Tennessee Red Square Logo, I’m sorry.

This morning I am guilty of a thing for which I tend to hold others in contempt — judging without understanding.

When it comes to design work, especially that which comes from a reputable agency known for doing great creative, people are quick to pass judgement. Especially those of us who also do design work and get paid for it. We all think we can do better when we see other people’s work. In fact, that’s part of what drives us. The desire to do the best work possible and come up with the best design solution for the task at hand.

After more than 15 years of being the business of designing things, I’ve learned that there are countless levers and switches that are pushed, pulled, turned and cranked while going through the process of coming up with ANY design solution. It can be intense work. And when it comes to logos, the level of intensity is compounded with every stakeholder, decision maker and number of eyeballs that will ultimately feast (or starve) on whatever end result emerges from the process.

The goal of this “new logo” effort, according to reports, was to “replace several logos and give the state a unified look.” No lack of practicality there. Simple end game — unification. Mission accomplished?

Maybe. Maybe not. But that’s beside the point.

More to the point, none of us who didn’t work on the project know what directives the creative brief (assuming there was one) laid forth for the design team. We don’t know the criteria against which all of the options were evaluated. We don’t know the process that was used to arrive at a decision. We don’t know what other options were considered. And, we don’t know who made the final decision. Or, more importantly, why they made it.

We do know that the state paid a modest sum of money to a certain agency to do the work. We know what the end result looks like. And we know it has been met with immediate ridicule upon its introduction.

Heraclitus, a pioneer of wisdom and insight, once mused,

“Dogs bark at what they don’t understand.”

I cite this epigram often. And today, I am reminded that even I can succumb to canine behavior when it comes to someone else’s design ideas. Realizing this, I took pause, reflected a bit and sought understanding, if only to make peace with my inner dog and get on about the business of dealing with my own problems instead of commiserating about someone else’s.

I came out on the other side with some perspective that I felt might be worth sharing.

Whatever the “reasons” for choosing the final logo, we can be fairly certain that, to the people making the decision, they were good reasons. And just because we as designers don’t understand how this could be the “best” option, doesn’t mean it isn’t.

The goal of any design effort is not to create something everyone “loves.” (Although that would be nice.) The goal is to create something that addresses a specific problem. If the result solves the problem AND is something everyone loves, bonus.

Consider the Google logo. We love it because we love Google. from a design standpoint, the logo itself is, by most standards…meh.

Lucky for them it was free. And chances are, if they were to do a redesign, all of us designers would be quick to judge their new logo, too. (Remember what happened when they made a one pixel adjustment to a couple of the letters?) But we’d still love Google, even if we didn’t love their new logo.

BBC, on the other hand, paid $1.8 Million for their logo. (cir. 1971) Three squares with the letters B, B, & C inside set in Gill Sans.

At $600,000/square, not exactly ground breaking design work. It is, however, functional, globally recognized and among the longest living on screen logos ever. (Imagine how the design world will react if/when they change it.) But they’ll still love BBC.

Love for the company trumps emotional reactions to a new logo. I think. But there’s a deeper lesson in all this. For me, at least.

The moral here for me is that when it comes to design work (my own or anyone else’s) the most destructive way to evaluate it is with my emotions and through the lens of all my personal biases about “what good design looks like.”

Constructive evaluation, on the other hand, begins by asking, “Does this solve the problem it was designed to solve?” A question one can only answer if they were given the problem in the first place. And if there is no answer, there is no grounds for judgement. Period.

Which is nice. Because next time I see what looks like “bad design” to me, I’ll know what to do next. Which won’t include saying bad things about it.

Unless of course it’s my own work and isn’t doing the job it is supposed to be doing.

Then I will curse it, trash it and ridicule it until it does.