The London Borough with the worst logo

Lewisham is pretty poor but you'd have to go some way to beat Southwark Council's '1994 leisure centre branding consultant' logo.

Lewisham's clip art crown looks like something they would have made for a school sports' day on a 386 PC in 1994.

croydon could do with trying a bit harder, no?

Although who the fuck refers to Hammersmith and Fulham as "H&F"?

croydon could do with trying a bit harder, no?

― Manchego Bay (G00blar), Monday, 17 November 2008 13:03 (4 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I think it fits, there's no area of Britain that sums up "no frills" more than Croydonia.

xpost haha i didn't even notice f&w

I like hackney's fwiw

Waltham Forest have just ripped off the Nottingham Forest one, right?

Just seen Enfield, that's rubbish as well.

the passable ones:
Barnet
Bexley
Bromley
Enfield
Haringey
Havering
Hillingdon
Hounslow
Islington
Ken & Chelsea
Kingston
Lambeth
Lewisham
Redbridge
Southwark
Tower Hamlets (probably the best)
Wandsworth
Waltham Forest
whatever that last one is

the rest are irredeemably awful

They all look like either non-league sponsors or club crests.

Hackney's pretty rubbish - what is that, a rugby ball?

I like Merton. It's the Wandle, innit.

Hillingdon's makes me want to go there and deface some public property

I have a really adverse reaction to typefaces that emulate handwriting (beyond all the other design sins on display) so it's between Bromley, Southwark and Harrow. I think it's Bromley.

The last one is the Corporation of London.

i might vote Newham because colour->white gradient is a real bugbear, never ever looks good unless really subtle. Barking & Dagenham might be even more offensively tedious tho.

it's depressing how bad these are. which one is the oldest?

Bromley and Croydon must date from the mid-to-late-'80s, surely?

funny how so many of them use that Lysterine Green or neighbouring tones

You can tell a lot about the prevailing politics of the borough by the kind of logo they've chosen. There's a fairly obvious split between the ones that would sit happily on a rugby shirt and the ones that went for a sort of bland modernity at some point before it went out of fashion.

Lewisham kind of straddles the two. It looks like a crown, but wait it's actually lots of people holding hands! Tradition and inclusiveness! I remember when they brought that in actually, and it's probably the only logo here that hails from the 80s. Bromley was early 90s I think, around the time they opened the shopping centre there.

For the sinister, shadowy Freemasonry vibe, Corporation of London is the best. Lewisham the worst IMO.

Bromley falls into the third category I suppose, the 'look, we've got fields and trees and everything!' category.

I like Kingston's, manages to combine the nature thing with looking relatively modern and non-tacky. Also fish!

also interesting to see the split between uppercase and title case, with only merton and h&f dropping capitals altogether. not sure where i stand on this - tend to quite like the strength and formality of uppercase in this context tho

some kind of uniform design as suggested in alba's link would be good.

Haringey's is appalling as well, what exactly is it supposed to be? They deserve whatever's coming to them.

It's a lightning bolt of poor social service management.

ha ha

i sort of almost like it for reminding me of early 80s record art (Cab Vol or Frankie) but seems inappropriate here

Interesting that the Socialist Republic of Brent (copyright the Evening Standard) should have such a traditional logo. Would have expected Ken to have sorted that out!

It's the TV being broadcast from Alexandra Palace!

It looks much better in black and white. It changed recently, but I can't find an image of the old one.

I like it. Kinda soviet.

(That was in reply to "Haringey's is appalling as well, what exactly is it supposed to be?")

http://www.youthspace.haringey.gov.uk/hc_logo_white_on-black.gif

I am totally down with Enfield's 'we nicked it off the local newspaper' logo.

I live in a part of SE London where five boroughs meet - Lewisham, Bromley, Croydon, Lambeth and Southwark - and I really don't recognise the Lewisham one. They must be using an old logo on the signs round here but I can't recall what it is. Possibly a rainbow and Comic Sans.

