Posted By:
Tate Linden
In what appears to be becoming something of a trend, another brand has decided not to attempt rotating their logo 90 degrees during the creative process. I mean… really… because what could go wrong?
In the case of Boss Orange (a Hugo Boss collection) it might not be that bad for the brand since they’re pretty much trying to sell people on the idea that by wearing Hugo Boss they’ll be totally sexified. Or risque. Or something else edgy… And here’s how they try to get the job done:
Not half bad, is it? It was strong enough (along with whatever money was involved) to attract Orlando Bloom as a spokesperson. The logo uses three relatively abstract orange shapes. Look closely and you’ll find that the two on the left side are comprised of the counters from within the capital letter B, and the right side is similarly from a capital O. The bowls for each letter have been conjoined to provide a clean three-part single-color image without needing to show spaces between the letters. If the intervening space had been kept it’d have created an awkward orange mass in the middle of the logo.
It might’ve looked something like this:
Not cool anymore, is it? So… They just got rid of the kerning problem entirely. Smart thinkin!
But…
When the logo is rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise it turns into this:
Hm. Distinctly male. Scantily clad. A bit of a belly. A disturbingly elongated banana hammock.
Nifty.
Unless you’re an orange-skinned man who needs to be taken seriously.
It’s no secret that people think current Speaker of the House John Boehner may have somehow had his Photoshop saturation and hue levels tweaked in real life. And though Hugo Boss (a German organization) can’t be expected to know everything about the goings on in America, the orange-skinned man is pretty famous around the globe at this point. But the fact that he’s a German American makes me wonder if there’s intent behind all this. As if somehow this orange-skinned male boss of international prominence could end up having his next career as an underwear model.
Damn. That’s an image that, once pictured in the minds eye, cannot be un-seen. I think maybe we should leave the crunches to Rep. Aaron Schock.
We had Obama’s big O and that was seen as amazingly effective. Could we be witnessing the intentional or unintentional birth of the next political megabrand? Has it been long enough since Boss Hawg lorded his fictional political identity over Bo and Luke that a man affectionately (or not so affectionately) called Boss Orange could lead our country to greatness?
I’m guessing that Hugo spends a helluva lot on branding, so if the rules of capitalism apply that must mean the design is awesome. Boehner’s next campaign poster and slogan is in the bag.
Which may or may not be filled with bananas and avocados.
Honestly? If I were the Democrats I’d look into this. Few things are as powerful as branding your opposition as shallow. This brand – not owned by Boehner at all – does that almost instantly.
I’m not sayin’, but I’m just sayin’.
