A Livewire customer recently took the time to email me about the new appearance of the Livewire front panels. Rather than repeat the mistakes I made in 2016 and not addressing the changes, I excerpted part of that email exchange to explain why they were necessary.

“The font on the panel looks different than the original module line…

Q: “Is that true?

A: yes

Q: “…any way you could use the original font?”

Short answer: No
In addition to making a distinct delineation between the 10 – 20 year old designs and manufacturing processes by updating the appearance of the front panels:

1. All the fonts used on the original panel couldn’t be embedded in the Illustrator design files. This had something to do with licensing. I’m already paying Adobe for font licenses, so I opted to use fonts that were less likely to cause a problem when I opened up the design file in the future (fonts that I’m already paying for)
2. The original Livewire logo couldn’t be trademarked. Specifically, I want to be able to use the lightning bolt independent of the text. The original lightning bolt is a universal electrical symbol. Trademarks have to be unique.

regarding the update to the lightning bolt icon:

You may have noticed the logos on the AFG2’s are different. This was supposed to be a nod to the Chaos Computer display and to associate Livewire Synthesizers with “synthesizers” more than “high voltage”.

Customers hated it, I got backlash, the new lightning bolt is the result.