When Government branding goes wrong...

The UK Office of Government Commerce is:

Responsible for improving value for money by driving up standards and capability in procurement

Now, let's see, how would you improve value for money? I know! An expensive branding exercise. That'll do it.

So FHD, the prestigious London branding agency, has been brought in to devise, among other things, a new logo. And here, courtesy of The Register, it is:

When it was presented to OGC staff it didn't take long for them to look at the new brand logo (emblazoned on mouse mats and so forth) from all angles:

Apparently they are pressing ahead with it anyway. A spokesman for the OGC said (I kid you not) this:

We concluded that the effect was generic to the particular combination of the letters 'OGC' - and is not inappropriate to an organisation that's looking to have a firm grip on government spend.

Comments

[Patrick Skarpetka]

that is hilarious!!! I love the tongue in cheek comment from the spokesman!!!

[GS London]

Beyond daft. Unbelievably we're paying for these dopes.

[hg]

i dont get it...whats the problem?

[JJ]

I don't get it.

[pete speer]

And their motto must be

"A Penetrating Approach to All Commercial Affairs"

what's wrong with it? you mean besides that it looks like a man masturbating?

[Pedro Rodriguez]

i didn't get it at first and it wasn't until i figured it was something perverted that i saw it. its interesting that they are going to keep it!

[J.P. Lanham]

Is it representative of the work performed by the agency?

[Mack]

Excuse my virgin mind as well, but I'm not totally sure what the issue is.

[Matthew]

It looks like a fella "enjoying" himself... excellent.

[rudy]

No darlings, and you will continue not getting "it".

[Thom Cate, M.S., Mon.F.]

Is it just me, or does this not "smell" right? Sure it's clever, but is it real? Has this article been posted anywhere else? Has anyone seen this logo actually applied?

[JG]

For those of you who don't get it, look at it as though you are looking at a stick figure...

[Adrian]

I'm curious as to why people could see the stick man when he stood up, but not when he was lying on his side. Now the stick man has manifested himself, it is difficult to see the letters!

[Tank]

Well, they don't use it on their website.
http://www.ogc.gov.uk/

[Dave Smith]

Why has he got bandy legs?

[BS]

Logo? More like a mascot!

[Justin]

He's flogging the bishop...

It pleases me to no end that somebody green-lighted this.

[Frank S]

Bowed legs? Cowboy. Selfpleasuring cowboy? Dubya.

[MissChief]

Hilarious!
Sadly they don't seem to be using the new logo on their website yet...(www.ogc.gov.uk)

[Petronious Duckett]

Aah! A graphic representation of a certain photograph of Blair when he was a student as some readers might recall. At least this logo is honest and it reveals just what the establishment thinks of the general population. I note that some people on this list have no problem being referred to in this way. I do not share their view.

[Uncivil Serpent]

It makes me wonder what those geniuses at FHD were thinking when they put their heads together to designed this...

- What image / logo will speak volumes about how the Civil Service are viewed by stakeholders and the public at large?

- How can we PR gurus come up with something that answers this little question?

Interestingly the OGC’s website hasn’t adopted this logo (as yet), and FHD’s flash(y) website only mentions that OGC are on their client list.

[Joey]

Hah! A firm grip indeed...

[Lucinda]

I got 'it' immediately, when it was sideways... Slightly worrying that I have such a dirty mind, but more to the point I can't be the only one - it shouldn't be approved!

[Hamish]

presumably staffed by a bunch of Bankers or did I misspell that one

[Fuzz]

What a bunch of DICKs. Haha. :D

[Kirsty]

First the risqué-when-you-squint 2012 logo and now this. Part of me thinks it's quite endearing that Govt and their agencies are't spotting anything amiss, it makes them seem all sweet and innocent in a world obsessed by sex. Just leave it to the rest of us to spot the smutty angle.

[Faceless Bureaucrat]

I know this organisation well - they got rid of their dedicated civil service press officers and replaced them with ex-BBC 'consultants' on vastly increased salaries. The reason, so they said, was that the civil servants needed to be replaced with consultants with a "higher skill set". If this is an example of their skills, bring back the civil servants - and quick!

PS: It hasn't taken long for the animation experts to get to work - http://www.hein.org.uk/ogclogo.gif

[Tom Herman]

It's not even original checked out OGO's brand which has been around for years:

http://www.ogolife.com/

[Rik Barwick]

Nice, took me a while to get but after a while it started moving, check link!!

