Designing Symbols. The logos of the spanish autonomous communities. (1977 – 1991)
Designing Symbols. The logos of the spanish autonomous communities. (1977 – 1991) by Javier Gimeno Martinez This is a critical debate by Sulaimon James Autonomous /adjective/ (of a country or region) having the freedom to govern itself of control its own affairs. (in Kantian moral philosophy) acting with one's moral duty than one's desires. With the meaning of autonomous in mind the introduction of the text begins with “The major Spanish devolution process of 1979-87 generated 17 new governments, who opted to create their own identity signs in order to manifest their presence among their voters. Apart from the national symbols (flag, costumes, folk-dances, national anthem and coat of arms) This is imporant because as Milton Glaser stated; “The logo is the point of entry to the brand” as a graphic designer who knows a lot about logos, without a logo and a strong brand you will quickly loose your identity in the face of the community, people won't know how to identify you. So it's right for the Spanish autonomous government to “feel the need for logos to represent themselves as institutions” Without logos or even a strong branding we wont be able to differentiate between brands for example Nike and adidas, although their branding may be strong enough but people pay a lot for just the logo because it serves as an assurance that what you are buying into is truly from the company and not a fake. Spanish logos were quite “ostentatious”, filled with heritage and but the 17 Autonomous Communities did no look old as it was a rebrand of spain which resulted in more design-led outcomes. Spain had to rebrand it's Image by adapting “techniques used by corporations in marketing themselves and their products and services in order to help them project a new, or revised, or in some way modified view of themelves” Look at it this way, if your a musician and you made an album, after one or 2-3 years you are expected to create new music because your music or social standing can become stale and other new music can drown out yours in the pecking order. So musicians make new music and rebrand their image or create new artwork to help differentiate and package the project as a new embodiment. Nike for example creates new campaigns for new design releases, create new buzz and find new ways to engage an audience through sports, they find new ways to visually communicate the spirit of the brand. The designers then had a tough job of renewing the imagery of the previous logos of the autonomous Communities whilst maintaining the history behind the logo in order to allow some sort of relative progression but not confusing the public and making them think its an entirely new brand resurrected out of thin air. Looking at the history logo renovations by big corporations like Pepsi or Coca Cola for example they carry through certain aspect of the previous logo renditions for example the shape or the colour or even the symbol so there is no loss in translation and completely making people feel alienated in identifying with the brand. This can be a form “Banal nationalsim” but in a brand identity identity format. A rebrand usually has a “graphic language which intrinsically denotes modernity.” for example look at Itv or Channel 4's constant rebranding, these are sometimes necessary in order to refresh the image of the brand and avoid it become stale.
Question
1) Is it better for Spain to completely dismiss the old logos and completely create a new reality?
2) what would happen if the autonomous communities were not listened to by the government?







