Taxi design, redux

A previous post in this blog discussed the new logo gracing the sides of taxis all over New York City. Well, The New York Times has been moderating a very smart discussion about the merits and weaknesses of the logo in its City Room blog. And in the spirit of "if you don't like it, why don't you do it?" they've asked for alternative ideas from design professionals and readers.

Michael Bierut of Pentagram says, "that attempt to combine the NYC logo which is being used elsewhere with T in a circle (why?) and that (again) bluntly rounded off and oddly-spaced A-X-I just seems a little ham handed. Maybe it looked good on paper, but I don’t find it convincing on the side of a cab."

A graphics editor at The Times, Jonathan Corum, goes for the practical and suggests highlighting “the most important piece of information: the medallion number. Encouraging riders to remember (or at least notice) the number of their cab is a simple and cheap public safety measure, and would likely speed the return of lost property.”

For Oscar Bjarnson of Systm, X marks the spot. He borrows iconography from a treasure map for some of the typography. "I’d go with something simple. Maybe a typographic solution with some hint of the new NYC logo embedded."

Readers are weighing in, too. Scott Schwebel asks: What would the t-shirt look like? Well, it gets the Lady Liberty treatment. "New York City represents to the world all that is America and the dream of a better life...Why not try and have that message reinforced everyday on the street with one of our highest profile city experiences/icons?” says Schwebel. The huddled masses yearning to, er, move crosstown.

And Michael Condouris turns the checker pattern into a piece of type. “Make it easy to read, incorporate the checker pattern into the X for a little designiness, and you’ve got something fun, obvious and clear.”

And the partially anonymous reader Amanda P. succinctly incorporates into the logo the action of hailing a cab. Hmm. Perhaps NYC's Taxi & Limousine Commission should have held a contest for the new logo. Smart Design, which pro bono spearheaded the effort behind the current design, could have set up the parameters and shared some of their insight with potential contestants. And a contest might have even eliminated some of the suggested "tweaks" that probably came from the the Commission.

Moving violation?

You might have seen this on the side of taxis driving around the city: a new logo. While the pattern on the side of the trunk is a nice nod to checkered cabs of the past, you have to wonder what's going on with that type. (What's a t-axi? What's with the superbold heavy treatment on the NYC?) Admittedly, what used to be on the doors was a mishmash of stencils and decals. But you can't help but wonder if a really, really great opportunity was squandered. Just imagine the t-shirt sales. Even the old logo for the TV show Taxi had some style.

Designing with multiple partners is never easy. Like they say, a camel is a horse designed by committee. The boldfaced NYC logo comes from Wolff Olins, the firm that also designed the symbol for London's 2012 Olympic games. Smart Design led a team that included Antenna Design and Birsel + Seck to create the decals for the Taxi & Limousine Commission. To be fair, the project also included some changes inside the cab. Still one can't help but wonder what the logo would have looked like if Pentagram or Milton Glaser had gotten their hands on it. Unbeige weighs in with some criticism here.

And if you recently noticed some flowers on the tops of taxis, they're part of a projects called "Gardens in Transit" which runs through December. Kids from schools, youth programs and hospitals painted the stained-glass looking flowers on decals as a creative and/or therapeutic outlet.