back to article When corporate signage goes BAD

Thanks to a sharp-eyed Reg reader in Norway who snapped the local Cisco offices, everyone can cop an eyeful of the unfortunate rebranding exercise that happened after it bought Tandberg in 2010. We aren't sure whether the sign slippage was caused by sloppy workmanship or a batch of dodgy glue. But we are sure the $60bn sales …

  1. frank ly

    Cute

    I'd like to have seen that happen. I wonder if it happened slowly, or quickly.

  2. Your alien overlord - fear me
    Holmes

    How do they do it?

    It's a Cisco PR department trying to get free advertising from techie websites.

    The large piece that fell should surely be on the floor. The stand-offs would have hit the angled piece and either caught it higher up or knocked it onto the floor.

    I reckon a Lego mock-up should be done to test the physics (hence the icon).

    1. Allonymous Coward

      Re: How do they do it?

      Yes, but this is El Reg. So a Playmobil mockup, obviously.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And now for our mobile readers...

    I don't see the logo, could you post a link?

    1. Anonymous Coward Silver badge

      Re: And now for our mobile readers...

      https://regmedia.co.uk/2017/06/14/cisco_logo_falling_off_building.jpg

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: And now for our mobile readers...

        And now can you outline the sexual innuendo because I'm just not seeing it.

        1. Adam 1

          Re: And now for our mobile readers...

          > And now can you outline the sexual innuendo because I'm just not seeing it.

          Gaw'n, give him one.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Many years ago when an ICL building was being rebranded as Fujitsu there were a few hours while both signs were on the ground. The old "ICL" one was apparently a single piece of signage - whereas the new Fujitsu one was a neat vertical stack of single letters. However - the top letter of the new stack had been placed on the ground alongside the stack.

    The combined display was aligned in a neat line - and read from above - "F" "U" "ICL".

  5. Inspector71
    Happy

    The phrase...

    ...go stick your head in a pig comes to mind for some reason.

    1. Hollerithevo

      Re: The phrase...

      Why? I am worried about you. Does this come into your mind often?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The phrase...

        "Does this come into your mind often?"

        It never came in to my mind before, but now it just won't leave.

      2. Inspector71

        Re: The phrase...

        The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation thanks you for your concern.

        Share and Enjoy!

  6. Sequin

    Best ever has to be the time that Thwaites brewery in Lancashire announced redundancies:

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/thwaites-brewery-sign-lights-changed-3059037

    1. Steve Foster
      Holmes

      @Sequin

      (without looking) Let me guess... There was some sort of mishap involving the "h", "i" and "e" portions of their signage.

    2. Mark 85

      That is a classic. Thanks for the link. Oh.. someone owes me a monitor and keyboard...

    3. Mike 16

      Done on purpose

      in San Jose, California around Christmas, for many years. The lighted letters spelling San Jose Steel were blanked selectively to become NOEL (No diacritics on either, of course). Of course, the SF Bay area doesn't do nearly as much steel anymore. IIRC, all the steel for the rebuild of the Oakland bridge came from China.

  7. 0laf

    OGC

    It wasn't even slippage but remember the new branding for OGC that the taxpayer no doubt paid tens of thousands of pounds for?

    They came up with a vertical logo that was distinctly like an onanist stick man.

    I thought that as punishment for blowing a wad on that they should have been forced to keep it.

    1. Sequin

      Re: OGC

      It was said of the old BT logo (http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/BT) that if you rotated it you got the usual course of an issue with them - a balls up, followed by a small cock-up, finally leading to an enormous cock-up!

  8. 45RPM Silver badge

    There's an adult shop on the Cowley Road in Oxford which encourages its customers to "Use Rear Entrance". Not a mistaken sign - but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

    1. Sequin

      I've seen a hospital sign sying "Family Planning - Use rear Entrance" but I'm not sure if it's real or photoshopped.

      I can confirm from personally having seen it that there used to be a road sign in Liverpool which said "Liverpool Maternity Hospital - Non Accident Cases Only"

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      So what's wrong with it? Are you against LGBTs? I thought UK was an open minded, multicultural country.

      1. 45RPM Silver badge

        @AC - I’m sorry. You’ll have to explain. What does the sign have to do with LGBT?

  9. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Tacoma, not Takoma

    My son lives within sight of it. I have driven over it (the new one).

    There are actually two, one built on the piers of the disastrously wavy one, and one entirely new one.

    Two lanes on each bridge, one bridge goes over, the other carries traffic back.

    Interestingly, the replacement for the original is narrower, and has longitudinal venting (see if you can figure out why!), while its newer, wider neighbor does not.

  10. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

    I think it's secretly a clock

    WHy not.

  11. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

    As you would expect

    There's a website that collects such things. http://www.signspotting.com/

    I've always liked this one:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/Travel/galleries/travel/picturegalleries/signlanguage/The-best-of-Sign-Language-February-2012/signlanguage-book_2025925a-large.jpg

    (SFW in case you're wondering)

  12. doct3rphil

    Tacoma Narrows

    FTFY

  13. styx-tdo

    looks a bit

    like Accenture turned around....

  14. xDR1TeK

    It is important they focus on work and not aesthetics

    Companies that focus on phony customer portfolios don't interest anyone in the tech business unless they operate in the Entertainment Tonight cheap shops. The sign fell, big deal. If staff didn't see it, they won't fix it because anyone noticed, I wish top and mid level managers stop this top-down dissemination of nonesense.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Panasonic

    there's a building in North Sydney with an illuminated Panasonic sign. For several months the middle section lights were out resulting in the sign reading PAN NIC after dark.

  16. no-one in particular

    Oldie but goodie

    Every time I saw this one I kicked myseff for not carrying a camera with me.

    Back in the mid 1980's the bus from Barnes to Richmond went past a tall building whose signage had at least one letter that had simply fallen off the otherwise proud company name "Rawlplug"

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    SYMNATEC

    After Symantec borged MessageLabs, two guys arrived with a cherry picker and a stack of letters to replace the nice old ML logo with the Symantec signage; the logo incorporates a tickbox., appropriately enough.

    Unfortunately they carefully spelled out SYMNATEC.

    40 mins later productivity collapsed as word spread and people poured out for a look and to post evidence of the new quality-first approach,

    OH how we laughed, right up until we were made redundant.

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