Celebrating 55 years of Unoriginality

The logo for the 55^th anniversary of Malaysian independence causes an outcry from the general public and professional sphere.

You don’t have to be a designer to realise that the logo for the 55^th anniversary of Malaysian independence is not a work of art. “why so horrible... how much did it cost” wonders Lord_Froz on the lowyat.net community website. “you call that a logo? more like MS word wordart”, ashcrimson concludes in response.

If these are the reactions of untrained observers, imagine the despair of professional designers. Social networking sites are buzzing with rage.  A facebook post about the logo by Oh! Media, a social media and advertising company, attracted almost a 1000 likes and over 700 comments within 8 hours. One design lecturer from the Limkokwing University of Creative Technology stated that his students “can do better than that”.

Ironically, this feat in unoriginality spurred creativity in others. A photography group Kukubesi Manipulasi initiated a design competition for an alternative logo producing more interesting results within hours. Blogger Jonathanfun conquered his bewilderment with humour by demonstrating that now everyone can be a professional designer in 6 steps.

So what makes this design worth plastering all over the country?

The government website www.malaysiamerdeka.gov.my helpfully breaks down the logo to its elements: the Malaysian flag, the 55 years of independence, Malaysia itself (the big letter ‘M’), the intricacies and uniqueness of challenges faced by Malaysia (the italicised font on ‘erdeka’), the unity of Malaysia (the 1Malaysia symbol) and the government that delivers (the ever so subtle copywriting, translating to ‘kept promises’).  Thanks for that! That is exactly what we see on the logo. All of the 6 elements laid out next to each other. Separately.

So who decides to choose something that looks more like brainstorming results the office assistant put together as a reference for the designer?

We cannot really blame the designer. They do a job, and as far as we know that may hate it just as much as the outraged majority. The client is always right, after all, even in the world of the creatives.

The person who chose the logo would have to be someone who doesn’t really like subtlety. Or someone who doesn’t really believe Malaysians can understand communication that is not LITERAL. Sadly, the main message this logo has managed to convey is not the unity, the patriotism, the triumph it aimed for. It communicated its poor understanding of effective public relations and of the Malaysian public. It also lost an opportunity to boost the pride of being Malaysian.

This piece is contributed by Kathryn Furrer