As construction continues on the World Trade Center site, a new logo for the entire World Trade Center complex was unveiled last week. It is a new and modern logo that was created in efforts to unite the entire World Trade Center complex under one umbrella. This new World Trade Center logo will be showcased on all of the building entrances, website apps and marketing materials as well as on kiosks throughout the area and staff uniforms.
Created by Landor Associates, this $3.57 million dollar branding project was particularly challenging for obvious reasons. The design team of Landor Associates was faced with an incredibly difficult task as it struggled to create an outstanding trademark for the site that paid respect to the area tragic past while also representing hope, promise and the future.
The result is a modern and simplistic logo that cleverly uses negative space as it tries to convey so much at once to the viewer. Each of the five black bars in the logo is meant to represent the new five towers of the World Trade Center. The two white spaces in the top half of the logo represent the Tribute in Light, a memorial to the fallen twin towers. The two white column white spaces on the bottom of the logo represent the twin pools of the National September 11th Memorial. Hidden in the logo design is also a trident that is meant to symbolize one of the massive steel tridents that were left standing after the Twin Towers fell. The top of the logo is cut at a slant with a 17.76-degree angle, which is the exact height of the World Trade Center (1,776-feet). The whole logo is also supposed to be a ‘W’, which is to represent both the World Trade Center and the Westfield World Trade Center (the luxury shopping center that is expected to open at the site next year). Wow! It’s seems amazing to me that they were to fit in so much meaning and so many tributes into one relatively simple design. The words “World Trade Center” seem alongside the logo are set in the Helvetica Ultra Compressed typeface.
Personally, I actually really like the simplicity of the logo itself and the design. It is sharp and creative but I do also think that they tried too hard to cram too much meaning into one design. Most of these deeper meanings will be lost on most people however, in terms of creating a lasting, timeless and memorable logo design, I think that Landor Associates did a fairly good job. It is a very respectful and symbolic logo design that is also urban, classy, distinct and versatile. These are all attributes traditionally associated with a great and long-lasting logo design.
Do you agree?