The rectangle is worse than the electric motif. Maybe just splitting the bolt colours 50/50 would've been better.

That Haringey one does indeed look better in black and white. Would look even better in red and black.

Harrow's irritates me most, the way they try to make the squidging together of the words look like it's anything other than cack-handed. Tssk.

I like Sutton's though, like it knows the rest of London ain't paying attention so it's colouring in the apples ofn the trees.

Croydon's one does accurately convey someone yelling "GET BACK IN THE QUEUE, SIR! SIR, I AM ASKING YOU POLITELY TO GET BACK IN THE QUEUE!" I wonder how the David Lean Cinema looks these days...

The Lewisham one is still using the same font they had when they used to sponsor Millwall's shirts, isn't it?

Southwark's is pretty old. I remember it changing to that in the late 80s or very early 90s. Kind of shocked that it's remained that long. I guess councils are more sensitive to outrage over rebranding costs than they used to be.

At first I found Ealing's the ugliest, but maybe it's not as bad as all that. Barnet's blandness offends me a little.

There are some right stinkers. Harringey looks like a design you might find on a fascist armband, and Hammersmith and Fulham looks like a building society logo.

I've had an idea for a while to do a poll based on the fonts different boroughs use for their street signs.

Barnet is very BBC. At least it's neat and well contained.

It's very BBC but BBC is only three letters. And it's not an authority. And it's not in that awful teal colour. And it doesn't need an extra bit in small caps underneath to tell you what it is. And it got there first.

I like Islington best. Gives me that classic we're-London feeling, but with a clean, modern refresh.

Hackney:

http://www.intercea.com/upload/Clients/logos/hackney.gif

With the same poop.
Back and forth.
Forever.

I really like Harringey's! And Sutton's.

Lambeth's is just emabrrassingly awful (not helped by the fact that it appears on every council tax bill and demand I've had). Though Southwark's is just pitiful.

I wish I lived a bit further down the road because Merton's is really cute and topical.

Croydon just looks so... Croydon that it kinda fits. I'm gonna go with Southward for sheer "TRY HARDER!!!" shitness.

The Hackney logo seems like they're trying to do something with negative space, but I can't figure out what. If it's just positive space, then it's what, a TIE Fighter? A barbell?

Haringay has irrevocably become a hateful symbol for not caring about dead babies

Hackney second worst because it has irrevocably become a hateful symbol for getting annoying frillz off the fact that you live in Hackney

Croydon's is shit.

Tower Hamlets representing with weird river/castle melange. Oh yes.

Yeah, what is up with these Hackney people and their ironic neighborhoods.

Haringay has irrevocably become a hateful symbol for not caring about dead babies

― Glans Christian Christian christian Christian Andersen (MPx4A), Monday, 17 November 2008 14:12 (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Aspects of Haringay:

1) Dead babies
2) Dead Turkish drug dealers
3) Sway

had "I Married Her For a VISA" stuck in my head this morning

I was reading the very same article this morning! The Japanese ones that inspired the article were great, if a little.....authoritarian.

Croydon's is shit.

Take the 's out of that and that's why it's perfect. All these motherfuckers with their "trees" and "bits of water" and "people" - Croydon's logo Tells It Like It Is. Men in jeans wondering who these people think they are that are parking there. Women yelling at people for snogging on the bus. Deputy mayor proudly opens new cafe in Debenhams. The Last Remaining Branch Of Allders In The Entire World. A house window with a sign in it: "KEEP GIBRALTAR BRITISH". Three different varieties of speedbump on the same street. "Number five, GARETH SOUTHGATE!"

I know there's things I like about the place, I just struggle to remember what they are most of the time.

Southwark is clearly the worst in a "let's not design anything, let's just write the name in my own handwriting" kinda way. And signs with it on must be the most graffito-inducing, if something looks like a scrawl, one can hardly complain if others add their own scrawl to the sign.

Enfield is clearly the best, and I don't only say that coz I was born there. It has the Enfield Beast, ffs! No other London borough has its own invented animal...a taloned vulpine that brings a griffon to mind.

