Hasta La Ideas

We came across this new mark (to the right) for the NY Philarmonic late last week. We were a little unsure about this one, but eventually it grew on us – so to speak.

This new mark coincided with the arrival of The New York Philharmonic’s new music director Alan Gilbert. Paula Scher and her team over at Pentagram were given the nod to come up with something new. Scher is no stranger to cultural institutional identities as she has designed identities for The Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, and most recently The Philadelphia Orchestra.

Our initial reaction to the new identity was, “what the hell were they thinking?” We don’t intend to blast the obvious design quirks of this mark. You can go to Brand New for all of that. Most importantly where we think this mark gets lost is that it fails as an identifier. A solid identity is memorable. This one may be, but for all of the wrong reasons. It’s a good attempt at trying something new, but it’s execution feels clumsy and over thought at the same time. Paula has done some impressive work over the years, but this one falls into the “solemn” category as described in the video below: