The Yale University Press has, this week, updated their identity. Gone is Paul Rand's quirky asymmetrical slab-serif roundel and in its place is a simple piece of type set in Matthew Carter's Yale Typeface.
This move has been seen by some designers as sacrilege, because one should never redesign one of Rand's designs. Indeed the replacement has none of the charm or quirkiness of the original but I can see the strategy behind the change.
Before, while they shared the name Yale, there was still some ambiguity as to whether they were indeed related, or to how related their content was.
In general I think consistency is a useful thing, but in this case it's a shame to lose Rand's design since he taught at Yale himself for 30 years. Strategic alignment is one thing but let's hope we don't lose our sense of history and individuality completely.
[Article on Yale Daily News site]
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