Australian panel show commits a serious design crime.
(Image credit: ABC Australia)
An Australian TV panel show has been forced to scrap its brand new logo after inadvertently (we assume) breaching international humanitarian law protecting the Red Cross emblem.
ABC's Q&A with Hamish Macdonald was recently rebranded as 'Q+A', with the ampersand replaced by a plus symbol. In the new logo, a red '+' was placed on top of the white letters, creating the effect of a red cross on a white background. This emblem means 'don't shoot' in times of war, and is protected to avoid diminishing its power and meaning. It's an extremely simple mark that conveys its message immediately, and even made to our list of the best logos of all time.
The red cross emblem, 1864 (Image credit: redcross.org)
Red Cross Australia told The Guardian, “One of our team did get in touch with Q+A when their use of the emblem was brought to our attention. One of Red Cross’ roles is educating and informing the broader community about the protective significance of the emblem."
ABC swiftly changed the new logo on TV and social media to one that features a grey '+' on a red background (below). It wouldn't have been able to simply invert the colours of its red/white logo, as a white cross on a red background is also protected.
The new, new logo (Image credit: Q+A on Facebook)
We've seen plenty of plenty of logo design crimes in our time, but few that have actually breached international law. Still, it only took a touch of colour tweaking for ABC to fix its mistake. At least it wasn't forced to scrap the rebrand entirely, as was the case with a few of our most hated redesigns of all time.
Daniel John is Senior News Editor at Creative Bloq. He reports on the worlds of art, design, branding and lifestyle tech (which often translates to tech made by Apple). He joined in 2020 after working in copywriting and digital marketing with brands including ITV, NBC, Channel 4 and more.