Why does Haringey look the way it does? Is the symbol supposed to represent broadcasting? I suppose that if Ally Pally lies within its confines then that may be appropriate.

Kensington & Chelsea tells you everything you need to know about Kensington & Chelsea.

I know there's things I like about the place, I just struggle to remember what they are most of the time.

― William Bloody Swygart, Monday, 17 November 2008 14:31 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I think it has Britain's largest Quasar/Laser Hunt still remaining?

do you think there is an inverse correlation between level of service provided and no. of rebrandings per unit time?

a table of the cost of local authority rebrandings would be instructive.

(Actually, there's decent record shops there. And the David Lean is a nice little cinema, or at least it was however many years ago I last went there. The Clocktower tries, dammit. The cafe was always quite arse, but it tries)

But, y'know, look at Croydon's logo. Can you imagine it being said in any voice other than David Coleman's? It just fits.

And then there's Bromley with its definite article, in case you confuse it with any of the other Bromleys. I do like how Hackney's has been specifically designed to not look out of place on the side of a bottle bank.

good point William, yr genuine heraldry meanwhile looks very out of place on a bottle bank.

I am pleased that hackney have not redesigned its logo for the entire time I have been aware that hey have had one (at least 25 years). OK so they went from orange to green, but still.

Camden kind of sets the gold standard for Must Not Look Out Of Place On Rubbish Truck. It might just be the size, but I have no idea at all what that green thing is meant to be.

Redbridge appear to be pro-drugz.

x-post It's an H isn't it?

Hate Hackney's despite narrow-tracked Helvetica Black (so 10 years ago as it is). Croydon should be using Gill Sans Bold or maybe Futura. Those are the fonts I see their name in, not blummin' Rockwell.

Camden kind of sets the gold standard for Must Not Look Out Of Place On Rubbish Truck. It might just be the size, but I have no idea at all what that green thing is meant to be.

I've lived in Camden my whole life and neither do I.

Ah sorry I thought you meant Hackney!

as a non-brit I'm just curious: why do these places even have logos? is there a 90% unemployment rate for graphic designers or something, and this was a government subsidized work project?

we are obssessed with logos. every hospital has a different one too. when i worked for the health service (95-97 and I doubt if things have improved) there were forms that had to be filled out for all sorts of reasons, printed stationery, which were identical in every respect except they had to be printed with the correct hospital's logo. result: about 9000 more varieties of form than would otherwise be the case and a lot of printing companies rubbing their hands.

Camden kind of sets the gold standard for Must Not Look Out Of Place On Rubbish Truck. It might just be the size, but I have no idea at all what that green thing is meant to be.

Is that green thingy some lock gates/bridge doings plus reflection of same?

I like the way the words are linked in the Harrow one, it's like the sober word is escorting the tipsy one home.

I agree that Hackney's is ok and is one of the few that seems to stand and not need constant revamping.

The trouble with all of them is that they try to make exciting and alluring something which is essentially boring and humdrum, if not worse. That's why they always have to redesign them every five years - because, apart from any design issues, they just sink down and become hateful, through association with what they represent (councils).

Keynesian economics - there are so many useless branding consultants in the country that if we weren't continually giving them work the UK economy would have hurtled into recession years ago.

Wandsworth's is the best I think, after Islington. It's got that Thames TV voibe. Also mad props to Greenwich for not putting a lame Millennium Dome silhouette in there sometime around 1999.

Camden should have stuck with this.

http://www.demc.nsw.gov.au/images/CAMDEN_logo.gif

That's Camden, NSW, Australia, of course. (Sheep.)

The Greenwich logo looks like it's flatlining.

http://www.civicheraldry.co.uk/great_london.html

Here are the old borough crests. Some are awesome.

This explains a lot:

http://www.civicheraldry.co.uk/haringey.PNG

Haringey.

Why does Haringey look the way it does? Is the symbol supposed to represent broadcasting? I suppose that if Ally Pally lies within its confines then that may be appropriate.

