{"id":7021,"date":"2020-02-05T15:20:33","date_gmt":"2020-02-05T20:20:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ceros.com\/inspire\/?p=7021"},"modified":"2021-04-21T10:53:07","modified_gmt":"2021-04-21T14:53:07","slug":"failed-rebrands-bad-logos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ceros.com\/inspire\/originals\/failed-rebrands-bad-logos\/","title":{"rendered":"When Bad Logos Happen to Good Brands"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 6<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>\n

A logo<\/a> can make or break a brand. It\u2019s the most public aspect of a company\u2014the first thing a customer engages with and, hopefully, comes to trust. That\u2019s why a bad logo can have a big impact on a company\u2019s bottom line, and not just because they often pay top dollar for a disastrous rebranding. Here, we look at some of the biggest failed rebrands of the last few years. This is what happened to companies whose new visual identities went horribly awry, and here’s what we can all learn from their design mistakes.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tropicana<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 2009, Tropicana briefly ditched its emblematic orange and colorful straw for a tall, boring glass of OJ. The new packaging was conceived by the agency Arnell, replete with an awkward slogan\u2014\u201cSqueeze, it\u2019s a natural<\/a>\u201d\u2014for a sum of $35 million. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tropicana’s 2009 rebrand, ditched after only two months.
Source: <\/em>The Branding Journal<\/em><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Sure, the new carton was sleek, but it was also disorientingly unrecognizable. The eye is trained to spot familiarity as you reach into that fridge at the grocery store, and this just didn\u2019t ring any bells for customers. The Tropicana wordmark was moved to a vertical axis, making it, among other things, just difficult to read. So customers weren\u2019t buying it, and as a result, the company\u2019s sales dropped nearly 20%\u2014about $30 million in losses. After two months, Tropicana put the old design back on the shelves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Gap <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 2010, the Gap tried to rehabilitate its classic corporate identity, but ended up offending its customer base to such an extent that the brand was disgraced. The company replaced its classic white serif wordmark with a simple Helvetica, next to an accompanying blue square icon with a gradient. The public response was swift<\/a> and vicious<\/a>\u2014suffice to say, the new logo was not well-received. The company<\/a> reverted to a version of the old logo<\/a> within a week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Left: Gap’s original logo. Right: its failed rebrand that lasted under a week.
Source: The Guardian<\/a> <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The updated version<\/a> of the tried-and-true Gap logo had one slight change to it: The crossbars on the G, A, and P were all made uniform. And the blue backdrop became a slightly darker shade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Once the initial rebrand failed, Gap made a few slight modifications to its original logo.
Source: <\/em>CBS News<\/em><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In hindsight, the offending logo, designed by New York\u2019s Laird and Partners<\/a>, looks like it would fit right into the tech trend of the bold san-serif that\u2019s been popular in recent years\u2014just take Google<\/a>, Facebook<\/a>, and Pinterest\u2019s<\/a> generic redesigns of the past decade as proof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EVERYBODY FALL IN LINE! pic.twitter.com\/B9JU5nvpMu<\/a><\/p>— OH no Type Co (@OHnoTypeCo) February 13, 2018<\/a><\/blockquote>