Opinion BY Armin

To Batelco and Beyond

First established in 1981, Batelco (short for Bahrain Telecommunications Company), has grown to be the biggest provider of internet, mobile and telephone services in Bahrain, partly because until recently it was a monopoly, but now that two more mobile competitors are in place, Batelco needed to update its identity. Originally designed by Landor in 2003, the new identity has been designed by Futurebrand.

Our logo symbolises this bold direction by evoking the idea of what you can “be” with Batelco. Our new identity celebrates Batelco as a Bahraini icon, linking us in colour and with the letter B to our country. The bilingual logo, which reads as both an English and Arabic letter B, also resembles an infinity sign, further communicating Batelco’s omnipresence throughout Bahrain.
— Futurebrand Project Description

English and Arabic (read right to left) versions of the logo.

The previous logo was remarkably dull and generic — but given that Batelco is owned by three Government agencies, it somehow seemed appropriate — and would have been impossible to convert into an exciting consumer brand. The new logo, in contrast, is remarkably strong and memorable. The “B” icon is simple and elegant and looks great big or small (perhaps it’s a little too big in the lock-up, but that’s a minor complaint). The infinity concept is good even if the execution strays a little from what we would all recognize as an infinity symbol, but the effort in making the icon look like a Latin and Arabic “B” (it’s just the lower u-shaped part with the dot) is really nice. The wordmark verges on appropriate and weird, with the “e” and “c” standing out like sore, square thumbs against the other characters which have curved corners… I guess it could be worse. The applications, from web site to signage, feel stylish and trendy without going overboard. A pretty great update, even by infinity standards.

Launch event of new brand.

Thanks to Yotam Hadar for first tip.

Nick’s comment is:

Nice improvement, definitely feels more energetic than the previous. I really like the “bilingual” mark, but I think the whole infinity thing is a bit of a stretch, IMO.

On Jan.05.2010 at 09:44 AM

Dale Campbell’s comment is:

I love the icon, but the font, as you stated, comes across as a little unfinished.

Sorta looks like the messed around with Helvetica or something. If it is Helvetica, I wouldn’t do that.

If it isn’t Helvetica…I still wouldn’t do that.

:-)

On Jan.05.2010 at 09:49 AM

Mojo’s comment is:

Infinity is usually connected, is it not?

On Jan.05.2010 at 09:50 AM

Harper’s comment is:

These logos that need to exist in two different alphabets are really intriguing. It’s really interesting to be able to analyze different typefaces in Arabic for instance. I’m really impressed with the way they’ve made both the latin characters and the arabic characters look like the same font.

It would be interesting to see more logos done in Arabic and Chinese for instance.

On Jan.05.2010 at 09:51 AM

NatalieB’s comment is:

I prefer the Arabic version of this logo. It seems effortless.

On Jan.05.2010 at 10:09 AM

buruno’s comment is:

I prefer the Arabic version too, it seems more integrated with the wordmark. The western version looks simply like a randomly dismembered Univers. Very nice update!

On Jan.05.2010 at 10:27 AM

jonathan’s comment is:

If you look at the negative space below the characters, it looks like an attempt to preserve the waves of the banner from the previous logo, in the new word mark.

The logo is much improved. B shape is very strong, and still pulls off the multilingual approach. Very nice!

On Jan.05.2010 at 10:27 AM

bjornyeo’s comment is:

I simply cannot live with that ‘B’ with the weird rounded/not-rounded corner…

On Jan.05.2010 at 10:41 AM

also jonathan’s comment is:

I was also thinking the negative space is meant to preserve the waves. The bottoms of the characters are the only place where the rounding has been done. Hence, why the “sore thumb” “e” and “c” haven’t been treated to additional curves. I thought the word mark was fine.

On Jan.05.2010 at 10:43 AM

Joshua Hathaway’s comment is:

Looks like a boob to me. Or an udder.

On Jan.05.2010 at 10:51 AM

ecs’s comment is:

Hahaha how does that look like a boob? Or a cow boob?!

