not have provided a nice template for the Bingo card? seems like a lot of work to play"
If you can't knock up a template in less than 30 seconds in a spreadsheet with cell borders or a table in a word processor than I'm afraid we'll have to ask for your El Reg membership to be rescinded.
Or you could write a perl script to create a LaTeX document and export it as a .ps file to a printer and we might let you stay.
I can come up with a template for that. How about making the border of the bingo card green and the card white? This results in you holding a hollow green rectangle, which as everyone implicitly understands is symbolic of you holding a communal synergized cross-platform paradigm enabling entrepreneurial client focused solutions providing win-win value creation for cross-value chain stakeholders in your hands.
(Now if you'll excuse me, after that I somehow feel dirty and in need of a shower .)
Thanks for the upvotes and replies, guys and guyesses!
I like to think that I write well thought out comments, touching on issues ranging from the social to the political, to the technological, and the philosophical.
I involve myself in serious debate threads - fully listening to my opponent, and strategically planning my response.
Yet, in all these years, the most upvotes I've received are on a post about bollocks, linking to more bollocks! That's what I love about El Reg! :-)
As for the link, the site I linked to was just an old archive of an ascii-only mailing list, hence the sparseness.
Here are 2 link to similar CGI generated random card creator. Fun for all the office!
http://www.bullshitbingo.net/cards/bullshit/
http://www.bullshitbingo.net/cards/buzzword/
Googling 'buzzword bingo' brings up more!
communal synergized cross-platform paradigm enabling entrepreneurial client focused solutions providing win-win value creation for cross-value chain stakeholders
Still laughing. Many times in my career I have been told that to make more money I have to move into business analysis - but since it comes down to being able to talk like this with a straight face that option is not open to me!
"That connection is symbolic of the partnership we will forge with our customers, partners, and our employees – what we will do together to help drive your business forward,"
So is she saying that in the past, they *didn't* do that as well as that should have? Even under her recent stint as CEO?
Or have they always been doing that as well as they should have, in which case the new symbolism is mere jingoism?
"If they do, and then a fully-formed DEC can be spat out of that ... I'll be one of the happiest men alive..."
That may seem like an almost infinitely improbable idea, but then two years ago so would the idea that HP would repeal the death sentence on VMS and instead hand over its future development to a new company who would (a) promptly recruit many former members of the VMS community at DEC (b) commit to a port of VMS to x86-64... and then it happened:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/31/openvms_spared/
They've now built+released their first new Field Test of VMS (for those IA64 things, in the short term).
The current commercial arrangements of the PDP11 stuff are less clear, but a Colorado company called xx2247 appears to have some involvement. LinkedIn has contact info.
Yes there was other stuff too, but I know even less about the pre-PDP era.
"crossbars on the two lowercase T's are stuck together? According to Whitman, this is the first time in HP history that this has been the case". of course it is the first time, its a new registered LOGO
"That connection is symbolic of the partnership we will forge with our customers, partners, and our employees – no you couldn't register it as a logo without it being "novel" in some way from standard written text. Goes this "new CEO actually think we will buy this BS I think it just shows how bland unimaginative and inside the box her pilotship will be and how oblong they will become under regime.
That's right up there with Consignia that is...
Yes, it's going to be stacked with black rectangles in all the Powerpoints, it's a datacentre rack, we get it... I hope the booze, charlie and hookers bill was worth it boys and girls! You sure done a number there on them...
Anon Coward since I work for a competitor and wouldn't sully my own views with theirs. I'm guessing that's where they've hired these muppets from.
"This is the first time in our history that the two t’s in Hewlett connect."...
Err, correct me if I am wrong, but this seems to be a logo with linked crossed t's?
http://www.telecomworkers.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/HP-hewlett-Packard-Logo.jpg
Give her a break. If you do find linked 'T's, please bear in mind that its a known firmware issue with HP scanners, which re-evaluates and re-analyses the value-added benchmark and proactively synergises the end-result for client strategic needs and revisits the mindset in order to 'touch base' and focus on core client competencies for a truly results-driven formula that complies with industry best practices and leverages a customer empowering game plan for a win-win bottom line which ultimately benefits HP knowledge base and helps partners move forward, innovate, adapt, improve and succeed.
I once worked for a company that went for the rings...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/05/08/logowatch_with_this_ring/
...also called the "missing link logo" by haters. Also..."3cow" if inverted.
// went down the tubes before they could put in the giant version and the reflecting pool in front of the building.
I pictured it went something like this...
Megs office...
Meg: So Intern, did you get the fax from the designers with the new logo yet?
Intern: Fax, erm... Do we still use fax? I didn't know we had a fax machine... Where is it?
Meg: What the fuck do I pay you far Intern? Of course we have a fax, how else do you think we send out our communications! Christ, do I have to do everything around here!
