The results of a recent survey confirm that it must be a great place to work (pay, very good; benefits, excellent; communications, superb; training, very good; career development, very good; morale, very good), but it does appear to have a problem with its corporate identity – namely, duplication.
It uses at least three different logos, and pretty randomly at that. There’s the word “Xerox” set upper case in a quasi-futuristic sans serif typeface. This is usually white out of a red background, and is familiar to most of us who use a photocopier.
Then there’s a rendition of a red capital letter X, whose right-hand ascender has been bitmapped to denote technology or perhaps even duplicated sheets of paper.
Finally, there’s The Document Company, again all capitals, but in a completely different, rather prosaic typeface.
“It’s all over the place,” says Michael Johnson. “It’s as if they hadn’t quite got the courage to get rid of the old one.”
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He is, however, a fan of the pixellated X, which was designed by Landor Associates in the US. “It’s clever,” he says, “although you can see the strategy showing through. It’s saying, ‘Hey, we’re going all digital and modern’.”
Xerox is fortunate enough to have a strong enough position in the marketplace to ride the muddle: in the US, the name is so strong it’s almost a generic – you’d ask someone if they would mind Xeroxing something for you.
