It seems harmless enough to take some time every so often to realign yourself based on the changes in the market. People change, their habits come and go and how they spend their money is always effected. Recently I’ve seen a lot of corporate identity refreshes. Honestly none of them seem to be doing a very good job in my opinion and I’m curious why that is.

The two most recent I came across were Walmart and Miller Coors. Neither company holds much of my interest to start with but I realize their longevity and contribution to both of their markets. My problem comes in a few forms. The first being the most important in my mind, which is the relevance of recognition to its own consumers and clients. To me, it’s quite obvious that neither of these logos have done a good job staying consistent with their placement in the each of their markets.

Walmart changed, the colorway, the typeface, changed the name to a title case structure and added a totally unnecessary sunburst icon in an attempt to be seen as a more contemporary company with “bright” ideas. I’m sure if they would have hired the bunch of hippies that make up Pentagram they would have plenty of buzz words and drawn out explanations of what the starburst means and how that color blue influences people during the recession and so on. Whatever. My problem is that the new Walmart logo looks like it should be for an investment bank like WaMu or something. I also feel they missed some great opportunities to address their fastest growing demographic, Hispanics. Shit, I think they took a leap away from addressing their original target market (boomers) and didn’t even think about trying to grab the attention of the second most important demographic, the eco-conscious young person.

Miller Coors is another story all together. Corporate identities are generally used to represent the brand and relate to the consumer or at least the product. This does neither in my opinion. It could be argued that this isn’t the intent and of course it could be said that the generic look and feel is a fair representation of a corporation that holds share in multiple businesses. With this being said I can see the reasoning behind the direction chosen but it’s hard for me to see any longevity in stripping a company of all of it’s cultural equity to prepare for the future. Pentagram takes what many might see as daring steps into reevaluating a brand and bringing it back down to earth. But more times than not, they seem to over simplify everything they touch, which of course is ok by the client as long they have some over analytical interpretation of it’s meaning to calm their curiousities.

Why does this method seem so prevalent lately? Tear it apart and leave it as a blank canvas for those who will be there to critique it in the future? Or should we all leave it alone and just get used to it? What makes more sense in this case or any other similar? Why are these refreshes turning out so poorly? I’m all spent on this for now, but let us know what you think. Give us your opinion on this trend and what you think its significance is if there is any at all.

Side Note: Sounds like Coors is moving their headquarters somewhere outside of CO. I wonder how seriously that will effect all of the CO agencies on the Coors dollar? Hmmm…

Via Brand New & Pentagram Blog

Entry Filed under: Denver, Design