International Men\u2019s Day is on November 19.<\/p>\n
I know this because for many years on International Women\u2019s Day, the comedian Richard Herring would reply to every snarky tweet wondering \u2013 erroneously \u2013 why men weren\u2019t given their own day as well. They are \u2013 it\u2019s on November 19.<\/p>\n
Herring\u2019s annual task became a form of painstaking performance art \u2013 could his reasonable fact-checking hold back the tide of spluttering online rage?<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve seen something similar play out on my social feeds in the past few weeks.<\/p>\n
Time and again, I come across incredulous posts thundering that the UK government spent half a million pounds to move the dot in the GOV UK logo. \u00a3500 grand! In this economy!<\/p>\n
And time and again, incredibly patient designers wade in to explain that no, this isn\u2019t what happened. I have huge respect for their forbearance. But the tide keeps on coming.<\/p>\n
This story begins in June, when the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), which oversees the Government Digital Service (GDS) published new brand guidelines for GOV.UK.<\/p>\n
To coincide with the launch of the new app, the GDS worked with M+C Saatchi to refresh the brand, as part of a \u00a3532,000 project to modernise GOV.UK and broaden its appeal.<\/p>\n
Part of this work involved, yes, moving the dot from the baseline into the middle of the GOV UK name, to underline the fact that it\u2019s more than a website. The design teams also changed up the colour palette, from the previous black and white to a more welcoming blue and teal.<\/p>\n
Never one for nuance, the press had a field day.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely dotty!\u201d The Daily Mail<\/em> spluttered. \u201cGovernment blows over half a million on \u2018vanity\u2019 makeover for website which involved moving a full stop.\u201d For The Telegraph<\/em>, it provided, \u201cThe depressing proof that our political class is obsessed with style over substance.\u201d<\/p>\n This reaction was fairly predictable. At a time when public finances are under real pressure, here was a story that fitted neatly into the Venn diagram overlap of wasteful politicians on one side, and post-Jaguar logo lunacy on the other.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s also, of course, nonsense. As Tom May memorably put it in an article on Creative Bloq<\/a>, \u201cIt\u2019s the journalistic equivalent of describing brain surgery as \u2018doctor pokes head with stick\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n And yet, it feels like the case for context and nuance has fallen on deaf ears. There seems to be a constant drip-drip-drop of social media posts decrying the rebrand.<\/p>\n Most frustratingly, some of these come from people who appear to be professional designers. They must know this wasn\u2019t about moving a dot, and perpetuating this narrative threatens to damage the industry. Anything for the #numbers, eh?<\/p>\n In response, designer Ben Mottershead is one of those who had waded into the debate online. The toxicity, he believes, comes from a combination of misunderstanding, and political point scoring.<\/p>\n \u201cPublic confidence in government spending is at an all-time low, while online, being first has overtaken being right,\u201d he says. \u201cThat mix creates a perfect storm of reactionary noise, quick opinions, few facts, and even less understanding of what good design actually costs or delivers.<\/p>\n \u201cAs an industry, we have to challenge that. When creative investment is questioned, our job isn\u2019t just to defend the work; it\u2019s to demand better discourse around it. Too many \u2018hot takes\u2019 ignore basic due diligence in the chase for clicks.\u201d<\/p>\n He is not alone in pointing out that 500k is a tiny percentage of the UK Government\u2019s annual budget.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s 0.0004% \u2013 the equivalent of pocket change for a multi-year redesign that improves accessibility, usability, and efficiency across millions of general public interactions. If a corporation carried out a similar piece of work, it\u2019d be lorded over and congratulated.\u201d<\/p>\n GOV UK is not only a design success story \u2013 it\u2019s a cornerstone of government services in this country, and envied the world over.<\/p>\n According to YouGov it\u2019s one of the most-recognised digital services in the UK. Since it launched in October 2021, it\u2019s had 14.8 billion visits, and 38.6 billion pageviews. Polling shows that 80% of users are satisfied with their most recent experience \u2013 a pretty high mark given the breadth and scale of its services.<\/p>\n \u201cIf there\u2019s a failure here, it\u2019s not in the design, it\u2019s in the communication,\u201d Mottershead says. \u201cThe government clearly didn\u2019t tell the story of the work, leaving designers once again to fight the corner for an industry that continues to prove its worth but rarely gets the credit.\u201d<\/p>\n This failure to explain the work is frustrating. Designer Matt Eason submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to DSIT, asking to see audience and user research, initial concepts, in-progress designs, and, \u201cany documents, reports or presentations showing the progress of the rebrand, including the GOV.UK logo and wider design language.\u201d<\/p>\n It was rejected<\/a>, as was his subsequent appeal. Initially he was told it would compromise the \u201csafe space\u201d that ministers and officials need to discuss new ideas. Now, he has been told it would be too expensive to provide the information he wants.<\/p>\n \u201cI think they missed an opportunity at launch to release the thinking and research behind the rebrand,\u201d Eason says.<\/p>\n \u201cAs well as being useful across government, where the findings could have been applied to other services, it would have given them some degree of control over the narrative. The information void they left was then inevitably filled by people pushing various viewpoints, based on not much evidence, or in some cases just making stuff up.\u201d<\/p>\n The honourable exception in all this is Kim Grey, a developer on the GOV.UK Design System team who blogs as beeps. They wrote an excellent post<\/a> explaining the changes, including a clear steer on the strategic problems the new designs are intended to solve:<\/p>\n \u201cTo expand the GOV.UK brand to provide flexibility across multiple platforms, such as apps, video, and social media.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTo tackle the perception among younger generations that GOV.UK looks unfriendly and intimidating, without devaluing the existing trust in the service.\u201d<\/p>\n On the cost, they pointed out the project, \u201cwas the full-time salaried efforts of dozens of design, development, and delivery specialists for more than a year. By that metric, it\u2019s actually quite cheap.\u201d<\/p>\n And on the logo, \u201cIt might not be obvious from a single side-by-side graphic, but a lot of time went into interrogating what we had and experimenting with what could be added\u2026 Just because the destination of that journey was a logo that intentionally looks quite similar to the existing one doesn\u2019t mean that the money was wasted, or that creating something radically different would have been better value for money.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a brilliant post. But it begs the question, why didn\u2019t the GDS come out with such a clear and articulate explanation? And why have they frustrated Matt Eason\u2019s attempts to help them reclaim the narrative?<\/p>\n Because there\u2019s something bigger in play here for designers.<\/p>\n At a time when the whole industry is under pressure to explain that design is more than a logo \u2013 it\u2019s a strategic tool to solve problems and drive growth \u2013 this story is pushing the exact opposite idea into the mainstream.<\/p>\n Sarah Robb, creator of the Brand Strategy Academy and co-author of Rebrand Right<\/em>, thinks the government made several compounding errors here.<\/p>\n \u201cThey could have helped themselves by proactively sharing the problems with the previous identity system that were preventing taxpayers from accessing what they needed,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to actively dig to discover that the previous identity felt intimidating and unfriendly to younger generations. Joe Public isn\u2019t going to do that digging.\u201d<\/p>\n And we \u2013 the media included \u2013 need to get better at contextualising design work, Robb argues.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople fixate on the logo, the front door, and question why \u00a3500,000 was spent changing its colour. But they miss the extensive work that has rebuilt the foundations, walls and entire structure of the house.\u201d<\/p>\n Her advice for any organisation about to launch design work is to give proper context, and avoid before-and-after logo graphics.<\/p>\n \u201cGive yourself a fighting chance by explaining why the change was needed \u2013 rather than just showing a tiny part of the solution,\u201d Robb says.<\/p>\nA perfect storm<\/h5>\n
Filling the explanation void<\/h5>\n
A fighting chance<\/h5>\n