AT&T Sues NASCAR over Cingular’s “Jack”
By now almost everyone has heard this new tagline: “Cingular is now the new AT&T.” But apparently NASCAR is not listening. Word is out today that the telecom giant is suing NASCAR for not allowing it to change Jeff Burton’s Cingular-branded race car with new AT&T branding. (If these phone companies would stop merging things would be a lot less messy, but I digress.)
The proposed change included putting the AT&T logo on the back quarter panel of the car where currently the Cingular name resides. It doesn’t seem like this change would be a big problem, hence the lawsuit, but word is spreading that there is a push from Sprint-Nextel (They’re a sponsor of the Nextel Cup Series) to shoulder AT&T out of the sport.
As a bit of background, VSA Partners designed the Cingular logo–named Jack–in 2000. VSA Partner Jaime Koval headed up the design with the idea of creating a mark that was “a strong graphic symbol, but is also had to be soft and playful.” This is yet another successful logo design & identity project put out to pasture. So long, Jack.
Source: Post Chronicle
April 4th, 2007
I’m perplexed as to why you linked “Jeff Burton’s Cingular-branded race car” to cingular.com. When I click on “cingular” in “Jeff Burton’s Cingular-branded race car”, I want to be taken to an image of the race car, not a website that plasters showcases the AT&T logo. Any way. That’s a minor detail.
I agree that it’s said to see the iconic Cingular logo go away. It was a great brand. VSA hit the nail on the head by saying it was a “strong graphic symbol, but is also had to be soft and playful”.
Plus, the Cingluar logo looks so much better on a race car. The giant, black, “X” treatment on the hood of an orange car. That’s slick. I don’t see a giant striped ball having the same appeal on a car. too bad.
April 6th, 2007
I agree. The Cingular car is about the best on the NASCAR circuit (so good in fact that it inspired one of the extra characters in the movie CARS). It just will not be the same on the other side of the big blue ball (though, I think they would do well to give it the same treatment in blue and black).
Good comment!
November 7th, 2007
” I agree that it’s said to see the iconic Cingular logo go away. It was a great brand. VSA hit the nail on the head by saying it was a “strong graphic symbol, but is also had to be soft and playful””
That GREAT strong and playful symbol is an almost exact copy of dingbat off of a $29 typeface called BordersOrnamnetsP01. VSA did not create anything, they just copied the dingbat.
November 7th, 2007
” I agree that it’s said to see the iconic Cingular logo go away. It was a great brand. VSA hit the nail on the head by saying it was a “strong graphic symbol, but is also had to be soft and playful””
That GREAT strong and playful symbol is an almost exact copy of dingbat off of a $29 typeface called BordersOrnamnetsP01. VSA did not create anything, they just copied the dingbat.
March 14th, 2009
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