I'm Not Going to be IGNORED, Dan.

I'm not certain when this happened, but while flipping through channels this evening I noticed that WGN America has a new logo.



I'm very curious as to why WGN went this direction with a re-branding. While I don't watch this channel very often, it seems to me that WGN primarily airs syndicated, family-oriented sitcoms; programming that seems incongruous with this new logo.

The new logo, to me, communicates something more in-line with an all-anime, all the time channel. I'd expect to see something like this on MTV or even Spike TV before WGN. WGN is using a new tagline as well, TV You Can't Ignore, so perhaps they are trying to re-invent themselves as edgy and intense.

Edgy, maybe... definitely intense. Intense in a creepy way. In an, "I am hovering above you, watching you sleep," way. When I went to the website, IT BLINKED AT ME. It will blink at you, too. You've been warned.

I don't like criticizing logo designs because I know how difficult a brand is to create, and I know that the vast majority of them end up being the result of design by committee. I don't feel comfortable saying, "WHAT was that designer thinking?!" when it comes to branding. Projects on a scale as large as this one must have been often end with the designer shrugging in resignation and putting his or her blinders on in order to meet deadline. I don't know if that's the case here, so I won't harsh on the design, but I will say that I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall of the re-branding project/design meetings.

Now go on with your soul-piercing, bone-chilling, Manic Panic-wearing, stalkery stare, WGN!

P.S. Even though your new logo makes me nervous, WGN, thank you for Outta Sight Retro Night. I can deal with the evil clown girl ghosted onto the bottom right corner of my TV screen in exchange for old episodes of WKRP in Cincinnati and Newhart every Sunday night. That Johnny Fever... he's a mess!