Walmart’s New Logo
As many people have noticed, the super massive discount chain Wal Mart has changed their logo/website/image. Losing the star that hyphenated the two words, they seem to be taking on a new more, dare I say “youthful”, appearance.
Walmart hasn’t actually done anything to change their logo (other than make the hyphen a star in 1991) since the early 80’s. After 19 years of the same standard blue logo that most people recognize, it is nice to see something new come from the seemingly uncreative world of Walmart. They’ve chosen a very friendly color within the range of the old logo’s solid blue, but this time unhypenated the name and added a decorative starburst at the end. My first opinion of this logo was “wow…. that looks like a great logo for a flower/garden center” and I am sticking with it.
The care taken in picking a rounded edged san-serif font to battle the old and iconic mechanical and sharp san-serif font makes sense in the terms of changing the image of the company. The starburst on the other hand is visually insulting and is completely unnecessary. It hardly even resembles the star that they previously were using. Because of this, my feelings on the logo and Walmart’s effort to change their public appearance is mixed at best.
I ultimately think they are doing the right thing, but I hate the way they are doing it. Walmart is widely known for its criticisms and bland visual appearance. It is more of a visual contradiction to the quality of the stores they have, now making it an issue of giving a false impression. Walmart should have spent the time making the actual store locations look nicer first. Instead it feels like they are attempting to lure new business in with an exciting logo and the shopping experience equivalent of a creepy construction worker’s van.
If I was to critique this logo design in class, I would advise the student to spend more time on the project. If this is the best they can do its not going to be an attempt of much merit. Instead it feels like someone looked at popular colors of Web 2.0 companies and had done no research on the client what-so-ever. Visually it is disappointing and feels contrived. Walmart you get a B-/C+, next week I want you to bring in three revisions to class, you need to spend more time on your work.
