Arby's has a new logo ... again

As we draw close to the end of 2013, it must be time for Arby's, the fast food purveyors of roast beef
sandwiches, to debut yet another new logo.

The 2013 version, though, at least harkens back to the original which has been around since the restaurant's inception. A few things were finally done correctly in the 2013 version of the Arby's logo. The return of a slab serif font is a welcome change. Gone, too, is the poorly conceived extruded / 3D western hat and in its place is a slightly modified (and thankfully flat) version of the original western hat. The logo again feels unified and cohesive both in its colors but also its elements. No variations in colors between elements which were a result of the wretched extruded hat. No mish-mash of styles between western and modern. Lastly, the new red used in the 2013 version of the Arby's logo is a happy middle ground between the too-dark red of the 2012 version and a rather dated and too yellow mix (seems to be 100 M/100Y) in the red of the original logo.

Gone as well is the sans serif font which, along with the poorly conceived apostrophe which was supposed to represent the blade used to slice their signature roast beef.

I could go on forever about how much better the 2013 iteration of the Arby's logo is when compared to its predecessor but I won't because there were so many shortcomings with the short-lived 2012 version. While I do not know the name of the agency which created the 2012 version, I sincerely hope that that particular agency did everything in its power to distance themselves from that logo. It looked like it was the world's most perfect example of what happens when the input of everyone is incorporated. It looked like the design team was trying to please everyone involved and ended up with a design worthy of a high school student.

The most significant restaurant chains in all 50 states in a fun map

The United States is known for food. We eat too much of it. We eat the wrong kinds of it. We eat it far too often. But when I came across a link with a handy map featuring the supposedly widely known restaurant (usually a chain) which each state is famous for I was intrigued.

How many of these restaurants had I heard of. Were there any errors or omissions? (View the PDF version here)

Minnesota is accurate. Dairy Queen, or DQ as it has been coined in recent years, is a Minnesota staple and one which I believe is nationally known. It definitely has a much more well-known name and more polished presentation that the likes of something called "Ted's" in Montana which uses the wretched Brush Script font.

The one restaurant, though, which caught my eye was in Nevada. Something simply names "PT'S". I have no idea what this likely slap in the tastebuds is. They probably serve up bland, pedestrian burgers which set themselves apart from the competition in no way. They instantly lose points and nearly all credibility of the complete mess of an apostrophe. Actually, the vertical line filling in as an apostrophe. Anoyone who has every worked in a graphic design capacity and is actually worth the wages they are being paid knows about "typographer's quotes". It's a hidden option in Adobe InDesign which allows the user to actually use proper quotes (both single and traditional) and apostrophes. The option also exists in Adobe Illustrator in a few different locations and can also be found in the glyphs window if you seek the full list of options.

Lastly, where in the hell is Hardee's in this error-ridden map*?

*I don't actually see any errors except the fact that Hardee's, once a national or at least regional force, is missing from this map.

The new Dallas Stars logo is kinda awful

It's been about two full decades since the Minnesota Northstars relocated southward and became the Dallas Stars. Since that time, their logo has remained much the same since their final years of playing at the Met Center in Bloomington where a parking lot for the Mall of America now site.

But in twenty-plus year's time, things need to change because the logo they had when they left Minnesota was not timeless. So, within a week, the NHL's Dallas Stars will debut a new logo complete with new jerseys, breezers and all of the associated fan gear which serves to pad the team's bottom line.



The colors get a solid B+. They have eliminated the gold accent color and stayed true to what is now more of a mint green coupled with silver and black.

The overall design, though, gets a C- from me. I get that chiseled text conveys a sens of strength but there are other ways to convey that sentiment. With multiple layers of stacking (white/silver, black and finally green) the namesake star element begins to lose its shape. As a designer myself, I have fought the same battles of making all of the important elements of a log instantly recognizable but there are inconsistencies in this logo the more I look at it. Portions of the black layer from the overlaid D appear to be fully behind the white/silver star layer while on three of the five points of the star have portions of the black D layer on top of the star layer. I can tell that it's done due to the italicized shape of the logo itself but stand up for better design. This dog of a logo has enough inconsistencies to truly distract me.

Overall, I give the logo a D+ because of its layer inconsistencies. It's actually a bit messy.

The worst logo ever

I did it. I took the How Low Can You Logo challenge and  incorporated elements of design which, over the course of the past 13 years, I have come to despise. Brush Script font -- in all caps to boot. Some Comic Sans in the mix to up the level of sucktitude. Bad clip art, CHECK! A pointless but moderately phallic arrow to up the ante. And last, but not least, a rainbow gradient accentuated by an excessively bold and bright (and painfully contrasty) stroke on a giant capital letter. It's the perfect logo for the customer who wants it all and has no idea what a good image is. I think I have a winner here.

The Oprah Winfrey Network logo keeps getting worse

Oprah Winfrey's cable television network has been in the works for two or three years and has missed its launch date twice but that doesn't stop the channel helmed by the reigning queen of daytime talk from approving logos which keep getting worse with each revision. It almost makes me wonder just how bad the channel will be when/if it launches. But rather than speculate, let's look at these logos.

From a pre-launch logo that seemed to be all-things Oprah including her almost instantly recongizable "O" and a classy feel with a pleasing green tone to an almost instantly outdated sans serif/rounded font in something resembling Vag Rounded in descending orange tones to the latest design abortion seen below...

At first glance many may say that this screamingly bright logo perfectly nails Oprah's larger than life personality but upon closer inspection it's borderline trash. It's a poorly conceived logo attempting to stand out and be three-dimensional. The color bands lack consistent width across the three letters. The seemingly chopped out color band's inconsistency is particularly obvious on the letter "O" -- just look at the inner-most band's upper right corner. Why is there only a thin sliver of yellow there? If it's done that way to give the illusion of dimension, it's done so poorly because that corner's poorly crafted arc is driving me fucking nuts to look at. It sickens me that someone got paid to design this and that's not me being bitter because I didn't get a crack at designing it -- I wouldn't want to even begin dealing with the endless tweaks, revisions, suggestions and demans involved with creating even something as visually appalling as this piss-poor and maybe final version of the Oprah Winfrey Network logo.

Come on Oprah, you can do better.

The evolution of Sierra Mist

I remember the first time I had a drink of Sierra Mist. For whatever reason (I suppose it was on sale) my mom arrived home from the grocery store with a two liter of this new soda. Being adventurous, I poured myself a glass of it after a proper amount of time spent chilling in the refrigerator. That first drink sealed the deal for me. I never wanted to drink that bile, tasteless shit ever again. I remember it as sludgy and syrupy. I practically yearned for Pepsi to bring back Crystal Pepsi rather than have my fellow Americans subjected to this form of punishment.

Was this some kind of elaborate joke? Did America really need a third variation of Lemon-Lime soda?

As time went on, this disgusting brand of nasty obvious gained a certain amount of market share, otherwise it would have been pulled from the shelves faster than Surge (remember that one?).

Whatever the case, Sierra Mist still exists but after looking at the logos through the soda's mere ten year history you'd quickly realize that PepsiCo would have been better off sticking with Lemon Lime Slice. Honestly, how do you expect to build brand recognition with a logo revision or outright overhaul every 30 months on average? That only works if your original product and its subsuquent alterations were straight-up shit. That's obviously the case as I'd rather drink water from my workplace's toilet than have another sip of Sierra Mist.

Oh, and if you haven't figured out what I though about the first time I drank Sierra Mist, I didn't like it very much.

Alright, move along and check out MinnPics and the stunning collection of photos from all across Minnesota - it's celebrating its second birthday today!

Pepsi vs. Coke in logos

I'm not some sort of soda junkie but I do pay attention to the logo, design and marketing trends of the "big guys". I don't really see much in the way of a true cola war because, let's face it, you aren't going to change anyone's opinion. Flavor is a subjective thing and one person's opinion isn't going to change that of another.

The logos, though, are what intrigue me. Pepsi (Pepsi-cola) has has an always evolving string of logos since their inception. Coke (Coca-Cola) on the other hand has stayed the course. Sure, Coke has changed the design of their cans by adding a sprinkling of yellow for a time but they recently went back to a simplistic red motif that harkens back to their roots. It's almost like Coke realizes that they have a deep and strong heritage and both rely and build on that. Pepsi seems to be going in the exact opposite direction. They have thrown away any shred of heritage in favor of being trendy. I personally feel that Pepsi's first few iterations of their logo were merely minor tweaks in the typography. The basic idea was still the same and those, if they had stuck with it, could have been even more iconic than Coke's unchanging logo.



The ultimate lesson here is that if it ain't broke, don't fix it and by that I can assume that Pepsi is broken.



Now that you're visually aware, visit MinnPics and see what you missed this past weekend and find out what you shouldn't miss next weekend!

