Yikes! Has AT&T ever gone orange

We can't say they didn't warn us.

Back in September, AT&T - as venerable, nay, as staid a brand as there be in America - announced that it was tossing aside blue like yesterday's hue in favor of orange as its primary corporate color. All part of the company's quest for a "younger, edgier style," we were told.

Well, the deed is done. How long this has been so I do not know, but today I found myself on AT&T's homepage - the one to which customer's who type www.att.com are whisked (above) - and if not for the fact that I don't own a pair I'd have been reaching for the sunglasses.

That's orange, baby.

We also learned that by "younger, edgier style" the AT&T marketing people meant a hot babe in the throes of whatever is "setting free" the lovely lass flipping her extra-long locks as though in a shampoo commercial.

But even the overt sexiness is overwhelmed by that sea of orange: burnt orange, bright orange and every shade in between (presumably so as not to offend a Texas Longhorn or Tennessee Volunteer).

In September, AT&T made clear that there would be limits to its embrace of orange, as the transition would be gradual and its actual corporate logo would remain blue. Here again, the company has delivered as promised.

The logo remains blue.

And, not every entryway into the AT&T site is as orange as the front door designed for residential customers.

The small-business portal features considerably less orange - a little orange type, a few orange accents - as would befit a place for sober commerce.

But it's on the enterprise landing page - the one designed for you, Mr. and Ms. Network World - where we see AT&T's orange-bucket brigade being most restrained: a few orange labels, a dab of orange elsewhere, that's all. (And notice the woman pictured here - attractive, naturally, but with glasses and her hair up instead of swirling provocatively; in a word, businesslike.)

Of course, everything substantive has changed about AT&T since the original was swallowed whole by SBC, which had the good sense to maintain the brand, so it's no surprise that the visual trappings are changing as well.

And if orange isn't your color of choice, take comfort in the fact it could be worse: They could have gone for canary yellow.

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