Volume 133: The Most New York Thing Ever.

The Most New York Thing Ever.

tl;dr: We ❤️ NYC is latest in a long line of bad NYC identities.

“I was always a New Yorker; I just didn’t know it until I got here” is a line famously attributed to John Lennon that perfectly encapsulates my own feelings for the city, from the moment I moved there in 2004. And, having lived in the city for 13 years before (temporarily) moving out to the ‘burbs (the hell of NYC schools is real) and having worked on the NYC brand back in the day, I feel that I have a dog in the hunt on things NYC related.

So, while I’ll leave it to others to discuss the design merits (or complete lack thereof) related to the new “We ❤️ NYC” identity, and its appalling campaign executions, I have some thoughts I’d like to share.

Before we move on, though, I must admit that I originally wrote something far different and vastly more cutting about it, which is why this Off Kilter is shortened and arriving late this week, but I realized that whatever I may think of the design, there is a real person who designed it who’s taking rather a lot of flak right now, and such criticism shouldn’t be personalized.

A big part of me feels that anyone delivering a PG-13 homage to Milton Glaser’s Taxi Driver, who also feels inclined to spout dumb shit about Helvetica being the beating heart of New York City because it’s on the subway signs (Sorry, it’s also the most overused, generic and commodified typeface on earth, which is not at all conceptually representative of the most diverse city on earth), should be prepared for what’s coming.

However, another part of me feels this is a huge part of why the design world is so stultifyingly boring and creatively constipated. Not because people are incapable of having different, unexpected, and challenging design ideas, but because they’re too scared to put their head above the parapet only to be shot at by the keyboard warriors on Twitter and the comments section of Brand New. And newsletter writers like me.

We must also acknowledge that this is just the latest in a long line of bad identities swirling around New York City and New York State. Does anyone remember the logo for the 2012 Olympic bid? Or the New York Marathon? Or the godawful application of the NYC logo to the taxi cabs? So, rather than blame the designer alone, we must also point a giant finger at the political dysfunction that’s defined New York for as long as it’s existed. It’s notable that for this project to happen at all, it required a smorgasbord of city and state entities that never agreed on anything before, to agree on this. Including the New York State Department of Economic Development, the state agency that owns the “I ❤️ NY” trademark, which it has traditionally protected jealously. This project was almost certainly doomed to mediocrity from the start, irrespective of who did the work.

Weirdly, that makes the new logo one of the most New York things ever.

But, rather than get stuck on the nuances of the design, I want to talk about why, admirable as a campaign in praise of New York City might be, the whole thing conceptually missed the mark before any designer even touched it.

First things first, New Yorkers don’t love New York. We love to hate it. It’s a cruel mistress. It’s expensive; it’s dirty; it’s competitive; it’s pushy; it moves fast; it’s crammed in on top of itself, and the rats are bigger than dogs. There’s always somebody younger and hungrier seeking to make their mark, sometimes at your expense. The term “a New York minute” is no accident, and plenty of people really do have two business breakfasts before 8am. It’s also sexy, sophisticated, elegant, arty, powerful…and, and, and. It’s the most diverse city on earth, the gateway to the US for generations of immigrants, and it likes to think of itself as the center of the known universe. Well, Brooklyn is, anyway.

But one thing New York never does is coddle you. If you need coddling, go somewhere else.

So, whenever a group of New Yorkers are in the same room together, the city will always be a primary topic of conversation. And rarely in a good way. We love to moan about it. We wear the challenge of living there like a badge on our sleeves. It’s the one place where people who never fit in anywhere else feel at home, and we revel in our ability to stick it out when others can’t. The thing that connects us across generations, incomes, races, sexual preferences, religions, professions, genders, and countries of origin, you name it, is our relationship to the very city itself.

So, what do you think will happen when you tell a bunch of New Yorkers to love the city? Well. Simply put, you misread the room. Tell a bunch of New Yorkers that “We ❤️ NYC,” and the immediate reaction will be exactly what happened: violent opposition at your having the temerity to tell us what to think. No matter how much we may actually love it.

For a time, years ago, I lived in Dumbo, which unfortunately became little more than a bedroom community for Wall Street. Gentrification, meaning it no longer felt like the Brooklyn I love. So we moved to Downtown Brooklyn. Upon picking up the keys to our new apartment, I headed down Fulton Mall at around 7.30 am, power-walking past a guy in a leather jacket as he loudly hawked up and then spat on the street about 6” from my shoe. Without thinking, I loudly exclaimed, “For f’s sake,” without pausing. There was silence for perhaps 3,4,5 seconds as I continued on before a torrent of abuse, cursing, and accusations of what I get up to with other men, and my mother erupted from behind me. I just grinned and thought to myself, “Yes! I’m back in Brooklyn. I have missed you so.”

This, the rats, the pressure, the smell, and the grit. This is the New York that I love. And it will never be encapsulated by “We ❤️ NYC,” even if that mark had been brilliantly designed, because the very idea of it is so desperately, conceptually, wrong.