What do you think of this new unified identity designed by Landor Associates?
The new logo combines a number of symbolic functions
Rarely has a piece of graphic design been associated with as much political and emotional significance as this one. Landor Associates, the veteran agency behind everything from the famous FedEx wordmark to the most recent DC Comics identity was last year tasked with creating a new logo for New York's World Trade Center, which is still under reconstruction. And here's what they've come up with.
Set in Helvetica Ultra Compressed and making good use of negative space, the design performs a number of symbolic functions.
Symbolic elements
The slant of the top half is at a precise 17.76-degree angle, in tribute to 1 World Trade Center’s 1,776-foot height.
The logo contains a trident, symbolising the steel columns at the base of the twin towers which remained standing after the 2001 attack.
The two parallel spaces in the top half of the logo represent the memorial beacons of the Tribute in Light.
The design as a whole is a stylized W, standing for both World Trade Center, and Westfield World Trade Center, a shopping mall due to open there next year.
The new logo design aims lend a graphic unity to way-finding signs, building entrances, digital directories, kiosks, uniforms, websites, apps and marketing materials.
Tom May is an award-winning journalist and editor specialising in design, photography and technology. Author of the Amazon #1 bestseller Great TED Talks: Creativity, published by Pavilion Books, Tom was previously editor of Professional Photography magazine, associate editor at Creative Bloq, and deputy editor at net magazine. Today, he is a regular contributor to Creative Bloq and its sister sites Digital Camera World, T3.com and Tech Radar. He also writes for Creative Boom and works on content marketing projects.
