Opinion BY Armin

Smart is as Smart Dots

Established in 1991, Smart Communications, a subsidiary of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., is the largest mobile service provider in the Philippines — dubbed the Texting Capital of the World — with a reported 47.8 million subscribers. (AT&T, to put it in perspective, has around 95 million customers.) Smart introduced a new logo and new tagline, “In an ever-changing world, we lead you to a bold, new future.” earlier this November.

Leading wireless services provider, Smart Communications, Inc. has unveiled its new logo which reflects the evolving digital lifestyle of Filipinos. Smart’s corporate name is rendered in a more youthful blue and its signature rays have morphed into eight dots in various vibrant colors, to reflect the freedom and empowerment that Smart’s broader range of products and services make possible.
— Press Release

Video introducing new logo.

Smart’s new ambassador, apl.de.ap of the Black Eyed Peas, unveiling the new logo and theme song for Smart at a concert.

The previous logo wasn’t too embarrassing, even if it had a dozen more straight-edged swooshes than Verizon and the new logo is a nice evolution of it, keeping some of the details like the open crossbar of the “A” and the tight tracking. Maybe it’s become clear to everyone, but I’m not a fan of tight tracking, it leads to weird counterspaces and forced ligatures like the one happening in “MAR”, but the general effect of the typography is convincingly youthful and contemporary. The dots, unfortunately are absolutely lame. The colors are annoying, the placing and spacing is arbitrary, and the concept is as rudimentary as it gets. But they sure do look like a party. The overall redesign is much welcome but I wish there were something more creative than dots.

Thanks to Andrew Jonathan S. Bagaoisan for the tip.