22xmas1901.jpgPentagram Design re-branded Christmas. Complete with sharp sans-serif font, five-note musical signature (Think: “Intel chime”), and hot brandable name, x.mas is Christmas 2.0 (Yes, of course they used the phrase “Christmas 2.0″). Companies would pay to rep the brand with their own logo (see image on the right). They claim they are embracing the commercialism of Christmas. NYTimes has the details.

…The designers did their best, first identifying the three chief problems with the brand: it’s divisive, ugly and, of course, overcommercialized. Next they came up with a big idea to try to fix these problems. It was not to rename Christmas, exactly, but to streamline it by creating what might be thought of as an “overall umbrella brand,” Mr. Bierut said, one that sounded contemporary, hip and, most important, Internet-ready: x.mas.

I am in no way in favor of preserving tradition; that’s not why I object to this idea. However, if one is going to re-make Christmas, why does it have to be so commercial? Pentagram could have easily chosen to emphasize the family element of going home for the holidays. Something more wholesome instead of… whore-ish. Of course, that would not have the same shock-value, and probably would not have generated an NYTimes article (or this blog post). *Sigh* I guess I’m just feeding the beast.