With a roll of the eye I picked up this brochure while getting some last minute binding done at Officeworks. It seems inevitable I guess, that "Australia's largest retailer and direct supplier of quality office and technology products for home offices, students and small to medium size businesses" would move into the 'product as service' business. Dare I deny small businesses the privilege of an identity and logo – I partially side with Michael Bierut regarding the design of dog food packaging – but this sort of service strikes fear into the heart of all hard working designers everywhere. The industry has had to shift priorities a few times to keep up with society and in no way is this comparable to the invention moveable type, desktop publishing or the web, but it does signal a changing of priorities. I've come across a few businesses offering this sort of thing, but not to this scale. Even crowd sourcing has played a part in lowering the entry for design (this is a good thing). And the logos aren't bad either, well they're not awful – they're functional and they do the job. I just don't trust the scale of it. Officeworks shouldn't be getting involved in this sort of thing, stop diversifying and stick to products and retail.








I saw this too. Logofarm...why does this remind me of soylent green? Sigh...
Posted by: Karena (Magic Jelly) | July 21, 2008 at 12:14 PM