Thursday, October 16, 2008

Best Buy's New Understated Logo?

Yes, Best Buy seems to have jumped on the bandwagon of updating its logo to be cleaner and more modern. Similar to my post a few months ago about Walmart's new logo design, I can't say I'm a huge fan. They seem to have the same branding advisors as Walmart. Especially when the two logo shifts are eerily similar and only a few months apart. Can we now expect all brands to go mostly text with a little icon at the end? Is UPS going to downgrade it's shield to an afterthought like Best Buy's price tag is?

Granted, the price tag is a pretty lame visual conceptually, but its shape and bright yellow had equity. My biggest issue is that in the name of becoming 'clean' and 'modern' Best Buy has made their logo feel more generic. I was not a fan of their old font, old color or even the old shape, but I don't think this new logo is serving the brand very well either. It's lost most of it's visual equity in the transition. I agree it's cleaner and part of me definitely likes the new price tag, but as a whole it just feels so generic. I can't help but think there was something in between. The old font was terrible, so the new one is an upgrade, but wasn't there a way to do that without taking the whole logo as far away from the original as they have? What do you think?

Also check out Under Consideration's Brand New for further critique and a peek at their new store signage.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The old logo had an indescribable kitschy retro charm that worked well within the context of the overall store layouts. A radical redesign seems to unnecessarily put that charm into play.

Unknown said...

The best buy logo is looking simple, but unquestionably attractive too.

Aslay Sin said...

hi great tutorial just what i was looking for. i will be giving it a try but i was wondering what the image size should be to fit well in the space.. thanks! logo design