The design blogs we’re reading are heaping praise on the newly simplified Starbucks logo. As much as we love simplicity, the strategist in us isn’t so sure that Starbucks made the right move.
Admittedly, BrandCulture is more of a Peet’s shop, but we’ll leave our coffee preferences aside and try to look at this as dispassionate branding professionals.
The visual timeline clearly shows that the evolution of the mark has been both orderly and logical, but we believe that it’s the typographic treatment of the ‘Starbucks Coffee’ name that possesses the lion’s share of the mark’s equity. In fact, if you’d asked us what was in the middle of the Starbucks logo, we’d have had to think a minute or two to come up with ‘mermaid’. If Starbucks and Lippincott did research consumers, we’d be most interested to see what they said.
Our take?
The mermaid is fine from a design perspective, but as brand and business stewards we’d have kept the Starbucks Coffee name as a formal part of the logo. Starbucks does have the resources and the ubiquitous presence to impress the mermaid indelibly in our collective psyche, but it’s the more expensive path, and we’re not sure the return will justify the investment.
***Update 01.07.11 1:00 PM***
Here’s one outsider’s explanation for the logo change.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Tal Marom Barak // Jan 6, 2011 at 10:39 am
I think this new logo might be hinting at SBUX widening their scope beyond just coffee. Interesting strategy and we’ll see how it plays out since they have attempted to do this before…
2 Mindy // Jan 6, 2011 at 10:54 am
I’ve been looking at the two most recent logos for five minutes trying to figure out why I hate the new one.
Two thoughts: The word ‘starbucks’ is somehow viscerally appealing, and I miss the text on the new logo. Further, the old logo subconsciously registers as a birds-eye view of some sort of latte art. Oh, that’s a mermaid? I never really noticed, and I didn’t care. And now I have to look at her all the time. Is is too late to call the whole thing off?
3 David // Jan 7, 2011 at 6:05 am
Marking forty years by detracting from the mark.
Forty years? Who cares? Seems to be some unnecessary noodling that fails to improve on the original. Celebrate heritage by sticking to it. Celebrate by giving something back to the customer, a free beverage perhaps which offers a good opportunity for a brand engagement in the store.
4 Markus // Mar 14, 2011 at 8:07 am
it’s like a zoom-in. the next time they do a redesign, we will just see the star above… funny.
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