I answered this! It's the TV being broadcast from Alexandra Palace!

Also, Harringay is the area where I live, Haringey is the borough. Haringay is nothing.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I can't believe I missed this. Camden, trivia fans, was designed in I believe 1969 by the selfsame branders responsible for London 2012. I've always 'read' the logo as a circle of hands passing the buck, although it's meant to symbolize community bonds and teamwork.

Looking at it afresh, Lewisham's awfulness comes to the fore.

Bromley and Southwark for their 90s style friendly scripts.

Voted for Bromley for being closer to comic Sans.

Actually, on the subject of inscrutable shapes - Hounslow. Eh?

Already voted, but think Waltham Forest might be my least favourite now. Teal is not a wonderful colour.

I don't like the colour, but I rather like Waltham Forest otherwise.

Ugh. Kensington & Chelsea, for the same reason I hate Kensington & Chelsea.

Camden logo almost goatse-like if you look hard enough

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Whoever designed the Barnet logo must have watched a lot of Countdown.

I imagine Croydon Council's response to this accolade would be something along the lines of "No one likes us, we don't care".

Burnley has just blown all London boroughs out of the water:
http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/burnley_logo.jpg

More info: http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/a_thing_as_logo.php

Oh wow, it moves!

:(

So they want the image of a kind of... knot? Partially made of... red tape?

i like it, especailly the moving one.

The moving thing is fine (except when it goes behind the wording and gets blanked out - surely they could have fixed that - but as a logo it's way too complicated.

"Burnley: A Great Place to Drop Acid In"

A huge ever growing pulsating logo that rules from the centre of Burnley.

I like it, but I bet it looks shit on bins (which is pretty much what these logos are for).

I think it's nice, but it's pretty amazing that they competed for it. How does one get to be in a position to draw things like that, and then have people fighting each other to give you money for it?

Coun Gordon Birtwistle, leader of Burnley Council, said he was a fan of the logo, saying it signifies the town’s “intertwining” qualities. He added that the town had beaten stiff competiton from others who had been interested in using the logo.

Not even a bespoke logo.

SMARMY AGENCY CUNT A: "I've got a picture of some knotted ribbon. Shall we hawk it round to a bunch of gullible northern towns and see who's prepared to pay the most for it?"
SMARMY AGENCY CUNT B: "Yeah, but make sure you come up with a load of symbolism guff to piss down their throats first."

This new Haringey logo sure is... something

http://www.haringey.gov.uk/sites/haringeygovuk/themes/haringey_v2/logo.png

I like it.

A-MAZING. That's 15 seconds in MS Paint with the thick brush.

I was just looking at all of them and thinking, hey Haringey at least has a decent logo I get to look at on my council tax bill. Then I scroll down to the bottom of the page and see that aargh

It makes me want to pronounce it "ha-ringee!"

with a soft g and all

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f9/Lb_croydon_logo.svg

This one is perfection, you utter fools.

You can see the consequence of such disdain for functionality in the disastrous new Haringey logo. Think on that.

The kerning really bothers me. I know why they've done it - to fully justify both lines with a proportional font when the second line contains an "I" - but it still rankles.

Croydon Council looks like a fist coming towards you, a lettering set knuckleduster. They are the council. It would also work well for a cement company

Haringey looks like its testing the waters for a future rebranding as The Haringey Experience

Croydon's rebranded too:
http://www.croydonleadership.com/microsites/croydon_city_council/stat/logo.gif

Actually quite a few of them have rebranded or updated since the original post, but none are as hilarious as Haringey.

Oh, so it has. I never look at my council tax bills, clearly.

The Haringey logo makes me think of this, for some reason...

http://www.phoneseven.de/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Intel_inside_Logo-e1355241122942.jpg

It's the same "whatever, we're too cool for straight lines!" 1990s aesthetic.

Haringey looks like it's showed up late for work and is trying to fasten its apron and upsell me some Hawaiian Sliders at the same time.

Haringey managing to spell Haringey correctly is a win for them.