On Jan.05.2010 at 10:57 AM

Andreas Lanjerud’s comment is:

My very first thought when I saw this article pop up in my rss reader was “Wow!”. The icon and the red color of it works really well. Not all convinced about the font (dunno why it feels unfinished and like a gas company or something?) but what a great improvement for them!

On Jan.05.2010 at 10:59 AM

J’s comment is:

It’s ok….just.

The english logotype is a little tortured, the curved corner of cap ‘B’ especially seems forced and unnecessary. It really looks like they struggled to make the curved terminals treatment work.

Not being able to read Arabic, it is a little hard for me to evaluate the Arabic logotype.

I guess I like the curvaceous symbol the most, though does anyone know what the stray period is for?
Please tell me it’s not decorative.

On Jan.05.2010 at 11:16 AM

Brendan’s comment is:

Like the icon, but the hack job on Univers for the wordmark doesn’t look good. Reminds me of what Walmart did, but it made more sense to do it to a humanist sans.

On Jan.05.2010 at 11:43 AM

Brendan’s comment is:

@J -

I looked it up on Wikipedia. The Arabic equivalent for ‘B’ is ‘?’. So, the dot is necessary.

On Jan.05.2010 at 12:38 PM

San Antonio Employment Lawyers’s comment is:

I think it works much better than the previous design. Although I did enjoy the older style.

On Jan.05.2010 at 12:40 PM

Brendan’s comment is:

Bah, it didn’t work. Just go to the wiki article :P

On Jan.05.2010 at 12:40 PM

Juliana’s comment is:

B-eautiful!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS.

On Jan.05.2010 at 12:53 PM

Aaron A’s comment is:

I really love this. It has a lot of movement that is very contained and it looks good in english and arabic.

On Jan.05.2010 at 01:24 PM

Chip O'Toole’s comment is:

In the retail location photo, the typeface looks almost identical to Helvetica at a distance. If you’re going to play chopshop with Helvetica, why don’t use just use Helvetica? I don’t think making some of the letterforms into scimitars adds any value to the rebrand.

I think Eric scared everyone into never using Helvetica ever again.

On Jan.05.2010 at 02:05 PM

Pichu’s comment is:

I love this one, the typography it is well done work looks very corporative and the icon is very clever. the new logo make forget about the oldone, and thas what is all about at the end

On Jan.05.2010 at 02:10 PM

MSGDS’s comment is:

I like it. The “B” icon may be a little too big, but overall a very solid improvement.

On Jan.05.2010 at 02:16 PM

buruno’s comment is:

@ Chip: Spiekermann is surely a great type designer, but his comments on the Helvetica documentary were mostly rubbish, IMHO. Besides, I’m pretty sure this typeface is Univers, not Helvetica.

On Jan.05.2010 at 02:26 PM

Chip O'Toole’s comment is:

Well, it may be the counter in the “a” that’s throwing you off. Looks like Helvetica to me.

On Jan.05.2010 at 03:01 PM

Ray Zee’s comment is:

Reminds me a bit of a bird pooping.

On Jan.05.2010 at 03:09 PM

buruno’s comment is:

Exactly. The moment I saw that “a”, Univers came to my mind. I was only a little suspicious about the “t”, while the other letters were more difficult to recognize. However, overall I think it feels more like Helvetica, kudos to you, sir.
That “a” turned out to be a typographic mermaid or centaur; Univetica.

On Jan.05.2010 at 03:49 PM

Ivan’s comment is:

Univetica, what a cool name - hoping it’s still not trademarked :)

On Jan.05.2010 at 04:32 PM

Mike’s comment is:

I really like the new mark. The typeface treatment feels somewhat generic. I think they could have worked on it, but then doesn’t everything look better with Helvetica?

On Jan.05.2010 at 07:32 PM

Andrew Sabatier’s comment is:

As posted on the Breathe Branding Blog.

If the latin letter B is set to refer to both Batelco and Bahrain then western culture takes centre stage at Batelco. This may make sense for a Bahraini telco looking for a global image but it also subjects them to rigorous western cultural analysis.

