Why does AT&T still use orange in its branding?

MissUtilis · 2015-02-05 09:23:44

It's been so long since the Cingular brand was retired that I doubt anyone remembers where the orange came from. Not to mention I don't think it really fits AT&T somehow.

Tre · 2015-02-05 10:58:15

It contrasts fairly well with their blue, and the better part of their aesthetic was taken from Cingular's look over the original AT&T's so it's presumably an artifact kept because of that.

-shrug-

Obā-san · 2015-02-05 22:06:41

Tre said:
It contrasts fairly well with their blue

MissUtilis · 2015-02-05 22:17:39

I never thought they paired very well...

MissUtilis · 2015-02-05 22:18:01

That and it's just creepy. Like a trophy nobody really "gets" anymore.

Obā-san · 2015-02-05 22:18:50

How so?

MissUtilis · 2015-02-05 22:22:16

how so what?

Obā-san · 2015-02-05 22:23:40

how's it creepy?

MissUtilis · 2015-02-05 22:26:12

Because Cingular is dead and a big part of its branding is still being paraded around as if people still know where it came from

MissUtilis · 2015-02-05 22:26:27

It would be like if Warner Bros. Animation paraded the Swirling Star around

MissUtilis · 2015-02-05 22:27:06

(of course that thing was a good deal more long-lived than Cingular's "Jack" and is still associated with H-B today...)

Obā-san · 2015-02-05 22:28:06

it's just been repurposed, i highly doubt that they're doing it because they care whether people know whatever Cingular is

MissUtilis · 2015-02-05 22:32:41

Back when they started using it in the late 2000s it was meant to signify "we're Cingular now!" (AT&T, or rather SBC, was one of the original partners in the company, and would later gain full control of it when it bought BellSouth, the other partner)

But now on the scarce occasions when I remember where AT&T's orange came from I get really weirded out

It might not help that orange and blue don't seem like "AT&T" colors to me as much as just the blue, and orange and blue has other associations for me - Florida, the Denver Broncos (whose particular shades of orange and blue clash terribly and need to be changed)...

Sredni Vashtar · 2015-02-05 22:35:30

Yeah, it's a complementary colour. They use it to emphasise the blue in the same way that setting green against red will bring out one or the other. It's eye-catching.

This is gonna sound harsh, but I thought you were studying graphic design. I thought you would see the colour theory aspect here even if you thought it looked tacky or weird.

MissUtilis · 2015-02-05 22:37:21

Maybe something overrides the color theory aspect here. Like, in addition to the Zombie Cingular aspect, pairing orange with their traditional blue smacks of AT&T trying too hard to be "friendly"...

Corvina · 2015-02-05 22:39:06

Well, SBC and BellSouth were both borne out of the Ma Bell breakup

MissUtilis · 2015-02-05 22:39:45

Though I can understand AT&T using orange too

Blue is such a traditionally "corporate" color and orange is not

Sredni Vashtar · 2015-02-05 22:40:42

The Cingular thing is not something that most people are going to care about, and a "friendly" colour scheme and logo is generally something you want in a company that's trying to sell a domestic product to a lot of people. It makes perfect sense.

MissUtilis · 2015-02-05 22:43:33

I know why a corporation would want to appear friendly, it just doesn't jibe with my perception of AT&T as a not-very-nice monolith

But I don't know if anyone DOES see AT&T as friendly

Sredni Vashtar · 2015-02-05 22:45:55

That's not the point of a logo.

I'm sort of puzzled why you're asking this question when you know the answer. I mean, you don't like the logo design. That is a valid opinion right there. But I don't get why you're asking.

MissUtilis · 2015-02-05 22:47:43

Not the logo, the color scheme they are using!

eriophora zia · 2015-02-05 22:48:26

Logos don't represent what a company actually is behind the curtain. Logos represent the company as it *wants* to appear. AT&T does not want to encourage people to think of it as being nasty, so they work on cultivating an image, through their logo and other means, that makes them seem nicer.

MissUtilis · 2015-02-05 22:48:39

But I don't like their logo either. It is a pointless "modernization" of a logo that didn't need it.

MissUtilis · 2015-02-05 22:50:53

eriophora zia said:
Logos don't represent what a company actually is behind the curtain. Logos represent the company as it *wants* to appear. AT&T does not want to encourage people to think of it as being nasty, so they work on cultivating an image, through their logo and other means, that makes them seem nicer.

True...it just seems especially disingenuous with them though

I'm being dumb

Corvina · 2015-02-05 22:51:26

The last time AT&T had a good logo was when it was a monolith, before it decided the Death Star was a cool idea

MissUtilis · 2015-02-05 22:59:37

The Swirling Star was, in my mind, not one of Saul Bass's better ideas either. It was designed to look good in motion (it is the only logo Hanna-Barbera ever had that didn't smack of, as Fred Seibert puts it, "making the damn thing move"...the early '90s Corey McPherson Nash logo scheme was brought to life in interesting ways though), but not so much as a still image. That and I associate it with a low point for the studio.

