Comments on: The smartest logo in the room?

By: David Airey

David Airey — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 14:10:24 +0000

Trish,

There’s little, if any, Walmart advertising here in the UK. At least I’ve not seen any yet. ASDA is the UK’s largest Walmart owned store, and as far as I know their ads don’t make reference to Walmart.

By: Roberta Seldon

Roberta Seldon — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:21:16 +0000

Trish,

I never even made the connection. Thanks for pointing that out :)

By: Trish

Trish — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:14:21 +0000

Did anyone point out that the yellow burst in the new Walmart logo is a replacement for the smiley face sun they used to use in all their advertising? My husband made the connection. Now it seems so obvious to me I can’t believe I didn’t realize it straight off.

Trish

By: David Airey

David Airey — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 09:54:51 +0000

Hi Roberta. The store-fronts aren’t set to change until later this year. It’ll be interesting to see how they go down.

By: Roberta Seldon

Roberta Seldon — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 18:21:12 +0000

You know David, I think I will have to rescind my previous comment and say that I’m actually starting to like the new Walmart logo. After seeing the commercials incorporating the new design, it’s really beginning to grow on me.

By: David Airey

David Airey — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 19:52:07 +0000

Rudy,

You’re spot on how we shouldn’t get too literal. If every financial institution was to use a monetary symbol, it would become very hard to differentiate.

By: Rudy Vaughn

Rudy Vaughn — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:26:27 +0000

Ever wonder why financial institutions don't use monetary symbols in their logos? :-) Truth in advertising? I suppose we can't get to literal, I'm just in a silly mood at the moment. Rudy Vaughn's last blog post...In the works…

By: Trish

Trish — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 01:13:00 +0000

It’s psychology. The logos are specifically for tourism. The psychology is you want to escape your predictable, ho-hum, drab, stressful, concrete, linear life. The logos not only show fun and approachability, but freedom from restraint, from self-imposed rules, from routine, even from control.

Psychology is why fast food restaurant logos have similar color, design and feel. Same for sports logos, banks, etc. Industries by accident or purpose find a trend or design that works for them and stick with it. Those that follow ‘copy-cat’ what has proven to be a working concept.

Trish

By: James Kurtz III

James Kurtz III — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 23:00:49 +0000

It’s odd that most of the logos representing the various countries are so colorful and contain “handmade” elements. Wonder what the motivation for that practice is: copy-cat? approachability? fun? You’re probably right David, “Design by Committee!” Haha.

By: David Airey

David Airey — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 07:45:23 +0000

Rafie,

No idea about the ASDA logo, but as it bears a lot of resemblence to Walmart’s previous logo, it’s certainly a possibility.

Lauren,

I think you’re right about the hand-drawn style in the country logos. They all want to be seen as artistic, fresh, colourful etc. and ‘design by committee’ is a term that comes to mind for many of these ideas.

The First Interstate bank logo reminds me of Formula 1, where the 1 is formed using negative space (similar to the I).

Trish,

We don’t hear a lot about Walmart’s working practices over here, so I was interested to read how they’ve taken a lot of hits over staff-treatment.