I think all of this is a terrible visual design for a US state.
But, wow, I do think the logotype is beautiful. The slightly dropped leg on the "K" to make "OK" stand out is very clever. The way the base of the "L" aligns with the "A" is nice. I like the slight informality on the leaning-in stems on the "M". Someone put a lot of love into this.
It's too bad it looks like a gas station chain and not the gravitas and sense of place one wants for a US state, but it's pretty.
While I agree someone certainly put a lot into the thought on the logotype, and it is interesting, I like none of it. It all feels inconsistent with itself and very wrong to me. Feels like three different parts, OK, LAHO, MA. The K splits the word for me. The M just feels too wide, and then the massive space between the M and the A is jarring to me.
I do like the colors and options on the design though, its fun and interesting to me.
Definitely doesn't feel like a state though, maybe a bank.
This is one of the fundamental challenges with typography and one of the things I find most fascinating about it as an art. There is an eternal tension between making the characters similar to each other so that the typeface matches as a whole, while making them distinct enough to be easily read and to give the typeface its character.
People have different preferences here, but I personally like the balance they struck with this logotype.
At first I thought this was an Oklahoma tourism logo--which tend to be a little less "official" looking. But it doesn't seem like this is for the tourism board.
I knew a dev that did Canadian government web dev contracts. They have a very particular style. They sound like a nightmare, frankly. Very well specified though, not much ambiguity there.
The USFS has had defined color schemes for everything since at least the 40s. I cant find a reference offhand but I recall it goes back Pinchot around the turn of the century. They are very intentional about a consistent image and ensuring human elements fit in the local biome.
Part of it is the democratization of creation. It's a logo _anyone_ could have created. It looks like an olympics logo at certain sizes, and an abstraction of a cut jewel at others. What it doesn't do is make you think anything about Oklahoma, or education...
>It looks like an olympics logo at certain sizes, and an abstraction of a cut jewel at others.
I see at least three things: a flowery circle in five colors at very small sizes (Olympics logo?), a cut jewel (around a white star) at medium sizes, and the white star (surrounded by colored arrows) at very large sizes. It makes the logo quite confusing for me.
This is a really good meta point. There's a weird kind of cultural secularity with branding these days, largely because every company wants to appeal to everyone on earth, so they take these plain, fairly benign shapes and forms.
Though the logo is really quite nice, it's also fairly generic. It looks like a logo for a petrol company.
I think states can safely stick to old-timey fonts and images if they want.
It'd be nice to see some smart creative agencies take this issue on because I'll bet they've noticed the same.
You know which state had the best designs? Nazi Germany. And their uniforms were impeccable. Sad that they destroyed the peaceful notion of the original symbolism.
Then now we have Native American symbols stolen but the people murdered and forgotten. Strange world we live in.
this has nothing to do with the state flag though, as far as i can tell. it seems like a decent branding system... not exactly titillating but better than i've seen in most other states.
It's better than their flag for sure, but it's still not all that great and they really should fix their flag.
Tennessee and Texas are good examples of State Flags. When you drive through TN, the iconic three-star pattern is found on a lot of bridges and signs now (similar to the Chicago flag being seen everywhere around the city).
Washington, by contrast, is a terrible terrible flag (flags shouldn't have words or state seals on them; you need to be able to identify them from a distance).
This is an okay start, but it should have included a flag redesign with it that matches the new state branding.
I wish NZ had switched out their flag. They shouldn't have had the current flag in the vote at all. The fern leaf would have been amazing.
That being said, NZ has a recognizable flag (although it's too close to Australia's for sure) and it's not a bad one. By contrast Oklahoma's is really bad and I doubt there are many would would feel compelled to hang onto it if a new one was on the ballot in their next election.
Funny enough this design isn't actually a "flag". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Oklahoma It's just a logo. So imagine you're walking by a government building –and the flag in front of it and the logo on the wall are different.
I'm of two minds of this. On the one hand, I think it's a visually appealing logo. I like the look of it and I think their designers have done well.
On the other hand, it is pretty generic, and as a former Oklahoma resident, nothing about it really reminds me of the state. It's also very minimalist and modern, which is trendy now, but I wonder if it will still be appealing in the future, or just look dated.
I'm also not entirely sure of what the role of a state's brand identify/logo is. Just for their tourism website? They aren't changing the seal or flag, or anything that actually looks related to the state government.
>It's also very minimalist and modern, which is trendy now, but I wonder if it will still be appealing in the future, or just look dated.
Some of it is because of mobile. A lot of branding that looked good in print in 1970 doesn't work well when it's shrunk and displayed on a 5" screen.
But the current style is towards minimalist and abstract which, as you say, can very easily come across as generic. The designers probably had various symbolism, etc. in mind but, absent context, the average viewer probably has no idea.
I realize it doesn't come across this way to most people here, but to me the colors and arrangement of the "graphic elements" evoke Native American textiles. This seems appropriate for Oklahoma, although I must admit that I don't know that the textiles I'm thinking of are related to the particular tribes who inhabit Oklahoma.
I can see that. Although I admit I don't especially associate Oklahoma with Navajo and other Native American art to the degree I do New Mexico and Arizona in particular.
About the present logo: the designers might have gone with a redder color for the dirt segment. I know what you mean about there not being enough concrete associations with the state to firmly anchor a logo.
