A short stay at a local holiday resort generated a big shock: they changed the iconic 25 year old Center Parcs logo! I have fond memories of the Parcs we used to visit now and then when we were young. Meddling with such a logo felt like ripping out these nostalgic memories in my brain, ruthlessly replacing it with meaningless corporate convergence of rounded lines and sans serif fonts that so many companies are aiming for these days. Why? What was wrong with the old logo?

Driving to the park, I noticed another market chain that changed its logo, including the slogan. Guess what, more rounded edges and samey swirling shapes. Why? Alex Murrell's The Age of Average immediately came to mind when I started noticing this evolution towards sameness. Alex noticed that nowadays, interiors all look the same, architecture looks the same, cars and their logos look the same, media looks the same, and even people look the same. Scrolling through the blog post might reproduce that initial shock I had when I saw the new Center Parcs logo.

I do not get this "The homogeneity of modern brands", as Alex calls it. A Contagious article made up the term blanding for this phenomena:

Look up any new corporate brand identity unveiled over the past decade and you will almost certainly find yourself staring at a flattened and simplified version of the company's old logo. The aesthetic has become so ubiquitous that it's acquired its own name---blanding.

My first encounter with blanding was not good. All I can say is that I do not like the direction contemporary design agencies are aiming at. Back home, I started thinking about new logos of companies I knew. Guess what: more blanding. Here's a short overview of the old and new logos I could put side by side from local businesses (from top to bottom: asap.be, centerparcs.com, aveve.be, cegeka.com):

Do you notice anything in particular after a good long stare?

• Serif is old; sans serif is in. The curliness of the ASAP and CenterParcs lettering in the old logos has been removed and replaced by boring evenness.
• Colors become more muted. The bright Cegeka line has to make way for the two-tone pastel-like swirl; ASAP removes the orange square; Aveve and Center Parcs ditch any other color but a shade of green.
• Rounded corners are back in; both in lettering and in background or logo shapes.
• A small logo might accompany the name, but it should be clean and placed to the left of the text.

The most baffling logo "update" must have been the Center Parcs one. The iconic bird, comprised of two leaves, makes way for a completely meaningless "CP" abbreviation---sure, the P has two diamond-shaped leaves, now we know what Center Parcs is about! It looks like a logo for a garden architecture group.

But hey, what do I know? I'm not a designer. A quick scroll through the replies of the official announcement on Twitter tells me I wasn't the only one immediately repulsed by the new design: even lots of design agencies question the move. Abstraction and convergence might look très chic on board room meeting walls, but it sure as hell isn't to the customers confused by the absence of the previous landmark. I love the Dutch news piece headlines talking about the logo change: shocked reactions new logo Center Parcs; Center Parsc makes bold logo changes: 'People are resistant to change'; Center Parcs changes logo and Dutch people are pissed off. Many people thought it was an April Fools' Day joke. It sure feels like one.

There's a difference between resistance to change and convergence to mediocre sameness. Still not convinced? Take a look at different logo updates from both the tech and fashion industry summarized by Radek Sienkiewicz over at VelvetShark.com: Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Airbnb, Spotify, Pinterest, Ebay---all suddenly boring sans serif logos, devoid of their previous personality. Logos aren't the only ones with this illness: see CSS Tricks' 'website sameness'.

Age of average indeed.