Interesting article regarding the new Starbucks logo

[Will]

Following from Nikki's classes I found this (http://www.graphicology.com/blog/2011/1/13/324-branding-should-have-a-backbone.html) article on Graphicology titled "Branding Should Have a Backbone" to be an interesting read. It's primarily focussed upon the redesign of the Starbucks logo, and how that has been subject to a public backlash and the consequences of this, as well as of inviting public discourse on rebranding are discussed.

I did agree with a point raised in the article that: "Anonymous commentary from the masses is bad enough, the fact that companies are listening to it is borderline insane."

[tomjeatt]

I agree with a lot of this too. For what it's worth I think the new Starbucks logo is fine. It's not exactly a radical departure - all they've really done is remove the text, and I think the majority of people would still recognise it as the Starbucks logo. The rationale behind the redesign makes perfect sense. If you want to move beyond your core business - coffee in this case - then having a logo which explicity ties you to it is going to be a hindrance.


Anonymous commentary from the masses is bad enough, the fact that companies are listening to it is borderline insane.

I agree with this up to a point, and certainly in this case. Anonymous commentary from the masses might have some merit in extreme cases (if Starbucks had changed their logo to a boot stamping on a human face - forever or a swastika for example) but only if that leads to a reasoned rather than a kneejerk response.

People don't like change - big changes, small changes, whatever, the natural response is to resist. And in the end, most of the time, we'll come round. It's a bit like the Facebook page updates. There was a bit of an outcry because people were used to doing things a certain way, but nearly everyone got used to doing it the new way and I think that if Facebook decided to revert, we'd end up with a degraded experience.

'Experts' don't always get it right, but they often do, and if a company has the courage of their convictions then they'll be proved right just as often. Not always though (Accenture springs to mind).