In my earlier career, used to travel to NYC a dozen or so times a year on photography assignments, and the ubiquitous yellow cabs were always a welcome sight in travels around the city. The color is no accident – mandated by law in 1970, and the cars, other than actual model, have remained pretty well unchanged since then. Until now. The yellow medallion cabs now have an official logo, being placed on all the vehicles when they’re brought in for service. Like most large-scale logo implementation, the new NYC Taxi logo is not without its detractors, and has stirred up a debate within the design community. 
Reading like a typical project around the shop, the design process featured all the typical bumps, client suggestions and a resultant logo that’s ‘frankensteined’ from several disparate concepts. The first attempt, created by Smart Design, featured a simple text based treatment, and based loosely on the computer generated type used on driver licenses. City officials thought that the new logo wasn’t ‘flashy’ enough (if I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that comment) so a bold circle and ‘T’ combination was added – mirroring a typical public transit style. The designers wanted to go as far as removing the actual wording of the logo, figuring that the large T, on the side of a yellow cab, would suffice. All was well until someone at the city realized that a large T was also going to be used as the icon for an upcoming subway development, so the NYC and ‘AXI’ were added once again. The NYC portion of the logo was then changed to a bulky font, to reflect the typography being unveiled as part of a new tourism campaign (designed by Wolff Olins) and the mash-up logo was finalized. Does the hybrid logo work? I don’t think so – it has the reverse-engineered appearance that one would expect with the logo’s back story. Many in the design community are non-plussed, though readily admit that the new mark is at least a step in the right direction. The New York Times invited high-profile agencies to discuss the new logo, and feature a selection of same on their city room blog. The paper also asked readers to submit their own NYC Taxi logo (if you’re up to the task, you can download a hi-res photo from the link and have your new logo featured here). Design blogs have joined in the discussion, some going as far to opine that everyone hates the re-designed NYC Taxi logo,
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