This past week Starbucks changed their logo and it generated a fair share on buzz. Here it is in all it's glorious greenness:
When I caught the news of the change I was about to get on a flight to Denver and didn't think much about what it meant. Quite frankly I would have liked if they had kept the ring of words and gotten rid of the mermaid, but those are just my writer sensibilities talking.
The importance of the logo change didn't hit me until my friend and I were driving to Fort Collins and a car with this logo drove past:
In my excitement i blurted out, "that's a Crispin suburban!" My friend is in law school and was naturally confused. I explained what Crispin is and he replied, "that's nice," and went back to focusing on the road.Get used to that.At that moment something in my brain clicked and I got why this logo and the new Starbucks logos are so special. It's because a single glance at them makes a person immediately identify who the company is. Not a single character of text is needed - a slightly unsettling thought for a copywriter.There are few brands that can claim this about their logos. The ones that came to my mind are those I already mentioned, Nike, Apple, McDonalds, Target and a handful of car companies.That's a pretty exclusive list, it's like the VIP room for Club Brand and every single company is trying to get in.It also helped me understand the challenge that art directors have. My artistic skills are better than a lot of people, but it pains me to think of creating a single image to sum up an entire brand. So if you're on the fence about being a copywriter or art director (and some people can do both) run yourself through an exercise like this. If you can sum up a brand in a single image that's awesome. Be an art director because that's something really special. If you can sum up the feeling of a brand in words but can't figure out that one image be a writer. It's fun and you could even have a blog like this.
Either way it's a great feeling to pin down which side of creative you want to be on. After that it's just all about churning out great work.
p.s. Angela Natividad wrote an awesome post about the symbolic meaning of the Starbucks logo change while I was composing this piece. You should check it out.