Computing mega-beheomoth Hewlett Packard (HP) is slicing itself in two, separating the computer and printer operations from the server and business side.
On April 15th, Meg Whitman, HP’s President & CEO introduced the new look for the business arm, now called Hewlett Packard Enterprise, in a blog post somewhat reminiscent of Marissa Mayer’s sycophantic pronouncement on the new Yahoo logo (though no way near as cloying).
According to Whitman, the new design is “different” and “stands out amongst competitors”, that it’s simplicity reflects the idea the Hewlett Packard Enterprise will be “easy to do business with and precise in our work”.
Which all fits within the usual marketing spiel we have to cope with when a big company announces a branding change.
For me the logo is certainly serviceable, the switch from the recent use of lowercase initials “hp” to the full name gives the brand a more business like air, it’s a serious firm doing serious stuff for important customers.
The green rectangle is underwhelming (I’ve yet to sell quite such a simple design to any customer, despite my efforts), it’s size and positioning is the most interesting thing, top right, quite small being less than half as wide as the Hewlett Packard text. The right hand side doesn’t line up with anything as you might typically expect, it terminates part way through the e and p below. Happily it doesn’t detract any.
Whitman points to a final little flourish, something she suggests is “symbolic of the partnership we will forge with our customers, partners, and our employees”. That’s the blink and you’ll miss it “tt” ligature in Hewlett. This seems about as far fetched as any other detail, I can imagine rather than a grand gesture of client and customer partnership that it’s made out to be, that someone, maybe Whitman herself, saw a version of the text that was tightly kerned and left the t’s touching, and this gave birth to the idea.
We’ve yet to see much application, a few mockups, signage on a severe looking building, and an exhibition wall. The later features the rectangle within a graphic looking a little like an iconographic representation of a server stack, which makes some sense, I’d like to see if this is one of the motivations behind it?
I suspect it’ll raise plenty of ridicule that is now the norm on high profile logo designs (see the Hilary Clinton 2016 Logo), cries of “I could have done better for a fiver” etc. The truth is there’s very little to hate, The Hewlett Packard Enterprise Logo, simple business like and will serve the new business without too much fuss.