The new identity is indeed modern but the scope of what this means is extremely limited. It’s a modern aesthetic; a modernisation of an arabic script in the form of a latin B, and that’s about all. The result is a hybrid symbol that, although proprietary, has obvious western problems.

Any visually-literate, design-oriented western person won’t be hard-pressed to see a breast and nipple at the end of a heavily pregnant B, which is at obvious odds with the extremely conservative Wahhabi version of Islam practised in the region. They would, however, be hard-pressed to make sense of the infinity reference. This is the sort of half-baked and yet blatantly generic idea buried in cultural grey-land that gives brand identity consultants a bad reputation.

The new identity may herald a more progressive western-style leadership prospect for Batelco but success is unlikely ever to be attributed to conceptual fecundity.

A.

Permalink

On Jan.05.2010 at 08:24 PM

MarcusVss’s comment is:

The icon is great, but the font is just weird.

On Jan.05.2010 at 08:39 PM

Katie’s comment is:

I think the B is really genius. I love it.

On Jan.05.2010 at 11:55 PM

jj’s comment is:

Hate to be a hater on this one, but what’s to like?

The font is butchered. The icon is a weird mix of things (the B and arabic B) and yet ends up looking like nothing in particular. If those two character could have been combined to actually look like an icon or something related to telecommunications, maybe.

I guess the color palette works, but come on—You guys normally slaughter work better than this design, are you being polite because it’s another language? Believe me, the Arabic isn’t any better except that there is less of it (meaning fewer characters with which to screw).

I posted a bunch of western and arabic identities in the summer.
( http://www.graphicology.com/blog/2009/1/4/225-arabic-versions-of-global-brand-identities.html )

I’m also about to post more tomorrow or the next day as my arrival in Dubai has given me access to a lot of this type of work. Let’s see what you’ll think of those.

JJ

On Jan.06.2010 at 12:08 AM

valentines day’s comment is:

I would say the new look marks the start of a new age for Batelco one of continual change to ensure the highest levels of customer satisfaction.Thanks for sharing such a great info within us….

On Jan.06.2010 at 12:14 AM

Waleed Shebani’s comment is:

I think the icon is good but for me as an Arab man i think they went in the wrong direction if they made it with an Arabic calligraphy it was going to be better, but like this is not that good because they serve Arabic consumer in the first place which dose not care about a bilingual icon or the typeface of the english part and the arabic typeface nahh it is not that good.
but all in all it better then the old one.

On Jan.06.2010 at 02:06 AM

soully’s comment is:

It’s always difficult to comment on a logo that uses a non-roman alphabet, with my layman eyes the arabic version looks far prettier, but I’m not sure if that’s to do with my lack of familiarity with arabic text.

It’s kind of admirable that they attempted to make an icon that made use of a ‘B’ in both languages but it’s definitely going to be lost on most people- are they expanding to non-arabic teritories to prompt a need for something that works in English too?

My least favourite aspect is the ever-popular chop up an existing typeface a bit to make it look unique. Is this ever necessary?

Probably being overly critical, I do like the red.

On Jan.06.2010 at 03:17 AM

hussein’s comment is:

the ugliest re-brand I ever seen.. and i’m sure they charge the client half a million, maybe!

It reminds me with the Arabic logos in the 80’s.. It was a trend to combine Arabic and Latin letters together..

Design wise: Failed also! butting the icon to the right, far away: unbalanced at all!

Communication wise: what? infinity sign with an angle? discontinued? OMG!!!!!!!

Change Batelco name to: Barbara Salon or Benefits Supermarket.. you wont feel any deference..

The logo is ages away from telecommunication in the 21st century..

It doesn’t mean anything!!

On Jan.06.2010 at 06:08 AM

Barry Quinn’s comment is:

It reminds me a little of the Bahamas logo. I know it is not the same but there are elements that make me think of that identity.

