As the economy crumbled around our ears in 2008, many major corporations re-branded in order to reinvent themselves and convince someone, anyone, to purchase their services or products. Over the past year we’ve seen new logos trotted out for Xerox, Anheuser-Busch, Wal-Mart and Best Buy to name but a few. Some have been successful. Others, not so much. The worst logo redesign of the year has to go the new workup for Capital One – a makeover that displayed such a lack of imagination, understanding and branding that it led us to ask WTF were they thinking? when the design was first announced.
Is the logo an improvement over the old logo (above)? No. In fact, it’s step backwards. About ten years worth of backwards, when swoosh logos were all the rage. See, here’s the thing. Financial logos are supposed to be conservative. Indicate trust and reliability. Not some dopey internet design trend that’s been done since Y2K. And a boomerang as an icon for a bank? Don’t think so. It’s not like the swoosh, as inadvisable as the addition is, was even crafted into the new design. Nope, just dumped behind the original font. With a gradient thrown in for good measure. And what’s that? A bevel too? Worst makeover of 2008.
And as we’re talking about logos redesigns, and the worst of same, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the new logo for Pepsi that, if we had a runner-up for worst logo re-design, would win hands down. In order to jack up sales in a decreasing marketplace, Pepsi Co. decided to treat their beautifully simple wave icon with a trip to the distortion filter. Ended up with a design that looks something between a smiling whale, and a drunken cartoon character. The new logo is part of a 1.2 billion (yes, billion) dollar brand shake-up.
We could go on, but as the good folks over at Under Consideration have spent the time and effort to list the best and worst logo makeovers of 2008, we’ll just send you there. They also take a look at the Pepsi (and Mountain Dew) rebrands here.
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