A story about Government logos that I learned about recently, first via Alex T.

One thing to note about the changes to government department names is that it doesn’t mean an expensive rebrand.

Because of the way the single government identity was designed, and the way the logos are created with HTML and CSS the change can happen immediately, with no material costs.

He makes it sound simple. Kind of obvious almost. Boring even, as the broader project was called at the time. But it’s so much more than that, as Ben has more recently outlined in his The radical simplicity of GOV.UK’s logo piece.

Recently in the UK we’ve seen a change of Monarch, a change of Government and several changes in Department names. 

Previously this would have meant visual chaos – many changes to government communications and the ensuing rows over costs and logos, as well as confusion for the user. Now, thanks to GOV.UK, it’s a simple code change. That’s worth further explanation, which I’ll try and do with this blog post.

Read the whole thing. It’s worth it. Although if you don’t, understand this bit before reading on here. When you have multiple government departments, with independently designed logos, you end up with a confusing mess like this, that’s hard for normal people to build trust and relationships with…

With a ‘the single government identity’ though, you get this…

Then, add to this simplicity, the technical ability to change and update these logos, across thousands of web pages, with a comparably simple code change, over a decade after the whole plan was designed, and you’ve got a perfect example of what really good design is.

The ‘the hard work to make it simple’ as is said (and as Ben says), yet it’s the exact kind of hard work that the simple seeming end result makes invisible, and even obvious seeming.

Like the way Clarke suggested that ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’.

Any sufficiently well designed system is indistinguishable from boring.

(Perspectives I was ticked to see shared so confidently in boringmagi.cc 👏).

These are the kind of case studies we need to see more of, and should work hard to get people more excited in. Stories of invisible successes that save money and time and prove the need for really joined up thinking.