It’s no secret that even Starbucks, long an economic barometer of the disposable income of the United States and the greater world, has come on tough times of late, shutting 600 stores and slashing new store openings around the globe.
No wonder, then, that one of many proposed changes in store for the company is the possibility that Starbucks will roll out a new design for its 15,000 stores in 2009, creating an even stickier customer experience.
Architect Magazine recently profiles 5 teams of architects who offered up their own unique spin on the “perfect” Starbucks store atmosphere, seen here.
One firm went so far as to suggest a redesign of the iconic Starbucks logo, replacing the well known Starbucks name and mermaid image with a “txt-speak” looking *$.
Fortunately, this writer doesn’t think the world is ready for a Fortune 500 company falling for this kind of silliness.
However, with the recent makeovers of Walmart, Xerox, and AT&T (not to forget Intel, Sprint, and UPS), I predict dozens of more top names ditching their stale logos for a hipper, modern look in the next few years. Taking a glance at the Fortune 100, I present…
CB’s top picks for brand remakes by 2010:
- Hewlett-Packard
- Best Buy
- Kraft (there’s an interesting, if not predictable, modernized conceptual logo here)
- Continental Airlines
(I also think Wells Fargo, with it’s horse drawn stagecoach, is due for a remake sooner than later.)
If anyone out there wants to submit some branding ideas for any of these companies, I’d like to profile it in a future article.
Back to Starbucks…
The logo has seen several incarnations since its creation in 1971, the original brown siren based on a Norse woodcut and conjured up by branding expert Terry Heckler, which is getting another run with the temporary “retro-esque” logo seen on Starbucks cups this year.
(Note: Terry Heckler also came up with the name Cinnabon and guided two other popular restaurants in creating best-selling brands: the former St. Louis Bread Company (known today as Panera Bread) and Z-Teca Mexican Grill (now called Qdoba).
Doug Fast, the designer responsible for the green Starbucks logo, provides a glimpse into the transition and sheds some light on the history of the logo we know today.
I am the guy who designed the green SBUX logo. The original brown SBUX logo was designed in 1971 by my employer before I started working for him in January 1974. ( I still work there as a designer) The design company was then called Heckler/ Bowker, here in Seattle. Bowker (the company copy writer) was one of the three original founders of SBUX and left Heckler/ Bowker in 1984 to take on SBUX full time. (there were 5-6 stores at that time) The other two founders were; Jerry Baldwin and Zev Siegal. Heckler/Bowker came up with the Starbucks name and Heckler came up with the first (brown) logo. The other name strongly suggested was Pequod, but lost out to Starbucks.
I did the green “full siren” logo with a stronger, simpler, read for reproduction. The SBUX type was HAND DRAWN and based on the typeface, Franklin Gothic (this was pre-computer, folks) and had to be drawn so it bent well, around the circle. We submitted the logo to Howard, one with a red color and one in a green color. He picked the green color option.
I still have most of the original concept work for the creation of this logo in one of my big sketchbooks. To me at the time, it was just another logo job to do. Who would have thought I’d be sick of seeing it all over the place. It isn’t one of my best logos.
More Starbucks trivia:
The original Starbucks store was actually not in the Seattle Public Market but at the corner of Western Avenue & Virginia, just north, across the street from the Public Market.
The first retail Starbucks espresso café was originally called Il Giornale and was started by Howard Schultz. Only one existed. When the two remaining original owners of Starbucks decided to get out of the business, Howard stepped up and bought the company. Il Giornale was reverted back to Starbucks as the company went national.
The current logo has been in use since 1992.
The mermaid has resurfaced in other forms in recent years…
On signage:
Plastic stirrers:
Coffee bags:
