Australian blog Marketing has announced its list of the Top 10 Australian logos of all time.

The list was the culmination of polling by readers of the website and its sister magazine Desktop, with the Top 10 decided by a panel of experts in the marketing and design community.

The panel have concluded that the Top 10 Australian logos of all time includes both our national broadcasters, ABC and SBS, as well as the Nine Network.

The ABC design topped the list.

Other brands to make the list include Commonwealth Bank, Australia Post, Qantas and Woolworths.

The ABC logo design, based on the ‘Lissajous curve’, was designed by ABC staffer Bill Kennard in 1965, for which he was paid £25.  The logo was modified in 1975 with the advent of colour television, and again in 2001 (pictured, above) with the launch of digital television.  Although there was outrage at the mere thought of the logo being banished into obscurity with the re-branding of ABC1 and ABC2 in 2008, the iconic ‘worm’ logo lives on across the Corporation.

The current SBS logo (pictured), launched in 2008, dates its origins back to 1993, when the multicultural broadcaster finally discarded the well-worn “O” insignia that had symbolised the organisation since the launch of Channel 0/28 in 1980.  The 1993 design presented a stylised image of the globe being opened up and flattened out.  The logo was re-designed in 2008 to remove the “SBS” letters from inside the graphic and to streamline the flattened globe motif to allow more flexible presentation.

The Nine Network’s famous ‘dotted’ logo dated back to mid-1970, marking a generational change in TV branding where the traditional “call-sign” logos from the 1950s and 1960s were making way for more sophisticated, concise design conducive to branding network identities.  The design served Nine well for over 30 years, surviving the transition into colour television and digital television, and allowing for regional variations by affiliates NBN and WIN.  In 2006, Nine made a radical re-design of the logo by removing the dots and modernising the “9” graphic.  The re-brand, which didn’t translate as well to the regionals as its predecessor, was followed by a period of ratings and morale decline — with the network losing its long-held dominance to the Seven Network in 2007.  Nine ended up doing a backflip in 2008 by re-instating the dots to the logo.

The full Top 10 list can be found at Marketing.com.au.

1 thought on “ABC tops logo poll

  1. Credit please for the Nine domino logo.
    Melbourne graphic designer Brian Sadgrove pulled that out for Clemenger’s who
    had the Nine advertising account at that time. Stood the test of time.

    Long time since Seven had an original logo – all kock offs from USA
    Maybe bring back the kids giving the camera the seven fingers
    [ digital signature ] I believe that idea was a Gordon Bennett light globe
    moment when he was a cinecameraman and sent out to “do a station
    promo” one day when things were a bit slow.

    Good display for ACMI to consider.

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