[Graham]

Interesting observation by Tom Herman on the similarity to the OGO logo. So how much did the consultants charge for this piece of design plagiarism? What has their little piece of snipping (just a minor operation, after all) cost the taxpayer? I think we should be told.

[Chris K]

Excellent logo. It sums up the average senior management executive nicely.

I wonder if the designer was having a little joke at his client's expense...

[Smartini]

Interestingly, looking at the OGC site's current logo having seen the above, it now looks rather like a man 'making a milkshake'. In fact, those three letters are now emblazoned in my mind and will forever mean 'Oh. God. Coming!'

[Wednesday]

You're all a bunch of OGC

[Kevin Li]

I love GTA

[anon]

A colleague visited their offices yesterday and can confirm the new logo is on banners, mousemats and corporate screensaver.
Best of all the logo is on pens which are used in the vertical "stickman" making it hard to see the letters.
The effect when you see people writing with them is as disturbing as the animations that are appearing online!

[Paul of Lincoln]

What a wunch of bankers.

[Phil]

Another government cockup!

[Helen]

there hasn't been this big a cock-up since the elephant rolled over.

oh dear. i hope there aren't any more gov't departments looking for logos....

[Douglas]

Haven't enjoyed one this much since City University of Newcastle upon Tyne re-branded its acronym !!

[Tomoyo]

Lighten up or GTFO.
Everything looks like someone masturbating if you look at it closely enough.
That joke from the spokesman was win.

[MJ]

LOL It took me a good 5 minutes to figure out what it was. I couldn't see it even once I read what people said it was... I must be really naive? Or maybe its not that obvious/bad.

[matt]

"We concluded that the effect was generic to the particular combination of the letters 'OGC'"

Well, uh, yeah...does one really need to "conclude" that? 'When we saw that the logo resembled a guy whacking off,we looked at it and determined that it resembled a guy whacking off.' Brilliant. Hopefully they hired a highly-paid consultant to tell them that. One can't trust these matters to just anybody.

[Dan Robinson]

"not inappropriate to an organisation that's looking to have a firm grip on government spend"

Well I always thought they were a bunch of.... ahem. It seems their spokesman agrees.

[Mike]

Apparently, working at the OGC is a "hands-on" job....

[Jim]

Looks like this is a "stand up guy" to me...actually a "hands on" approach. But truthfully, it is the "Union Jack" in motion.

[Marjolein Katsma]

Well, well - someone pointed out this site to me:

https://www.ogc.gov.bc.ca/

Look familiar?

[Gareth]

An how much has this cost US taxpayers?

[Jon Dawkins]

It doesn't appear to be on their website yet...

[Rick Parkin]

THE SPOKESMAN HAS RESIGNED HIMSELF TO THE FACT THAT THE ACRONYM OGC HAS A GENERIC DESIGN PROBLEM. THERE'S A SIMPLE SOLUTION - use lower case letters: ogc.
It can still be highjacked by a smutty enough mind, but it's a hell of a lot less obvious. My fee: £50k, which I believe is about half the 'value for money' amount the taxpayer had to stump up for the existing load of w*nk.

[Alex Penn]

Not as bad as the proposed Olympics 'goatsee' image!

[Godders]

Reminds me of one of my sandwich degree work positions in the 70's. I was at the Admiralty & Marine Technological Establishment (AMTE), next to NPL in Teddington.

They decided to rename the organisation as it's role had changed, to be the Admiralty Research Scientific Establishment > A-R-S-E.

Only when the stationery went to be printed up did they realise and made it Admiralty Research Laboratory (ARL) instead!

[Paul B]

>An how much has this cost US taxpayers?

Dear Gareth, you can rest assured that it has cost the US taxpayers absolutely nothing... It's for the UK Government!

This is superb! I'm a designer too and it has long been my ambition to "slip one in" under the nose of one of my more irritating clients. Let's hope it's the poncy overpaid strategist that gets it in the neck and not the poor designer who was probably given the job at 5pm and told to have it finished by 6.

[ihavequestions]

The little fella is bowlegged from his exertions.

[Bana]

Just been on the ogc website and sadly they havnt updated it but i did notice for all you creative minds that it still looks like its "pulling the chain" just more abstract with the letters OGC it doesnt matter how many times you try to come up with a typographic solution it will always look like that and y not! i personally think it looks like there sticking the middle finger up at as which is basically wat the government do anyway!