BY Joe Marianek

TYCO’s Electric Piano

If you take a holiday this summer, consider Pembroke, Bermuda, the legal incorporated home of some exciting de-conglomeration and branding. Tyco International LTD, a global leader in industrial valves and controls, metal conduit, armored electrical cable, and steel fence post tubing. A proprietor of fun brands such as ADT security and fire alarms, as well as niche-hits like Coev Magnetics, and Raychem, Tyco recently announced that it was neatly spinning off into three corporate-level brands, grouped by cateogry. So it goes. The spinoff gives us three consumer/industrial brands: Tyco Electronics, Tyco Healthcare (Covidien), and also Tyco Fire & Security/Engineered Products & Services (TFS/TEPS).

Tyco’s company history is similar to many others in the category, as this de-contextualized extract from the Tyco Press Room explains:

Tyco was founded in 1960 when Arthur J. Rosenburg, Ph.D., opened a research laboratory to do experimental work for the government. He incorporated the business as Tyco Laboratories in 1962, and changed its focus to high-tech materials science and energy conversion products for the commercial sector.

Original Tyco logo, 1960

A well-crafted press release explains on the products and services of Tyco Electronics:

With a 60-year history of leadership, Tyco Electronics is a US$12.8 billion global provider of engineered electronic components for thousands of consumer and industrial products; network solutions and systems for telecommunications and energy markets; and wireless systems for critical communications, radar and defense applications. We design, manufacture and market products for customers in industries ranging from automotive, appliance, aerospace and defense to telecommunications, computers and consumer electronics.

The new lockup—crafted by Interbrand—is an improvement from the former wordmark. Hearty but nimble, the “TE” monogram intelligently suggests connections between electronic components with a tried-and-true IBM striped uniform. One can assume that the italic helps tie it to the former italic logo (but why?) or that this new mark is literally running from the IBM logo for fear of impersonation. The designers were right not to follow status-quo and dress it all in “Tyco” blue. The orange lends some electricity, contrast, and differentiation. For the embroidery-police, this one receives a citation—the guilty gradient is so subtle that it doesn’t claim to be innocent. Here is one solution. Thankfully, the gradient adds subtle detail here and makes the brash forms sparkle like a Leger. There’s some jazz here; squint to see the keys—you can almost hear “Piano Man.”

“Tell Everything”

When divorced from the wordmark, the symbol could potentially carry any meaning such as: Turkey Express Airbus, Thomas Edison, or even The End. Why not? Tyco makes a lot of products that protect and enforce infrastructure assuming that a WWIII happens sooner rather than later. Surely, the recognition strategy is for the long-run, which explains the diminuitive proportion of the symbol in the lockup.

Overall, the voice of the custom typography is corporate but friendly, bordering on a Casual Friday code, which is probably right on strategy for shareholders who are worried about the fiduciary implications of the breakup (and recent scandals). The wordmark deftly adds electronics to qualify what this Tyco is and does. The cute lowercase “y” compensates for the historical lack of a nice “y” in the former mark. This new “Ty” letter combo is still busted and doesn’t resolve the letterspacing issue.

This type is tricked out in a tentative way that begs us to wonder how many hundreds of hours were spent riffing on every clean half-humanist-but-not-Helvetica on the market straight down to the little Bliss notches. Even though champagne should be sent to Interbrand for crafting a custom wordmark, couldn’t they have made it all a little less tricky?

(Toys)

Wait a minute… if you were also a nerd who enjoyed alone-time in the 1980s, the name “Tyco” evokes strong and misty-eyed loyalty with mis-associations to H-O scale model trains and racecar toys made by the TYson COmpany: TYCO, owned by Mattel. No connection.

This mark doesn’t invent form, but it starts to. While it has potential to shine on various public-facing applications and has the added value of one-color reproduction on little electronic devices, Tyco’s new logo is a weak signifier for a company that deals in solutions, precision, and innovation. This techie look hardly meets our expectations by appropriating worn categorical conventions; it hits the correct keys and sadly delivers like a Billy Joel cover band in Bermuda.

\n\nIf you take a holiday this summer, consider Pembroke, Bermuda, the legal incorporated home of some exciting de-conglomeration and branding. Tyco International LTD, a global leader in industrial valves and controls, metal conduit, armored electrical cable, and steel fence post tubing. A proprietor of fun brands such as ADT security and fire alarms, as well as niche-hits like Coev Magnetics, and Raychem, Tyco recently announced that it was neatly spinning off into three corporate-level brands, grouped by cateogry. So it goes. The spinoff gives us three consumer/industrial brands: Tyco Electronics, Tyco Healthcare (Covidien), and also Tyco Fire & Security/Engineered Products & Services (TFS/TEPS).

Many thanks to our ADV @ UnderConsideration Partners