Labour re-brands its logo
Party unveils new look; adds social networking frills to its website. UPDATED: 8.54pm: Suddenly, drama, as Hamish Keith claims it was he, not Bob Harvey, who designed Labour's classic logo.
Party unveils new look; adds social networking frills to its website. UPDATED: 8.54pm: Suddenly, drama, as Hamish Keith claims it was he, not Bob Harvey, who designed Labour's classic logo.
UPDATE, 8.54pm: While the designer of the new Labour logo remains a mystery - at least to NBR's crack investigative unit - Hamish Keith has revealed himself as the creator of the original blocky design.
"I designed the 1969 one," Mr Keith said in a comment after the original version of this story.
"[It's] odd that most of these comments are about the party and not the logo - lesson for designers there.
"I think the new logo is crisp and straight forward.
"The last was overcooked with too many cooks and a focus group to dine on it."
Later, the cultural curmudgeon told NBR:
"I don't really know when that logo got dumped, but Bob Harvey ran the
advertising/design for the 1969 campaign.
"I was standing for Remuera and among other things I was a graphic designer.
"For a while Bob claimed he had designed the logo - it was actually a question in Mastermind and he was the correct answer.
"But he now acknowledges that I designed it.
"It was a very radical campaign split screen ads and catchy music.
"Another factoid - the cinematographer was Roger Donaldson and Dick Frizzell was an artist at Bob's agency and worked on it as well.
"Dick and I also did a guerrilla comic called Blue Meanies."
[Okay, that's enough Labour party and counter-cultural history for an NBR article - Editor]
The Labour Party has unveiled a re-branded logo, featuring a fancy "a" and a red fern - immediately drawing sharply divided reactions among readers (see comments below).
For one, the "a" recalled the style applied to the letter in the Maori Party logo, while the fern was reminiscent of the Greens' leafy swoosh - could they be subliminal attempts to lure minor party supporters?
A new-look Labour website has also gone live, too, featuring social networking frills such as likes to associated Flickr and YouTube accounts, and Facebook and Twitter buttons.
Here's the new logo:
Here's the old one:
And here's classic 1970s blockhead design:
Discuss.