Let me just start this critique by saying that I love Doctor Who, both the classic and the “New Who” series. However, the previous logo for the series left a lot to be desired: sort of a long, narrow surfboard with the name set an extremely narrow typeface (akin to Futura Condensed, if not that exact face). Definitely not in keeping with the quirky, mysterious ethos of the series.
This new logo – or should I say logos, as this image almost certainly shows two separate design elements, the logotype and a “TARDIS” DW mark – certainly comes closer than any logo since the famous “diamond” logo of the late 1970s in capturing the essence of the show. An idiosyncratic and distinctive typeface and nice moody “police box” blues all work in favour, and the tiny slab serifs work amazingly well to help define the TARDIS shape in the mark. I can even ignore the overuse of lens flare, as it’s obvious to me that the logos would work without them. (And the flashing light on the TARDIS mark looks gorgeous when it’s animated on the TV screen).
It’s not quite perfect, however. I would have liked the “D” and “W” to be identical between the two executions (they’ve angled the serifs to create the illusion of a 3D shape on the TARDIS mark, and the radius of the corner curves is quite a lot smaller as well). The letter spacing around the “T” in “DOCTOR” also looks problematic to me, with a lot of extra space that should really be closed up a bit. Really, the “T” needs to be almost touching the “C” and “O”, and the rest of the letters need to be spaced a tiny bit further apart to compensate.
Still, I find this a very pleasing effort overall, and definitely an improvement over almost all the other logos used for this venerable series.