Sprint Nextel Corporation

New:  Sprint logo (and colors), to reflect its merger with Nextel.

Launched:  Name and logo were announced June 23, and took effect August 15, 2005.

Story in brief:
 This merger is simply consolidation, in an overcrowded category. (How many cell phone towers do we really need? But then, I still believe Judge Greene should have left the Bell System alone.)

The formal corporate name is "Sprint Nextel Corporation," and the Nextel name will survive 'as a key product name;' but Sprint is called "the new go-to-market brand name" of the combined Sprint Nextel.

The new logo is intended primarily to signal corporate change -- the expanded benefits of the dynamic post-merger Sprint.
 

Credits:
C.E.O.: Gary D. Forsee
Identity counsel and design - Lippincott Mercer

First Impressions:
I could be wrong. Some of my peers like it. But to me this has the earmarks of a logo designed by marketing people.  I see no sense of a leadership presence, no new directional thinking.  This is just old stuff rewarmed... the "pin drop" symbol memorializing an old, once brilliant ad campaign, a fashionably-fonted but rather delicate wordmark and Nextel's color equity, a sop to Nextel's people.

Granted, yellow and black are powerful (just ask Hertz or Caterpillar) but also demanding and limiting... it's tough to use them with anything else.  (Indeed, Sprint says its secondary color palette can be used only online and at retail and only with special permission from its Brand Management team.)

And the symbol? Unless one sees it in animation, is it really a pin drop or is it just a fashionably familiar device, an abstract wing or arrow? In any case what does a symbol add? Sprint is a short, unique and appealing name. Why not a strong, simple wordmark?

And what, pray tell, is a 'go-to-market' name? Why perpetuate Nextel in the new corporate name?  Why not just cut to the chase and be a bigger, better Sprint?

Second impression:
March 2006   I was a little harsh. I'd still make the case for a more compact word-centered solution, and less yellow; but with exposure this mark has increased in appeal, and has proven its impact. On balance, a model rebrand.

 Other comments?
Roger van den Bergh, among others, was reminded of the Amtrak symbol.  It's true; one could add the 'trakmark' to the 'pindrop' to get something quite nice. (Apologies, gentlemen; just playing around.)

Jerry Kuyper sent us the original US Sprint mark he designed at Landor in 1985, for the merger of US Telecom and GTE. (It was tweaked, later, by Lister Butler who dropped the US, reduced the speedlines from 5 to 4, and for some reason fattened the letterforms.)