Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2001/08/20/logowatch_the_futures_bright/

LogoWatch The future's bright – the future's purple

Manchester Business School completely loses the plot

By Lester Haines

Posted in Bootnotes, 20th August 2001 15:11 GMT

Updated

Groundbreaking my arse

You'd think that business schools had plenty to be getting on with, what with training people in how to order someone else to work out how to use the photocopier, etc., etc.

Regretably, though, Manchester Business School seems to have found enough spare time to indulge in that curse of the dotcom economy - corporate rebranding.

It has always been assumed that the height of creativity in such establishments was choosing a slightly risqué tie for that breakfast power meeting. No so in Manchester. Let's get one thing straight: Manchester Business School is different:

Following a three-year-long rebranding process that was exceptional in both its process and product, Manchester Business School today launches a new corporate identity, unlike anything any other business school has ever done.

Extensive stakeholder and client research revealed a need to change. A concept was required to carry forward the inspiration. And marketing and communication tools have now been set in place to communicate the School’s brand values and its drive on quality.

The 'purple box' concept is closer in concept to Wolff Olins’ groundbreaking work for Orange than it is the corporate identity of other top business schools. The new Manchester Business School logo is box shaped, but with its own character, one which would be personalised by any stakeholder group.

Groundbreaking? An orange box? Come off it. We say: Never in the field of human endeavour has so much rubbish been inflicted on so many by so few. Enough.

Related links

Feel free to read more of this purple prose here.

Update

But hold on a minute - what's this? Thanks to Chris Hoare for pointing out the similarities between the MBS logo and this offering from Lucent. Hmmmm...

Are they by any chance related?

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