There really wasn’t anything especially terrible about that logo system. It received a mostly positive reception for the first several months of its roll-out, and didn’t start generating complaints until the media seized on it and popularized the misconception that the logo was replacing the University of California SEAL.
So people were being told (again, inaccurately) that the logo on the right was replacing the seal on the left:
Whereas the visual identity update that was ACTUALLY taking place was more like this:
99 Percent Invisible had a good episode detailing the logo design and ensuing public controversy a while back.
