I agree with Ben that a brand is an evolving story. Brand stories evolve in the sense that all the marks of a brand experience are directed in such a way as to be relevant to people’s lives. However, this goes without saying. And, more importantly, in response, this does not mean the visual component of an identity has to move or change in a literal sense to indicate an evolving brand.

A brand can be seen to be living in the sense that it is responsive to the quality of the experience of the brand so that the brand remains relevant to the lives of people. There are always responsive elements of a brand that invite and process feedback to rework the overall brand experience and which affects the perceived reality of a brand identity. This is a basic mechanism by which all brands are validated, reinforced and shared.

However brands work to remain relevant and whether their visual identities are dynamic or static, all their various marks are directed to secure distinct identities in the minds (and hearts) of people. Brand marks work to hold stable single ideas or nested sets of ideas in a fluxing world of competing ideas. The more distinctive the brand idea the more discrete (ie. separate) and secure (or fixed) the perception of the identity.

A ‘living identity’ is an artificial proposition open to interpretation and, in my opinion, not as compelling as Ben would have us believe. A ‘living identity’ suggests that to a logical conclusion a brand can be sentient. A brand could be seen to be sentient in the sense that it is for and determined by sentient humans and so to some degree can be held to behave as humans do. Until artificial intelligence surpasses the level of consciousness of humans brands are unlikely ever to ‘live’ to the extent that they can be said to be alive and ‘living’. Such an argument becomes esoteric and is of little commercial value. Unless, of course, the brand is literally a person.

To say logos are dead is to also misrepresent the limitations of thinking of brands in terms of logos, as per Simon’s argument. At the very least a logo’s function is to carry a brand name (literally, or as a symbol and/or rebus) regardless of whether the design is static or changing. A brand name exists in an abstract space relatively free of context (other than linguistic). How the rest of the brand marks relate to this primary mark (aka logo) determines what the brand name or symbol means in the world. How the brand lives via all its marks gives meaning as well as a sense of purpose to its identity.

Ben appears to mean that a logo is dead because it does not literally move and/or its content is not conveyed via some sort of form change in real-time. He also suggests that whatever the brand idea in the logo, the mere fact that the idea is expressed as a logo means it cannot be alive. On this basis I believe his argument is invalid and grossly misleading to the uninitiated. An idea can live or be animated in a conceptual or symbolic sense without having to move or change in a literal sense. Brands need to evolve/change/upgrade but it is unlikely that the core components of an identity will ever need to change in real-time. Real-time movement or change causes a brand to repeat basic movements or, at the extreme, become too varied and indistinct.

Digital technology offers unprecedented opportunities to orchestrate various types of related marks to create distinctive brand experiences. It is in this type of brand experience that the creation of the marks of a brand should be determined, brand marks of which one will always be required to lead – one that will also always require a single static form for non-digital applications. To achieve this and at the same time meet the demands of contemporary consumers a new type of brand-handling language is required, one that doesn’t refer to primary brand marks as logos.

As I written before, logos aren’t dead but it has become necessary to understand that logos alone aren’t enough to capture the meaning and purpose of brands.

A.

Neither is the opportunity to use a variety of media a new thing. It’s what we’ve always done. 10 years have passed since I pitched the idea of doing a girl band instead of a logo to a triple play operator.

What is true is that people are surrounded by a lot of shit products and services with painful names, most of them desperate to appear relevant by using ivory tower attempts to get people inspired (inspired!) and contributing to their ‘story’.

Be honest, what businesses and organizations need is morality and accountability.

A brand is an evolving story not an unchanging visual stamp.  
A logo can help to identify a brand, but in a fast-moving world it is just one of many elements a brand needs if it’s to connect and interact with people.
We’re much more interested in the many different ways a brand inspires people to think about – and contribute to – its story.
This could be anything from a colour to a sound, gesture, image, material or phrase. 
Think about Apple’s pinch or swipe.
Think about Intel’s sonic mnemonic.
Think about the brown delivery vehicles of UPS.
The way a brand’s different elements combine over time is what really brings it to life.
Logos only die when they are part of a fixed system that can’t respond to a changing world. 
The huge opportunity for designers is to create and express a great brand story using the array of media now available to us, from film to social media, music, environments, graphics and so on. 
Businesses need living identities, not dead logos.

This is a subject close to our hearts, we’ve just written a paper about it — Living Identity

I hit a point in my work where I really needed to print some stuff out. No printout, no further progress. Maybe I could find an internet cafe or one of those dodgy IT malls, I thought to myself. Then I remembered that near where I was staying I’d spotted the friendly purple and orange FedEx logo across the street… one of the brands listed in this article as being “in the past”.

So, flashdrive in pocket I scurried back to the spot, and sure enough they had all the services you’d expect in a Kinkos.

They only made $5 out of me that day… but I wonder how many $5 sales they’ve made, or how many coffees (Starbucks), burgers (McDonalds) or icy drinks (Coke) have been sold because we recognise the logo just when we need to.

The symbol might be unnecessary, but it’d be a brave business that set their name in black Arial-Regular.

A.