Another cable TV spinoff

Cable television is easy to figure out from a programming aspect. Find a hit show, produce endless spinoffs. Bam!

It's the formula for success. Particularly at the former music channels like VH-1 and MTV. Laguna Beach begat The Hills. Hogan knows Best gave us Brooke Knows Best. Rock of Love gave us Daisy of Love (and everyone on both shows various STDs). Flavor Flav's dating shows gave us Charm School. See? It's all about the spin-off.

But what about some of the older shows? I'm thinking of Pimp My Ride from earlier this decade on MTV. It would have been a piece of cake to spin off. The possibilities of items which could be pimped are endless.

Particularly this one.

Dammit MTV, if you don't run with this one and whatever you interpret it to mean you are bigger fools than I had ever guessed.

Hint: Pimp My Wife could be about blinging out your tired, old wife or it coud be about turning your wife in to a streetwalking prostitute turning tricks for a pimp who ain't afraid to slap a ho.

Now that I've covered how to televise pimping of wives, check out the killer photos at MinnPics. If you don't I'll come up with more bad TV show ideas.

Interesting website idea #89 - all about poo

Now that I'm done with heavy topics for the day, I can get back to what's important. Poop. More specifically - websites about poop. In this era of social networking and sharing (or oversharing) everyone has a scheme in mind. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace... each has its purpose. Then there's Flickr - it does its task - sharing photos - quite well. But Twitter and Flickr are broad websites. The future is all about niche publishing/sharing.

That's why I present you with shitter.

What the world needed was a quick-share website about all things bathroom. I can see the flood of posts now.

"Just dropped off a 14 incher. It hurt. Alot."

"Flooded the crapper in stall two, penguin walked to stall three to finish"

"Caught up on magazine reading, paint began peeling."

It's the next logical step in the sharing of every moment of our lives for all the world to read. Give shitter a home and some funding to get it off the ground. It's a surefire goldmine.

While things take a decided lowbrow turn in these parts, MinnPics continues its never-ending quest for quality photos taken in Minnesota. Check it out today.

Interesting website idea #318

Everyone these days has some sort of social network. I've seen radio station do quite well with the concept then pull it due to the costs. David Hasselhoff has HoffSpace. Teens and bands seem to congregate on MySpace so the next logical step was a place for ladies.

Not just any ladies, ladies who are more, um, open sexually. No, not whores, so to speak, but sluts. You know the type. Their skirt is too short, their tube top is too tight, they have completely skipped wearing a bra and they frequently stumble in to the office wearing exactly what they were wearing yesterday with their hair looking like a family of raccoons had taken up residence in it and she smells like a combination of cheap perfume, stale cigarette smoke and guilt. Yes, the Sluttus Americanus, or slut. The slut is no different than you or I. They have social networking needs too. They need to know which guy slips roofies in drinks. They need to share scantily clad photos of themselves. They need to network with fellow sluts to find out which guys say "But baby, it just feels better without a condom".

I proudly present you with the foundation for mysluts.com. After all, what is a website without a catchy logo that looks strangely like that of another website?


MinnPics needs your attention. Check out all the purty photos that are taken all over the great state of Minnesota.

Interesting website idea #34a

Holding true to last year's summer theme of products which shouldn't have been (and thankfully aren't) I present you with company logos which are just screaming for some creative tweaking.

I'm not the first to do this to logos because I've seen some rather crude rip-offs where foreign companies change one letter and call it good. Maybe these "companies" I've created actually exist. I didn't exactly do a ton of research and feel free to take this logo and the others I have performed my own little hatchet job on and build a damn empire. Go crazy, make millions. Just remember who gave you these killer ideas.


Think of the possibilities for BoobTube. Fully clothed, topless or somewhere in between. I'm thinking a special section on this user-created video website for chest-focused mud wrestling ladies. Now BoobTube doesn't have to be an "adult" website, in fact it would have a broader appeal as a fully clothed site. BoobTube is whatever you like it to be in the end and if I have offended anyone, meh.

Remember to check out MinnPics for the latest on happenings, sites and scenes from the most kick-ass photogs in Minnesota.

New logos that annoy me

I've designed plenty of logos that I flat out will not claim as my work. I've been practically sickened by the amount of changes some customers want and angered by how poorly thought out the changes they demanded were. On the other hand, I've done work that was just crap from the get go.

I have to wonder which bucket this newest pair of abominations from PepsiCo falls in to.

