In a staggered rollout beginning this month, New York City cabbies are being forced to adopt and apply newly designed decals when they renew for their annual vehicle inspection.
I echo the commentary of many when I tell you that I liked the old cab design better. It was a black or red stencil reading “NYC TAXI” above a similar stencil of the medallion number. Even people who have never been to New York City before know what a cab here looks like. It looks like this:
That label’s as simple as a shipper’s name stenciled on a crate of freight or the text label on a can of store-brand peas. It’s even in keeping with iconic New York public vehicle signage style; the garbage trucks here, for instance, are white and labeled with black Helvetica text that reads “Sanitation,” in a no-shit way that belies the high shit content of the vehicle itself.
Nothing more fancy or graphical is necessary for garbage trucks here, much less cabs. In fact, a cab logo is redundant: it’s a yellow car that’s never around when you need it; therefore, it’s a cab. Instead, we now face this hoohah:
My eyes smart. It appears to have been designed by committee in 1995 as a subpar David Carson ripoff. I guarantee the word “edgy” was used at least twice in the design firm’s proposal to the city. The leading makes me twitch and the “racing stripe” (officially known as a “checker stripe decal”) is laughable. The “circle T” dingbat strives to suggest Vignelli’s famous subway signage but instead recalls with horror Boston’s MTA logo.