On Jan.06.2010 at 10:56 AM

valt1’s comment is:

For me it’s same this logo use beneteau in US before

On Jan.06.2010 at 11:19 AM

valt1’s comment is:

Beneteau is a yatch-boat factory, (French but international Brand)

On Jan.06.2010 at 11:23 AM

valt1’s comment is:

^^^ http://twitpic.com/wxgx6 ^^^

permalien

On Jan.06.2010 at 12:23 PM

Brian’s comment is:

The new brand symbolizes a change to the future and beyond! it is beautiful and fits just right.

On Jan.07.2010 at 11:01 AM

Vavoom’s comment is:

I don’t think the logomark works at all! I am trilingual, and Arabic is my mother tongue. I either keep on seeing the logomark as a twisted Cap ‘S’ or a ‘Ha’ letter in the Arabic Alphabet.
The strokes should have been thicker.

The Arabic typeface used is the equivalent of Arial (bad Helvetica rip-off) in Latin typefaces and used by lots of Petroleum companies in the Gulf - Lame.

Nice try, that’s all.

On Jan.07.2010 at 01:00 PM

julie’s comment is:

The first thing I thought was “boob” - and I’m a straight female. So much for subliminal….

On Jan.07.2010 at 09:36 PM

Alexander Greyling’s comment is:

At first glance, nice look and feel on the rollout of the brand identity but on closer inspection the brandmark is flawed in many ways.

An opportunity was missed in that the B could have been more visually representative of the communication industry instead of being just a fancy abstract and unclear bilingual B with obscure meanings. Good brandmarks transcend borders and race.

The type lacks real crafting and with the recent arrival of competitors where is their slogan? In spite of the face lift the brandmark still smacks of a monopoly.

Alexander Greyling
Author of
Face your brand!
The language of visual branding explained

On Jan.10.2010 at 04:07 AM

Mike Williams’s comment is:

For those interested in Arabic typography within brandmarks, FutureBrand has an article about the subject called “Arabicization” which may be of interest. It can be download here: http://www.futurebrand.com/think/articles/arabicization/ and also appeared in the September issue of ArabAd magazine.

On Jan.12.2010 at 08:52 AM

Jeffery Wright’s comment is:

A marked improvement over the original, very good visual impact.

The company is probably so well known for telecomm in its market that the brandmark can stand on its own. Maybe in a decade or so, if the company grows beyond its borders, a new identity design would then be in order, one that makes its telecomm interests more apparent to the unfamiliar.

On Jan.12.2010 at 08:54 AM

Anis’s comment is:

Looks pretty outdated stretching and lazy (specially curving those Helvetica corners, just buy a decent typeface) and unfinished.

The old brand mark and visual language needed only to be developed, only lasted just over seven years I believe, gives us an insight into an organization that lacks vision and understanding of where it’s going and what it is now.

The Arabic is standard for a brand in the region to have an arabized version of the Latin version and there is nothing distinguishable about it.

Sad case of corporate schizophrenia, and I would not be surprised if they commission another change in two or three years time.

On Feb.05.2010 at 09:27 AM

Anis’s comment is:

Looks pretty outdated, lazy, unfinished and stretching the idea of infinity a bit too far!

specially curving those Helvetica corners, just buy a decent typeface, what’s going on there???

The old brand mark and visual language needed only to be developed, only lasted just over seven years I believe, gives us an insight into an organization that lacks vision and understanding of where it’s going and what it is now.

The Arabic is standard for a brand in the region to have an arabized version of the Latin version and there is nothing distinguishable about it.

Sad case of corporate schizophrenia, and I would not be surprised if they commission another change in two or three years time.

On Feb.05.2010 at 09:32 AM

Steven Abreu’s comment is:

The new identity is indeed modern but the scope of what this means is extremely limited. It’s a modern aesthetic; a modernisation of an arabic script in the form of a latin B, and that’s about all. The result is a hybrid symbol that, although proprietary, has obvious western problems.

On Aug.19.2010 at 02:09 AM

Mike Aumiller’s comment is:

They would, however, be hard-pressed to make sense of the infinity reference. This is the sort of half-baked and yet blatantly generic idea buried in cultural grey-land that gives brand identity consultants a bad reputation.

On Aug.28.2010 at 03:30 AM