Make-A-Wish organization has been making children wishes come through since it was established in 1980. The nonprofit organization has been granting wishes for children who are diagnosed with a serious and critical illness. The organization is driven by over 30,000 volunteers in more than 45 countries.
New logo Requirement
Maintain the personality and magical feel of the original brand, keep the serif type and its established but look more updated.
The original logo design
Original logo design had a magical feel that's quickly lost in the new logo, it's not to say it was perfect, but it did capture that fairytale look the way Disney logo does. The new logo improves legibility considerably, makes the whole logo sharper and cleaner, but the clean swirl cleanses the magic from the logo too, something is lost in translation. We see two issues with the swirl, the texture, and the angle. The texture of the old logo made the line like a sparkling firework in motion that gave the whole logo a dreamlike quality, but the bigger problem we see is the downward angle of the line, which make the star that's falling down. We don't think that's not just a graphical mistake; we think it changes the message a bit and not in a very positive way.
We believe the logo is designed as much for the kids as its for the donators. Keeping the organization relevant in today's world is important. We do understand the logo needed an update, but we also think it could have looked a little less commercial and a little more magical. The message of magic is in embedded in the name "Make-A-Wish." There has got to be a more practical reason for the change. The old logo design looked a bit cluttered with the swirl crossing over the "W" and "I," but that was not so impossible to fix. The star Logo in the old version is sparkling, while in the new logo, it's just a falling star.
The overall identity looks a bit too safe to our taste; it feels mundane and uninspired, they have utilized the swirl and the star much more effectively than its used on the logo. We do however love the blue shirt with the star shooting up; it works great in its simplicity, it captures some of the magic back.
Although we have seen a mix reaction o the web on the new logo and identity, overall we think in time people will embrace the new design and see it working better. Most people don't like change, and that goes to anything in our lives. Make-A-Wish is a wonderful organization, and if this new updated look and feel work more practically, and more effectively to the organization to collect more money to help out more children, then we are all for it, but we always remain as designers and look at designs with a critical eye.
