New: PricewaterhouseCoopers
Launched: July 1, 1998
Formerly: Price Waterhouse, and Coopers & Lybrand
Story in brief:
Further consolidation in accounting, for better or worse.
Old logo:
Credits:
C.E.O. - James J. Schiro
Identity counsel, naming, design - Interbrand's Newell & Sorrell
First Impressions:
ToolongbyFar and clearly, not well considered. The launch pr said “Our external advisors confirmed our belief that it was critically important to preserve the substantial equity and value associated with the names Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand” which sounds a lot like “We heard what we wanted to hear.”
Roger vandenBergh clipped this, from the Economist (July 18, '98): “PricewaterhouseCoopers (which seems, confusingly, to call itself PCw for short) is the longest recent example of …corporate breathlessness. Mr. Lybrand, one feels, is well out of it.” One suspects Mr. Coopers won't last long either, communicatively speaking.
And what is a designer to do with a name like this? Interbrand found its solution in the playfulness of 18th century typography, and threw in a dated monogram for good measure.
I will miss the beauty, simplicity, stature and progressiveness of Gene Grossman's Price Waterhouse logo.
Seven years later:
From Ireland, Antoine O Lachtnain notes that Mr. Coopers is still there and thinks “the identity has weathered in pretty well. Although maybe it could do with being simplified.” It is “a big joke at the expense of corporate mergers in general and PwC in particular,” funny especially because “it's companies like PwC who go around making P/E calculations used to convince shareholders that these big mergers are a good idea.”
Source:
