These We Still Love
I was surprised to find that the annoyance of having to take out car for an MOT (cost, driving at ungodly hour to strange – to me – part of London to find access to service centre blocked by Byzantine roadworks) was somewhat eased by the sight of the familiar three blue triangles rampant on a white ground.
But what an anachronism it is! As is the way that we still refer to the test as an MOT despite the fact that the Ministry of Transport ceased to exist in 1970. But some brands are just too deeply entrenched to disappear.
The simple, powerful, three-triangles logo is fused in the mind with its MOT label, meaning it’s hard to imagine either the name or the image changing. Yet blue triangles don’t seem a natural choice: surely circles or even cog shapes would have done more to suggest vehicles and machinery generally?
As ever, Google has the answer: the three triangles represent the three elements checked in the first tests, introduced by Minister of Transport Ernest Marples in 1960: brakes, steering and lights. I’m sorry to say that I haven’t been able to find out who originally designed it – all the histories of the MOT are written by car nerds far more interested in the growing additions to the test, and all the attributions I have found turn out to be for web designers who have created digital versions of it. If anyone out there knows, please tell us. (I suspect the answer is buried deep in a physical book somewhere out there.)
It must be easy enough for a brand to endure if it’s mandated by the government, but how about those that have to compete in a crowded marketplace? The most enduring commercial one that springs to my mind is Boots – again, the very name and the logo are synonymous with chemists.
It came as a shock to me to discover that the current logo, shown here, has only been in use since 2019, but on looking at the previous version the only change is the disappearance of the blue background oval. The website 1000 Logos describes it as looking ‘pretty much the same … since 1883.’ The persistence of this logo is also a guarantee that Boots is not going to do something ludicrous and trendy and call itself Bts (after the manner of Ldn, Abrdn Asset Management etc.)
Church’s Shoes (est. 1873) is another stalwart brand, and there is a story – I’m not sure how apocryphal – that when it approached management consultants for advice on refreshing the brand, it was told in no certain terms to let well alone: its USP was that nothing had changed in over a century. What a relief not to have to identify their values, draw up a change management plan, discover their purpose, and come up with a mission statement – other than ‘Make shoes and sell them’.
Given all the doom and gloom in the news about AI, I can’t help but feel strangely comforted by the thought that somewhere on the other side of the apocalypse, on a deserted A-road in Herefordshire perhaps, there will be a burnt-out garage with a brave MOT sign swinging in the irradiated breeze.