Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) has wasted money to give its logo a slight overhaul while the firm is deep in the red, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) wrote on Facebook on Friday.
The state-run energy company spent NT$968,000 to update its logo, Wang said, adding that the original was inkbrushed by former Control Yuan president Yu You-ren (于右任), who was a master calligrapher, in 1946.
The logo is broadly unchanged, with its lines revamped and the accompanying text in a new font.
Photo: Screen grab from Huang Yang’s Facebook page
She credited online sleuths for bringing the issue to public attention, adding that she would focus on the financial aspects of the situation, as the aesthetics of calligraphy is a separate debate being carried out online.
Aaron Nieh Workshop, registered to Aaron Nieh (聶永真), in January 2024 won a contract to freshen up the logo, she said.
Four months later, the same company won a NT$980,000 contract to redo the logo of CPC Corp, Taiwan, the nation’s state-run oil company, she said.
Nieh seems to be favored as a designer by the Democratic Progressive Party-controlled government, as he was also awarded contracts to redesign the logos of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications’ Tourism Bureau in 2023, she said.
Taipower reported losses of NT$54.66 billion in 2024, Wang said, citing its financial reports, adding that the Control Yuan expected the company’s debt ratio to be 97.3 percent by the end of that year.
As for CPC, its chairman, Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁), said that estimates about the company’s fiscal health were accurate and that it was in “dire straits,” she said.
“State-owned enterprises should not spend millions on logos as they cry poverty at the taxpayers’ expense,” she said, adding that it seemed odd that the same contractor kept winning bids.
Taipower later wrote on Facebook that the logo change was a comprehensive effort to reshape its corporate image.
“The new logo is more than just a redesign, it marks a key step in Taipower’s brand transformation,” it said. “The company is moving away from the familiar calligraphy style toward a cleaner, more modern visual identity.”
It needs a “clean, technological visual design to underscore broad range and breadth of its services and reflect Taipower’s mission of modernization and advancing technology,” it added.
Separately, Nieh wrote on social media that the lettering in his logo paid tribute to the stylistic flourish of Yu’s original calligraphy and that he had done his work “as a professional with a clear conscience.”
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