I mentioned to my favorite brother that I’ve been working on logo artwork for a new client because of course, I value his opinions and I want him to tell me which mockups he likes/doesn’t like and why. I gave him the URL, but he was traveling and wouldn’t be able to view them until later in the day. In the meantime, we talked about my development strategy as a preface to what he could expect, and he felt compelled to tell a story that I’m going to share with y’all.
Now my brother is the true king of trivial facts — he seriously needs to be on some game show and win a bajillion dollars to share with his sister. I listened as he told the history of the NBC logo, but still looked it up because I’d never, ever heard about it before…
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) logo began as the peacock promoting color television in 1956. The logo was revamped a few times before 1976, but that was the big deal year — the year that the abstract capital “N” first appeared. The cost of the new NBC logo development was estimated to be between $750,000 and $1 million dollars. Woah! NBC sure was proud as a peacock …but not for long.
Before NBC knew what hit them, they were slapped with a lawsuit by Nebraska Educational Television (ETV) over their new logo — the utterly fabulous and distinctive “N”. Why? Because ETV had been using an identical “N” logo for 2 years already!
NBC decided it best to settle out of court with ETV. That wasn’t cheap either. The settlement to ETV was roughly $500,000 worth of used television equipment and $55,000 in cash — and in exchange, NBC got the rights to the “N” logo.
The importance of a great logo should never be underestimated — and of course, I don’t believe “in the can” artwork is worthy representation of any successful company — but when you figure an abstract “N” ended up costing NBC around $1.5 million dollars, I’m thinking that would be out-of-budget for the majority of my clients.
But here’s the best part!! Nebraska Educational Television (ETV) originally paid $75 to have the abstract “N” logo created.
Just like the burg this morning, NBC weathered the storm — and they dropped the “N” and went back to a simpler peacock in 1986.
