Tuesday, October 16, 2007

The new American Academy of Family Physicians logo


The American Academy of Family Physicians announced a couple of days ago that they were changing their logo from a very antique looking seal to a much more modern mark and font treatment. Sounds like a good idea. The old logo was old fashioned in every sense of the word, from the font to the little fiddly illustration. It looked like something that would be more at home on a dollar bill than a website.

So they spent a significant amount of money and came up with what they thought embodied "honor, valor, and victory... healing and the renewing power of life that go with it." Personally, I'm just sort of scared of it.

To me, it looks like the snake crawled up the torch and lit its head on fire. While I understand that the snake was supposed to represent the Aesculapius staff and the torch strength, they should have thought of a slightly better and less destructive-looking way to represent this. Combined with "Strong Medicine for America" it seems like they're going to raid Dr. Frankenstein's castle. They say on their website they are going to be a champion for family doctors. This logo at least is successful in making me believe they mean business. Even if they have to burn a few buildings down.

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