When Mike Smith arrived at ANZ, the bank still used a modernised and italicised version of the slotted blue lettered logo the bank made its hallmark in the 1980s.Within two years the bank had pushed aside that old-style "Venetian blind" legacy design for a new logo that retains the ability to confound.It is a person, a penguin or a flower in the 2009 logo designed by M&C Saatchi?"I hadn't the intention when I started out to change the brand," Mike Smith said this week.*"But it became so difficult, we had so many brands used years ago, it was a real mess, we had thousands," he said, perhaps exaggerating."I took a decision, 'OK, let's do a rebrand and create a logo as well'. It's a lotus apparently."The marketing guys came up with two designs. One was this one and one a yin and yang design. I said, 'I don't know, you're the experts, so tell me which one is appropriate'."The reason for the logo, I wanted a logo that would split the English ANZ from the translation, so it would flow and look good on documentation."*Smith granted an exit interview to Banking Day yesterday that was filmed, at our request, by ANZ's BlueNotes. Excerpts of this interview will be available online later today via the BlueNotes portal.