What is the most important pre-requisite for successful international trade? The charlatans of the so-called design industry – the vandals that brought you Bridon in place of British Ropes, TT Group for Thomas Tilling and dreamed up that fey creature that now defaces British Telecommunications Plc’s telephone boxes and public persona – have persuaded the corporate world that they alone have the key to unlock the Holy Grail, so the answer is a snazzy corporate image of course. So in keeping with its new identity as an autonomous public enterprise, France Telecom has announced that it has adopted a new logo, which it says more accurately represents the company’s business.
Essential
In an era of particularly rapid evolution in our sector and in the conditions of our trade, making our position, role and mission well known is essential, said Marcel Roulet, France Telecom president, in a statement. One of the key elements in this translates into the adoption of a new visual identity that is perfectly coherent with the new strategies of France Telecom. The new logo dispenses with the telephone receiver and keypad in favour of what resembles a semiconductor or solar panel on a satellite encased by a circle, which is designed to imply movement – France Telecom is clearly now ashamed of its origins as a boring old phone company. The new symbol precedes, rather than follows, the company name, both of which have been taken out of their respective boxes. The company also changed the type of letters used to print ‘France Telecom’ and eliminated the accent marks, to stress the international dimension – hope the company is summonsed before the dreaded Academie Franaise to justify that one. The logo’s colour, blue, remains unchanged. The studies we carried out showed an important deficiency in the existing logo, which represented only one of the activities of France Telecom: the telephone, the company said in a statement. As a result, the existing logo could no longer represent the entire group and increase the feeling of partnership among its different entities. Starting this month, the new logo will begin to appear in France Telecom branch offices, telephone booths, products, vehicles, bills and other commercial documents. In order to avoid customer confusion and give them time to get used to the new logo, bills will be the last element to acquire it, France Telecom said.
