Evolution or revolution? Over the years we’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve heard this old design mantra. Both can be equally as challenging; but surprisingly it’s often the evolution brief that’s the harder nut to crack.
Think of timeless brands, such as Coca Cola or Shell, and you’d imagine their logos have always looked the way they do. Not so. So it was with some trepidation (and much pleasure) that we were assigned the task of redesigning the very classic Norton Motorcycles logo.
A delight to have designed, we’d like to think our new mark says everything about Norton bikes; crafted, elegant and finely tuned.
The test of a good evolution is that you shouldn’t notice what changes have taken place. We challenged owner and CEO of Norton motorcycles, Stuart Garner, to play ‘spot the difference’; a tricky task. Fortunately he understood how a new interpretation of an iconic logo should look as though it hadn’t changed in essence from the original: in this case the one created in James and Ethel’s dining room a century ago.
We think “Pa” Norton would have been pleased.
“Carter Wong took the quintessentially British heritage of our classic logo and redrew it to retain the perfect balance of our crafted past and, as importantly, our high tech future.”