There's no question that the 'I Love NY' is one of the most iconic and recognizable designs ever and New York City has just attempted the impossible by rebranding the logo and it's fair to say, it blew up right in their faces. Ad campaigns get recognition from their unique logos most of the time but the new ad campaign for New York City didn’t get much appreciation from the netizens. After a rough few years of the pandemic, the new ad campaign aimed to deliver a simple message to the city dwellers by jazzing up the famously recognized "I Heart NY" logo into "We Heart NYC." But things weren’t well received by the people on the internet, specifically the New Yorkers. The logo and the campaign left many designers on Twitter cringing at how basic and amateurish the new "We Heart NYC" sign was. A campaign that aimed to signal the city’s strength amidst fighting the COVID pandemic ended up being a joke online.

During an announcement in Times Square, Mayor Eric Adams, and Gov. Kathy Hochul said that "the logo and campaign slogan is actually "We Love NYC" — is an adaptation of the iconic "I Love NY" — and it aims to signal that the city has rebounded from the coronavirus pandemic." 

"We took the ‘I’ out of 'I Love New York' and we brought the 'We,'"Adams said. But the critics simply couldn’t find it easy to love the new logo design as the campaign launch stumbled right out the gate. Several netizens blasted the design by calling it "the worst design they’d ever seen" and the "logo didn’t make sense because of the weird placement of the heart sign."

True enough, the new logo couldn’t replicate the simplicity and elegance of the original logo "I ❤ NY" designed by famed graphic designer Milton Glasser and was launched back in 1977. "I need to know how much that horrendous We NYC Heart graphic cost," tweeted @scabellumpedum. Well, we would love to know that as well because in theory, a child can make this logo easily as well. "There is no character to this at all, the font sucks, and it doesn't even read as 'we love NYC' it reads as 'we NYC' with a heart next to it. I can only hope this is a prank because this design is a joke,"@deagle417 wrote.

Adding to the trouble, the campaign’s welovenyc.nyc website didn't work for many people who tried to access it Monday either. Along with that, several netizens and organizations on Twitter kept tagging a Twitter handle of @WeLoveNYC instead of  @welovenyc_, an account which is already taken by a seemingly inactive user named Mark Scally in 2009.

Despite unveiling a logo that looks like a graphic designer’s worst nightmare, we hope the campaign was effective in the end to lift up the spirits of the New Yorkers with its positive message, at least not visually.