We aren’t helping ourselves with these comments

I’m getting really rather fed up with all the negative ranting and these tenuous trainspotter tantrums that are gracing the letters page and making me have narcolepsy.

You don’t like the Audi TT? So what. Tell Jeremy Clarkson. You don’t like the new Abbey logo? Nice one. I’m more interested as to how the bank will roll out such an ambitious brand idea across all its entire company.

I’m the first to champion freedom of speech, and everyone is entitled to their opinion. However, we live in a society that is cautious of design, brand or whatever you want to label creativity as.

They didn’t have faith in the Millennium Dome, they have naming fatigue, they are sceptics. They mutter ‘A dead bloody shark is not art’, ‘That Changing Rooms is dead good’ or ‘Brush script would look great on the side of my car’.

So, ‘they’ must be stopped. And slagging off everyone else’s work like a bad Harry Enfield character is not the answer.

Which is why I take exception to Karen Powell’s Mary Whitehouse experience about start-up Dave. These guys all have a background working with top London consultancies – the sort of groups that are lambasted all the time for taking themselves too seriously. Now they have started up something smaller, that is about what they want to do, apparently that is wrong too.

Well, brand me a ‘lad’, but I applaud it, and I know who I’d be more weary of in a pitch roster. And that’s because I know the work will speak for itself and not its logo or website.

So come on my brand brothers and design sisters, let’s get some solidarity, let’s talk the industry up not down. I say bring it on, do better, experiment, and enjoy your job. We’re not brain surgeons and branding isn’t all about global domination. It’s about engaging the emotions, and to do that you need passion, fun and, here’s the controversial bit, variety.

So next time your fur gets rubbed the wrong way by an inappropriate font, do something better – that’ll learn ’em. Or, go and make yourself a nice cup of tea, watch a Bill Viola film, and relax. Everything’s going to be all right.

By the way, with regard to Ziggurat’s ‘back to basics’ rebranding of United Biscuits’ brand Phileas Fogg’s ‘gourmet-style repackaging’ for Classic Mexican Tortillas, the kerning is way out.

Jon Edge

Design director

Interbrand

London WC2