Dynamic Visual Identity

From New York Times‘ “Logo a Go-Go“:

Saks’s chopped-up logo is the latest and most visible example of what graphic designers call a dynamic visual identity. That’s design-speak for a logo that looks different each time you see it — like MTV’s graffiti-esque initials or the customized symbols with which Google celebrates Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day — as opposed to the old-fashioned corporate ones, which always look the same. The traditionalists believe that the more times you see the same logo, the likelier you are to remember it, while the iconoclasts argue that you become inured to the same image over and over and are more apt to notice ones that change or, as Bierut puts it, are “consistently inconsistent.”