Tre · 2015-02-05 23:15:11

Miss Utilis said:
But I don't like their logo either. It is a pointless "modernization" of a logo that didn't need it.

Ehhhhhh... I don't know about that one.

Most of Saul Bass's work was pretty timeless (believe me, I'm still mad about what happened to the United logo), but the old version of the AT&T logo was getting a bit long in the tooth. It evoked the "corporation" image pretty hard (people likened it to the Death Star, for heaven's sake); the newer one does too, of course, but it does so in a way that isn't immediately apprehensive.

If nothing else, the new one does a better job of making it look desirable. I criticized the decision to drop the wordmark from heavy usage at first, but I've found that doing so has made the overall branding a little cleaner even though the logo isn't entirely strong enough to justify the move.

MissUtilis · 2015-02-05 23:18:07

I guess I was just frustrated at how AT&T seemed to love tinkering with the thing

Princess Alice · 2015-02-05 23:19:43

The best AT&T logo was the pre-breakup one:

Obā-san · 2015-02-05 23:20:32

this one is so much better than all the other ones what the fuck

MissUtilis · 2015-02-05 23:23:08

AT&T dropped it because they had to let the Baby Bells use it. They kept on doing so all the way up until SBC/Ma Bell started reconstituting herself...

There are still manhole covers around the area bearing the logo; this one in Boulder has it (this picture was taken on September 2, 2012; it also bears the name of US West, which was absorbed into Qwest in 2000, which was acquired by CenturyLink in 2011)

Tre · 2015-02-05 23:23:24

I'd bring the bell back if I could. Having an embossed one like how the current logo is put on the Moto X would ease the pain of having them as its carrier just a bit.

A bit.

The embossed new one is still pretty rad-looking, though:

Corvina · 2015-02-05 23:25:46

Central Avenue said:
The best AT&T logo was the pre-breakup one:

Like I said....

Tre · 2015-02-05 23:29:56

One thing that I am pretty impressed with as far as their recent branding goes, though: the jingle. It's only been around for a little while but it's already become linked to them as much as T-Mobile's audio logo has in the 20-ish years that brand's been around in America.

I'll be honest, audio logos/jingles in general are just fascinating things because they combine two of my favorite things: music and branding!

MissUtilis · 2015-02-05 23:32:39

20-ish? T-Mobile came to America in 2002...

Audio logos are great though

MissUtilis · 2015-02-05 23:32:55

(T-Mobile's American predecessor was VoiceStream Wireless)

Tre · 2015-02-05 23:38:16

I originally said 15-ish, but the Wikipedia article had its founding date as 1994 (VoiceStream's initial date of establishment) so I edited it to reflect that.

Should have gone with my gut, tbh. :P

Section42L · 2015-02-05 23:41:53

Central Avenue said:
The best AT&T logo was the pre-breakup one:

I'll admit that I always loved the Bell logo.

On a related note, I still feel that reverting to the Bell System (a quasi-public service that still enjoyed the organizational freedom of a private sector company) would be the ideal solution to the U.S.'s telecommunications problems.

glennmagusharvey · 2015-02-06 00:33:19

> T-Mobile

T-Mobile just seems to splash hot pink everywhere and that alone is distinctive enough for them.

MissUtilis · 2015-02-06 00:35:52

Fuschia. Fuschia is not often used as a color in branding...when divorced of its feminine connotations, it is a color with a lot of punch.

glennmagusharvey · 2015-02-06 00:36:18

I like it.

Edit: Okay, it's more like, I don't particularly care either way, but I am satisfied with the service the company has given me.

Sredni Vashtar · 2015-02-06 00:58:44

Fuchsia is a lovely colour.

Tre · 2015-02-07 23:56:18

T-Mo says that it's magenta, actually.

/facetioustre

glennmagusharvey · 2015-02-08 00:25:41

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/02/10/court-says-t-mobile-owns-the-color-magenta/

this is some bullshit

i encourage everyone to use magenta and related colors (e.g. purple, fuschia, hot pink, "pantone 676c", etc. just to fuck this decision over

glennmagusharvey · 2015-02-08 00:25:54

COLOR THE WORLD IN PINK, AS REVENGE

glennmagusharvey · 2015-02-08 00:26:12

ALSO COLOR THE WORLD IN VIVID TANGERINE TO PREVENT AT&T FROM FEELING GOOD ABOUT THIS

glennmagusharvey · 2015-02-08 00:26:21

RAINBOWS OF REVENGE

glennmagusharvey · 2015-02-08 00:26:29

lololololololololololololololololololol

Why does AT&T still use orange in its branding?

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