When two media giants merge, one would expect some top-notch state of the art kind of brand work.
Last month, AT&T owned WarnerMedia and Discovery announced one of the biggest media mergers of all time. The vast combined catalogue which includes HBO, DC, The Cartoon Network, TLC, CNN, Animal Planet and of course, Discovery Channel just to name a few, could not only compete with Netflix and Disney, but beat them.
The newly unified company recently unveiled their new name. It’s — wait for it — Warner Bros. Discovery.
Yup, that’s the name.
But it doesn’t end there. The company also unveiled what they call the ‘initial wordmark’ or temporary logo, and the internet had some serious thoughts about it.
One commenter on Reddit wrote, ‘It looks like a fake company from a Spy Kids movie,’ and gained more than 39,000 upvotes. Another added that as a professional graphic designer, the logo hurt their soul.
Many Twitter users likened the new graphic to something made with MS Office’s WordArt.
I’m just glad to see Hollywood embracing an austere vibe and obviously spending $0 dollars coming up with a name for the combination of Warner Bros. and Discovery while using a free clipart CD with Windows 95 to design the logo. pic.twitter.com/fbk1dPZw2k
— Aaron Earls (@WardrobeDoor) June 1, 2021
— Walt’s Frozen Head ❄️ (@WaltsFrzenHead) June 1, 2021
They really just picked from Word Art didn't they. pic.twitter.com/a5Cz4EUjPz
— Margot Wood *preorder FRESH!* (@margotwood) June 1, 2021
The good news is that the merger won’t be complete till 2022, so thankfully the company has ample of time to come up with a better logo.
We can’t wait to see how different (or similar) the final logo will be from the initial one.