longer.blue

Vauxhall’s Griffin Isn’t Aging Well Vauxhall has gone a step further in losing the meaning and emotional impact of their 111-year-old identity. By historically linking their corporate values with the griffin, a well-recognized symbol in heraldry, they were able to project an image of courage, strength, and loyalty, values linked to medieval warriors. The imagery reached a peak of graphic clarity in the 1946 to 1971 versions. The sinuous virility and power of the lion body is all there in those middle iterations. The square image container of the 1983 logo required the clipping of the eagle’s wings. With the introduction of the circular container in 1989 the tyranny of the circle causes the overall image to feel a bit of a graphic mess. By 2008, the lion half of the lion/eagle creature has been almost completely sacrificed and the eagle wing reduced to a single horn-like appendage. Vauxhall eventually joined the movement toward full 3-D badges in 2003, going full 3-D in 2008. As car manufacturers have added electric vehicles to their lineup, there has been a shift back to simplified and flat logos that work well when illuminated, and Vauxhall has followed the trend. The most recent upgrade though is a disappointment and not, to this viewers eye, an improvement over the 2019 version, which would still have worked as an illuminated badge. The flag was still there. The ruffled neck feathers, open beak and aggressive head gesture remain more powerful than the new closed beak, the sleepy eye and the scrunched-down body language of the new eagle.