Time Warner Cable's Hypno-logo

Three plump men are sitting at the far end of an unnecessarily long boardroom table. A lone figure sits across from them, unapologetically sporting an unbuttoned collar and no tie. The men squint across the ruby surface waiting for the lone figure to begin. He has three packets in front of him, each containing a different logo concept for their company, Time Warner Cable. The man is Steff Geissbuhler, the designer responsible for the NBC peacock logo. 

Steff hands the first packet to a fourth man, an up-and-coming Plumpy whose presence is charged with one task: acting as messenger between the two sides of the table. In his eyes, the first logo concept is the winner; it's elegant, sharp, clever, and perfect for the target audience. 

The distant men barely look at it.

"Too difficult to understand," one Plumpy says. 

"I agree," says another. 

The third nods. "We don't want to confuse anyone."

Steff clicks his pen and sits up straight. His pushes his glasses to the bridge of his nose, even though they're already up as high as they go. Seth hands Plumpy Jr. another packet. The second logo isn't brilliant, but it's solid. He toned down the cleverness, approached the problem literally. 

The three men look glance at the packet. "Too obvious."

"It almost seems childish."

"I could come up with this."

Steff presses his feet into the floor. His face flushes slightly, he can feel himself getting warm. He becomes aware of his breathing. 

He passes along the third logo, already knowing they won't like it. It's impossible, because the idea behind the logo is borderline 1984 Big Brother material. He had trouble coming up with a solid design after the first two, so he went and made a logo that he though represented the reality of the situation: a hypnotizing spiral emanating from the center of an eye. Television is hypnotic garbage, and Time Warner Cable are counter trash-men, delivering the garbage instead of picking it up.

The tree men stare at the logo for a long time. They whisper back and forth. Finally, one speaks.

"Brilliant."

Okay, this probably isn't how it went down, but I'd like to think that Seth isn't responsible for the overtly obnoxious logo above. I admit—I know not all business men are plump, nor are all designers comrades in the fight for humane design. Still, it's hard for me to accept being associated with the kind of insensitive thinker that would come up with a logo like this.

Harsh, you say? Perhaps. But let's think about it. Let's try to step outside the realm of the familiar and objectively look at it. The logo is comprised of two elements. 1) An eye, and 2) a spiral, which is a commonly used symbol for hypnosis. (Don't take my word for it, just google image search "hypnotic" or "hypnosis.")

Now try disassociating "Time Warner Cable" with the logo; let it sit in front of your eyes independently of any linguistic label. With these two elements, the eye and spiral, the logo seems to represent some kind of evil mind-controlling empire hell bent on hypnotizing the masses. And, well, it pretty much is. Yet no one cares.