Oh, for the love of… wait, this really is for the love of God. Okay, the The Catholic University of America Office of Public Affairs recently announced the release of this logo, commemorating Pope Benedict XVI’s April 2008 visit to the United States. Before I go on, it’s important to keep this in mind – coming up with a decent church logo or religious icon is always fraught with peril. Lots of people to offend. Easy on the bling. Visual cliches galore. Because of the subject matter, religious logos are often critic-proof – nobody wants to offend the Big Guy, or his faithful servants. Having said that, let’s take a cautious look at this new Papal design. If it were a logo designed for say, an automotive company, I’d have no fear in pointing out that this logo is 40 miles of rough design road. Firstly, the whole swoosh logo thing has been done to death. Use of a photograph (welcome to reproduction ahm, H, E Double Hockey Sticks) and has a really wonky logo footprint that will cause nothing shirt of migraines when added to marketing and advertising material. The mark also features pretty nasty font work that will become unreadable at small sizes, something which is only compounded by the dove graphic (I guess that’s what it is) which at small sizes will reproduce as a smudge. The dome of St. Peter’s Basilica graphic in the background is cropped too tightly, and too pale to give any real substance. other than clutter, to its addition. Course, that’s what I’d say if it was an automotive logo.
As it’s for the Pope, let me be the first to congratulate him on the best logo. Evah.
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