The NYC taxi logo redesign is big news for design geeks and NYC wonks; people who obsess over those sorts of things. Indeed, the logos and signage of our urban environment are part of the landscape of our lives. And when they change, well, we are bound to have an opinion about it.

And a healthy curiosity.

I asked David Yassky, the commissioner of the New York Taxi and Limo Commission, why the change and this is what he had to say. Yassky used to be one of the City Council members in Park Slope.

“The logo redesign project started in conjunction with the “Taxi of Tomorrow” project — figured it was time for a “freshening” — prior iteration has two different fonts for the “NYC” and the “TAXI” and TLC felt that was visually jarring — also, the new vehicle created opportunity for logo designed specifically to look good on that vehicle.

“Reason for deploying now is that with recent fare increase, taxi owners were going to have to change the decals anyway, so figured we might as well roll out the new version.”