Intern: Emmm... I'm an unpaid Intern... Let me go ask the Marketing team if they have it....
Marketing office:
Intern: Hello, can someone help me, I'm looking for the new logo, Meg sent me down for the fax...
Marketing Droid: Logo? What are you talking about? We're HP Inc, not HP Ent, get out Intern!
Intern wanders corridor for 20 minutes looking for someone to help until he stumbles in on Dion playing jenga with the sales team.
Intern: Excuse me Mr Weisler sir... Do you know where I can get the new logo for HP Ent... Meg sent me to find the fax... No one will help me sir.. (Breaks down crying like a 24 year old with a Masters)
Dion: Ah, bugger! Stupid intern, you cause me to lose the jenga game! Here give me a jenga block some paper and that highlighter from the table... any one will do... the green one is fine... stupid bloody logo...
10 seconds later...
Dion: Here you go Intern, give this to her, tell her the designers call it the representation of the jengafied spirit of the company... there may be some holes but it keeps rising, she loves hearing that shit. Now put my highlighter back and fuck off.
5 minutes and a quick Facebook check later...
Intern: Hi Ms Whitman, I was given this as the new logo, it represents the jengafied spirit of the company... I have to go get my bus home now if that's ok...
Meg: Yes, it's brilliant, it's like staring out a window into the future, the possibilities are endless, the green showing the harmony with the transient nature of our environment, ever changing with our growth of spiritualist Renaissance and endeavouring to strengthen the frailty of humanity...
Intern: OK... Erm... If you say so... I really have to run... Tomorrow I'm with the packing men loading desks into trucks if you need me...
Meg: Get out of my office intern...
But she makes herself sound like a fool when she talks about things like the joined crossbar on the two t's in "Hewlett" being indicative of a commitment to partnership with customers.
Well, its nice to see "Hewlett Packard" back in circulation, even if that name should really go to Agilent, since test & measurement was where Hewlett-Packard really started.
I spent 15 years in Graphic Design and Advertising before moving to an IT career. And let me just say, this is so "forgettable" and un-inspiring that I can only assume that Michael Dell setup a fake advertising agency and offered up a ridiculously low bid, to insure they would land the work, and then intentionally sold them on something so stupid as to instantly put more money in Dell's coffers. As a graphic designer I could have come up with something better than this in 15mins, i assure you. Wow this is just BAD! I would laugh my arse off if i saw how much they paid to have it designed.
The joined T's are to make the copy in the logo distinctive enough to actually be a trademark. That's why companies really do it; they come up with the joining-hands, kumbaya bullshit story later on.
Same as the joined m's in the Commonwealth Bank of Australia logo, for instance.
All these comments, and no one's bashed either Whitman or McAllister for not using the perfectly good term "ligature"? I am truly disappointed in the quality of Reg pedantry here.
(And, really, Neil - "crossbars"? There's a typographic term for those, too. I guess we're lucky you didn't describe Whitman as "top decider-person at HP".)
"crossbars"? There's a typographic term for those, too
Umm, yeah, maybe, but it isn't "serif". You linked to an article explaining all about serifs which you didn't actually read?
A serif is not a substantive part of the letter. It's a decoration added at one of the points of the letter. If you left off the "crossbars" of the letter "t" it wouldn't actually be a "t" any more.
In the entire history of corporate logo changes, has there ever been one that couldn't be ridiculed to some extent? I can't think of one. One the positive side, a new logo is a rich source of slightly cheap humour for just about everyone who wasn't involved in creating it.
I'm no expert on branding, but, looked at seriously, this does seem to have some problems. One is that the green rectangle, by itself, isn't uniquely recognisable as HP. Many corporate logos incorporate a symbol along with the company name, but the symbol is usually capable of standing by itself.
The other is using the name Hewlett Packard. We've been led to believe the new company will be called HP Enterprise; has that changed?
As a FORMER - 16 year employee of Compaq/HP... I can only say: No surprises here. I believe it is about the poor bastard employees being boxed in. The now younger and dumber employees are being force fed the daily bullshit from upper management. I can tell you stories that would split your sides and make you cry at the same time. Perhaps the most telling quote everr spoke in a conference room amongst upper management HP assholes - after an HP employee survey:
" John Doe, your team doesn't have a high opinion of upper management. It is your job to change their opinion". Yup no lie. 100% true. That manager left HP within 6 months and after explaining he could not work with those conditions.
Another great one by perhaps the dumbest manager I ever had: And I quote " Do I need to setup an SLA between you and the salesman you are working with"? Salesman, previously from EMC, lasted 6 months and attempted to make me attend meetings 4 hours away with a single days notice, without regard for my existing appointments... And that manager is there today. But I am not.
I could go on and on with very painful stories.... Like I said. No surprises... Glad I left when I did...
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