Flagging up a change of image for the EU

CAN you believe the proposed new look for the EU emblem? All those jazzy, jolly George Melly stripes; the eye-popping Pop Art treatment; the ‘my-kid-could-have-done-that’ simplicity of it all.

Me neither. But you know what I find hardest to credit of all? I can’t believe that a bureaucracy like the EU - with its reputation for pomposity, behind-closed-doors decisions-making, muddles and fuddles - could come up with something so good.

In short, I think it’s a very promising sign. It tells you something about the man who commissioned the work: President of the EU Romano Prodi. Other than having a surname that means this mild-mannered, devout Catholic would never have to put his hand in his pocket in any bar in Larkhall, you suspect that the former economics professor isn’t just a man with brains.

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Back home in Bologna, he’s nicknamed after a boring sausage. But, in instigating this review, he has shown himself to be a politician with real taste and a rare, sly sense of the undercurrents in European society now.

Forget for a moment whether or not you ‘like’ the stripey logo, and consider this. In commissioning the creative work, Prodi did two very smart things. First of all, he asked an EU resident to do the work. Obvious, you’d think. But, second and less obviously, he commissioned - not a graphic designer - but an architect: someone with experience in taking progressive values and making them concrete and enduring.

Now, you may not think that giving the job to the modernist Dutch master Rem Koolhaas was much of a masterstroke. Especially if you earn your living as a graphic designer.

But compare Prodi’s modus operandi to the creative procurement of our own Scottish parliament. First of all, we looked around the whole of Scotland and - much to the chagrin of the likes of Museum of Scotland architect Gordon Benson, I’m sure - couldn’t find anyone at home with enough talent to design the building. Then, the logo of the parliament itself? It was knocked out by some school kids in a competition, and tidied up in artwork. I kid you not.

Even if you know nothing about ‘design’, you may well feel that the Scottish approach to buying creative services would not augur well. But it’s not the creative issues that should worry you. It’s the way the creative process and outputs signal the underlying quality of judgment and discipline in the whole endeavour.

That’s how all visual communications work. Corporate identities, logos, brands, labels, marques, signs. You may not realise you’re doing it, but you ‘read’ them for the implied strength (or weakness) in an organisation’s quality management. Instinctively, you know that if someone can’t deliver a half-decent logo, they’ve got little hope of producing a sound product, running a profitable company or even guiding a successful supra-national organisation. Because these tasks are all much, much harder than designing a corporate identity.

Face values help us to make decisions when we don’t have the time, inclination or expertise to gather and assess more objective data. But experience also tells us that the ‘signs’ are fairly reliable indicators of the ‘store’. As the legendary adman James Webb Young said: ‘What we are has a way of shining through, whatever we say or do.’ And the human mind is brilliant at picking up the cues. I once worked on a project to introduce a top-selling European condom brand into the UK. Based on, as it were, in-depth research, the creative concepts and test packaging went down famously with the target audience. But the client ‘invested’ in a second hand cigarette-pack production line and there was always something just not right about the final packs.

With 20-20 hindsight, you could interpret that ‘the Chairman of the Universe’ - as we in the agency began to refer to the egotistical client - thought he could hide a low quality culture behind some fancy designs. Within weeks his attitude alienated every major distributor and the company went down famously too.

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Some graphic designers don’t understand this. They feel visual communication is principally concerned with good taste. And in tasteful markets, it might be. But more generally, it’s about managing reputation: communicating powerfully and precisely the desired reality of an organisation and its products.

For example, if you’re Poundstretcher store you need to communicate value. And you do that by using a couple of bright primary colours, loud typography and busy, ‘exciting’ window displays. If you’re a Versace outlet you want to suggest exclusivity. You do that with design restraint and a big bloke at the door.

As brand communication goes, neither is inherently ‘better’ than the other. The trouble only starts when you begin to give out the wrong signals. That’s why the management of an effective identity has to begin, not with images, but with reality.

Which is, ultimately, what I believe is so clever about Prodi’s design intervention. Take a look at the existing EU emblem. All those self-important, little ‘stars’ on the power blue background, going round in a circle. Doesn’t the very Yes Euro-Minister feel of it just say to you "Pompous blokes going round and round pointlessly in big chauffeur-driven cars with wee flags on the front"? Prodi knows it too. He knows that the EU’s image is mired in waste and tangled bureaucracy. What better way to express a new vision than with bold, cheerful straight lines? But there’s a deeper reason. The EU president is not a fool, or a coward either. You don’t whip out a logo that looks like a deckchair - and wait for the derision - unless you know what you’re doing.

The truth is Prodi understands the real totemic function of image. Remember the story of castaway Robinson Crusoe? Alone on his island, he grew afraid of forgetting his name, of losing his identity. "But to prevent this I cut it with my knife upon a large post, in capital letters, and making it into a great cross, I set it up on the beach where I first landed."

Crusoe comes back to the cross daily, not just to count the passing time, but to remind himself who he is and - more important - what he stands for: a God-fearing man in a God-forsaken land. Like Crusoe’s cross, this is the real function of a corporate image: a public affirmation of who you are and what you believe in. So, why is that important in Europe, in Scotland, now?

Across Europe, fascism is starting to creep into mainstream politics. Ironically, in the infamous phrase of American crypto-fascist preacher Pat Robertson, even our own dear ‘dark little country’ is beginning to show some very dark little traits indeed. For a country that supposedly invented the modern, liberal world, we’re starting to look like ideological Luddites.

In contrast, Prodi’s new vision - embodied in Koolhaas’ design - is undeniably positive, progressive and bright. It’s more than a riposte to the forces of ultra-conservatism. Like a gay parade flag to a fascist, it’s an affront. Let’s see the likes of Le Pen and the BNP try goose-stepping down any street under this flag. It’s just too much fun.

So, here’s to Mr Prodi and his new EU look. Let’s run it up the flagpole and see who salutes.

Pete Martin is creative director of Citigate SMARTS