The, Uh, Stuff Designs Are Made Of
Talking through that new Warner Bros. Discovery logo…
When I first caught a glimpse of this logo on Twitter, I was sure it was a parody of whatever the company actually announced. Nope. Real deal. A few days later, it’s no less amazing.
It’s sort of Superman: The Movie meets the old school WB logo. And perhaps that’s exactly what they were going for given that Superman was also a Warner movie. Unfortunately, while the ‘WB’ mark has nostalgic charm, this truly does look like it was made by someone playing around with a cheap piece of design software for the first time.¹ Is ‘Discovery’ even centered? It’s hard to tell because of the strange curve of the whole thing…
Also, the ‘Warner Bros.’ abbreviation of ‘Warner Brothers’ has always been a bit awkward. But again, we dealt with it previously because of history. Now, to call it out so explicitly here, it lands like a joke with no punchline. Warner Bros Icing Bros, perhaps?
And the ‘Bros’ maintains the period, presumably to let us all know this isn’t about a bunch of young bucks at Warner, but a bunch of brothers — none of whom most people will remember besides perhaps Jack Warner. And also Warner wasn’t their real last name.
The glowing/halo around the whole thing is the real cherry on top. It makes it look as if this logo is dead — as it should be, as soon as possible — and is returning to Earth in angelic form. But also in pure tacky gold form, in a way that only Donald Trump could love post-1980s.
Perhaps they could have taken some of the thick from those gold bricks to give a little more weight to the slogan? Or maybe the clouds could have been arranged a bit better so as not to make the phrase less legible? Presumably that’s already why the cloudy blue sky is so dark? Did Zack Snyder direct this? (All of that is the least of the slogan’s issues though, more on that in a bit…)
I realize that in these types of deals that everyone wants to get and maintain credit, which is why random words and names are often crammed together.² They’ll say it’s to maintain the recognition and loyalty each brand has built over the years, but honestly, does any consumer think about ‘Discovery’? They may think of ‘The Food Network’ or maybe even ‘Discovery Channel’ or some of the other individual brands, but ‘Discovery’ is just a word, and an extremely generic one at that.
But actually, ‘Discovery’ is far better branding than ‘Warner Bros.’ for the reasons mentioned above.³ It’s cleaner. It gives a sense of wonder. But it’s fucking awful tacked on to the end of another word. It makes the other brand look lost, aimless. It should have just been ‘Discovery’ —especially since that company’s CEO is the one running the whole thing now anyway. And ‘Warner Bros.’ could have just been the name of the movie studio under Discovery, maintaining that continuity and history. Especially since Warner Bros. had already morphed into ‘WarnerMedia’ under AT&T.
On the other hand, I guess we should be glad they didn’t call this whole thing ‘HBO Max Plus’, to further leverage and cheapen that once great brand. But don’t be shocked if the actual streaming service eventually bundled by Warner Bros. Discovery — again, a fucking period in the middle of the company name — is something exactly like that. HBO Max plus Discovery+ equals…
Hey, could be even worse yet. Could be ‘WarBroDisco’. Actually, that’s really catchy. That’s a great band name. Ship it.
“The stuff dreams are made of” is a great quote from a great movie.⁴ It is not a great slogan as “stuff” cheapens anything being put out by said brand. It’s better than “junk” but only slightly. It’s also just a stand-alone phrase here and looks decidedly naked without an ellipsis... Or even better: borrow the fucking period from the Bros!
Also, is it more likely that people will remember the quote from a film that is 80 years old, or a popular song that is a mere 34 years old? Did Carly Simon sign off on this? What about Shakespeare?!⁵
Also, if we want to be pedantic, which we do here, the actual quote as uttered by Humphrey Bogart is: “The, uh, stuff that dreams are made of.”
I love it. ‘Warner Bros. Discovery: The, uh, stuff that dreams are made of.’
To which Sergeant Tom Polhaus would reply: “Huh?”
Exactly.
¹ For other great logo branding critiques, might I suggest… Burger King v. GM. Or: Amazon’s mustache problem (since fixed).
² Lest we forget TimeWarner or AOL TimeWarner — under which ‘Warner Bros. Pictures’ operated — redundant Warners! This could have been AOL TimeWarner Bros. Media Discovery in true Microsoft fashion!
³ Also, Discovery’s slogan: “Explore your world” is actually a good one. It’s memorable! I remember it!
⁴ It is unique to the movie, and not in the book on which the movie is based.
⁵ Perhaps people will better remember the origins from a play which is some 400 years old…