My province uses their brand in the same way any other corporate entity uses their logo - on their letterhead, signage, promotional materials, staff uniforms, and as a common element for all their various departments to share.
As much as it seems like a bit of a waste of money for a government to worry about their brand, it's an efficiency over having the parks department come up with one brand and the highways department come up with another. They can both slap the same logo on the side of their trucks.
I like it more than what we had in the past. I honestly expected a stereotype of an Indian on a horse or some crap like that. I am happy they actually picked something I can easily render in a vector format.
Dude its a government site hosted on a wordpress engine. What are you expecting? I am just happy its not all bitmaps asking for IE6. (My exceptions for my old home state are low)
I find it impossible to look at one of these expensive, third party design firm created rebrandings and not think of the famous "Pepsi Gravitational Field" document. It shall forever remain a seminal satirical work in this genre.
If you go to Amsterdam, you notice motifs from the flag of Amsterdam everywhere. They're everywhere because they're the sort of thing you can put everywhere.
If you go to Bremen, you notice the Stadtmusikanten everywhere. The flag looks like the logo of an oil company, so nobody uses it. The Stadtmusikanten are a little complex, but they're there and they're at least not lame.
You don't even have to go to Europe! What's Maryland's visual identity? The flag and a crab. You can't draw the flag from memory, but you know it when you see it, and it's not lame. It doesn't look like a gas station.
You could throw a dart at a book of coats of arms and land on something better than this Oklahoma design. It may not make sense for Oklahoma, but people would read sense into it over time, like they did with the flag of Amsterdam. Or they wouldn't. The Maryland flag has a complicated history, but there's no meaning that can be read off it without knowing that history.
What is a thing that instantly reminds you of Oklahoma, but isn't something negative like race riots, manmade earthquakes, teenage pregnancy, and domestic terrorism? Come to think of it the honest history of Oklahoma makes a hell of a flag.
Sure I guess that would be the perfect conclusion of the state's evolution, if you completely erased even the few remaining symbols of the native people and replaced them with that classic of white culture, the Farmer vs the Cowman.
Speaking of terrible. Those little yellow boxes in the middle of the screen of 99% invisible are VERY distracting. Yes, it's easy to find the previous/next article. I appreciate the effort. But I'm trying to read! And my eyes keep bouncing left and right trying to focus on the text, but these little yellow dots keep pulling them in opposite directions.
Interesting 99% article. A good guide for flag designers is to follow the rules of heraldic design: no 'metal' (gold/yellow or silver/white) on a metal or colour on a colour; don't get crazy with the charges (i.e. prefer one distinct, large shape over a bunch of small different ones) and so forth.
The rules which applied in the Middle Ages to help distinguish shields still apply to flags today, since both flags & shields are viewed at a distance, often in motion. And IMHO flags based on heraldric often look better than stuff just thrown together.
I love the New Mexico flag. We use it everywhere here. It's beautiful and carries great symbolism, yet it's so simple every toddler can draw it from memory.
It's also the only US state flag to contain neither the colors blue nor white.
I've always had a tremendous fondness for the flag, in part because of the cultural homage included by the Zia sun symbol, and as you mentioned: It's instantly recognizable, easy to replicate by hand, and has a stark beauty not unlike the deserts in this state.
For some time I thought the symbol on the NM flag was too small. Then I realized that the tiny size symbolized a few people huddled together in the vast empty desert, which is certainly appropriate.
That flag had always confused me because most flags with a crescent moon are from Islamic countries. Until I learned that it was the South Carolina flag, I always figured it was the flag of a country that had people frequently immigrating to the USA.
To be honest, I didn't know the history of the flag until after your post. It makes more sense how the elements where from revolutionary war regiments fighting for the south.
In stark contrast, for me, it's relaxing, like a memory of a warm summer night laying in a hammock.
But then I guess, that might make it a bad design.
I don't dislike the concept, but I also notice the weird jaggies and bumps on the "graphic elements". Conceptually that should be six straight lines, but that's not how it's rendered.
>To make sure it is visible and legible, the Oklahoma logo should never be used where the
symbol is smaller than 1/4-inch tall in print materials. On digital applications, the Oklahoma
logo should never be smaller than 36 px tall.
ok, i wonder what alternative version they might suggest for smaller sizes. (checks the favicon) oh, i see...
Reminds me of the submitted (but ultimately rejected) Chicago 2016 Olympics logo with the use of negative space surrounded by colors to reveal a shape inside.
It's ok, but I wonder what they spent on that... and how important it was to spend tax money on it. (And I wonder if someone got a sweetheart deal to do the work...)
Sorta doubt this. OK would be one of the worst possible locations for a Winter Olympics. The Omnibus just did a podcast on the time someone tried to create a ski resort there: https://www.omnibusproject.com/231 (Spoiler, it closed after 3 days.)
But, wow, I do think the logotype is beautiful. The slightly dropped leg on the "K" to make "OK" stand out is very clever. The way the base of the "L" aligns with the "A" is nice. I like the slight informality on the leaning-in stems on the "M". Someone put a lot of love into this.
It's too bad it looks like a gas station chain and not the gravitas and sense of place one wants for a US state, but it's pretty.