Since its launch, Sierra Mist has been straight up shit. For some reason, Pepsi thought they needed a clear, citrusy soda. Well, at least they got the clear part down but the citrus side of things is strangely missing. The first time I had a drink of Sierra Mist, soon after its debut, I thought someone had slipped me a glass of carbonated toilet water. In fact, carbonated toilet water would have been an improvement. This shit lacks any citrusy undertones, overtones, dulcet tones or dial tones.

Then came their new logo.

Apparently Sierra Mist causes blurred vision. A logo is supposed to convey an image of the brand but the only image of the Sierra Mist brand I see is that you'd only drink it if you couldn't see straight. Fail.

Next up is the flagship brand from PepsiCo, Pepsi.

They have this annoying habit of totally reinventing their branding every three years and each time they do so, it looks totally trendy and in tune with the times but the old logos look terribly dated. They each fail to stand the test of time. Not to mention that their brand of cola tastes overly molasses-y and downright sludgy. The newest logo will last about three years before being reinvented, for the princely price of a few million bucks, and traded for a new uber-trendy logo. The Pepsi brand seems almost afraid of becoming iconic and would rather be trendy for a few months every few years. That's what happens when you're playing second fiddle in the cola wars.

The last logo is Butterfinger.

I don't pay lot of attention to the logos of candy bars because I'm out of the candy bar demographic. I don't have the luxury of slipping a few dozen candy bars into mom's grocery cart while waiting in the checkout line at Hy-Vee. Hell, there aren't even any Hy-Vee stores around here. However, I did drop a whopping forty cents on a Butterfinger this past weekend and became flustered when I got back to the car and opened my crispety, crunchety treat.

That fucking candy bar had not one but two logos on it. See...

Why does Nestle, who seems to own about half of the food world, feel the need to plaster their corporate logo on everything they produce? I don't care if Bin Laden Confectionary Company makes Butterfingers. If something tastes good, I'll eat it. A corporate logo on the wrapper won't sway me. In fact, it's been known to make me consider an alternative. And before you think that Nestle is alone in this, Kraft seems to be an even greater offender in this arena. The plaster their logo on every damned thing in grocery stores. It's not a carefully integrated logo, it's exactly the opposite. It's blatantly front and center and it doesn't need to be. Nestle and Kraft, I'm watching you.

If you're looking for something happy and calming, not to mention artistic, check out MinnPics. It's brimming with the greatest photos taken in Minnesota of Minnesota.

Do the evolution

No bones about it, I am all about the visuals. I am a visual learner and I am very visually stimulated (not that way you pervs). I work in a visual field and was intrigued when I stumbled on to a conversation about sports team logos (yes, during a KFAN show). The talk was of the NFL and how the New England Patriots logo was both the best and the worst logo in all of sports.

That conversation got me thinking about the evolution of the logos of our very own Minnesota teams, specifically our professional hockey teams. To briefly set up the situation, Minnesota has been the home to two professional (NHL) hockey teams. Our original team was the Minnesota Northstars who played at the Met Center in suburban Bloomington until moving to Dallas, Texas in 1993. Their former arena is today a parking lot on the north side of the Mall of America. The state's new hockey team, the Minnesota Wild, came to St. Paul in 1999 and call the Xcel Energy Center home.

The differences in the image portrayed by the teams is staggering. The original Northstars came to be in the 1960s and over the course of their 30 year existence, their image changed very little with the team's most notable logo change coming towards the very end of their Minnesota existence. While the simple "Stars" logo looks bland in comparison to many of today's aggressively styled images, it still exists today as the team skates at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.

In contrast, the Minnesota Wild's logo seems far less extreme or abstract than many of the updated logos sported by new or old NHL teams. The color scheme as well as the design elements echo the scenery of a good portion of outstate Minnesota's north woods. The pine trees depicted in the logo fill much of the land north of the metropolitan area of east-central Minnesota and the colors, while strikingly displayed on the team's alternate red-dominated jerseys, are also rather soothing with the natural tan and green colors all the while being actually complimented by the seemingly aggressive animal mascot of the team.

In short, the logo of the Minnesota Wild has followed the evolution of design that happened in less than a decade but didn't take the design to an abstract style akin to the Buffalo Sabres who nearly went bankrupt last year.

So, I can state now that while I appreciate the tried and true classic designs of days gone by I am far more appreciative of the design of the Minnesota Wild's logo. I won't go as far as to say that it's the best in all of the NHL but it's close. I am sure, though, that I'm not alone in my liking of sports logos. What logo(s) particularly trip your trigger? Have you ever seen one and thought "What the hell...?"