Lee, Capital One Bank
While my colleagues laud the aesthetic and symbolic effectiveness of their favorite logos, I wanted to use this forum to express my distaste, nay, unbridled rage, for what I consider to be the worst logo in the history of logos: Capital One Bank, aka “Cruddy Fonts + High School Corel Draw Swoop Bank.”
AUUUUGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
First, the cruddy fonts. Neither the blocky sans serif font nor the italic Times font on its own is particularly offensive, but put together, they constitute an absolute trainwreck. The heavy-light-heavy jump kills the continuity of the name, which is already weak to begin with.
Capital. Ok, banks are supposed to have capital, and given the insolvency of most major national banks these days, maybe it’s a good thing that “Capital” is in the name, and maybe it’s ok to put it in a chunky, 90′s-esque sans serif font to give it some heft. This bank as a lot of capital. I’m with it so far.
One. We’ve gone from heavy to light, nay, virtually weightless in the space of one word. This is the way you write “one” in the context of things you want to feel airy and ephemeral:
Just one calorie!
Just one minute for a light and tasteless snack!
Just one easy step to making your own crystal meth!
None of these sentiments are things you want to communicate to customers about a bank. Banks are supposed to convey stability, security, and largess, not “One calorie light yogurt” airiness and insubstantiality.
By the time we get back to the chunky, heavy “Bank,” it’s already too late. I’ve been thrown way too far off course to come back now.
But let’s pretend for the moment that this slight of hand worked and that I like the feeling of a solid, stable bank being chopped in the middle by an ephemeral piece of fabric softener. What’s this? A SWOOP? A LOPSIDED SWOOP with a CHEESY RED GRADIENT?
The swoop. Where do I begin? I could start with how it looks like a high school student just discovered the gradient tool and applies it indiscriminately to make things look “cool.” But even worse than the awful gradient fill is the whole damn shape. The dark red smudge at the bottom of the swoop awkwardly makes the swoop the only 3-D object in the logo. Two sharp points at the ends of the swoop seem to menacingly threaten to stab anything that comes close while also creating a gaping area of empty white space between the swoop and the words. A killing field for good taste.
Worst. Logo. Ever. ‘Nuff said.
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Good symbols should not be bastardizable (that a word?). The Christian cross is to simple. It has been tweaked, perverted, adorned or otherwise adapted to the subdivision of Christianity.
The Red Cross gets major points for universality and it will likely win because it is most recognizable versus best all around.
American Apparell is just ripping off the Gap from the 80′s(? – egads was it that long ago). Sun has a good logo, just like Nabisco and Nike, but it’s just good.
Which leaves Starbucks. The damn thing is so unique, ubiquitious, and uniformly represented that it beats the Red Cross. Sure, we associate the Red Cross with video game powerups. Did you know that they are in charge of getting messages to military members on the front lines? Did you know that they shot into fame by helping out at the Jamestown flood, by bringing both supplies and a PR crew. They do blood drives, they do so many things that people don’t think about instantly.
Green Mermaid lady -> instantly we think ofcoffee, wifi, music, done.
I wish I knew you folks were actually writing up the worst logo, because I would have chimed in. The worst logo is clearly the universal radiation warning sign. It is, in fact, so ineffective a logo (from certain angles it looks like an angel), that the U.S. Department of Energy and the EPA spent years trying to replace it with something that better signified, “Stay away from this shit! It will melt your eyes!”
Check it: http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=160
I’ve been a big fan of the Sun logo for years, for precisely the reasons mentioned. The argument for the Red Cross was compelling, though.
@Wrather: I know Starbuck is from Moby Dick, but I didn’t remember that he had a coffee fixation. Incidentally, the Starbucks people were originally planning on calling their store either Pequod or Moby’s Coffee, depending on which account you read. I do like the fact that, thanks to the ubiquity of Starbucks coffee, all three mates in Moby Dick are now named after chemical dependencies (the other two being Stubb (i.e. of a cigar) and Flask (i.e. of hooch.)
@Mlawski: You’re totally right. Now, the international biohazard symbol, on the other hand – you know, the one they put on medical waste and the like – that one looks like it would slice you up reeaal good, just for making eye contact.
What about the Jesus Fish, then?
I would have voted for SBux, but apparently I missed the deadline. Where are the results?
My vote goes for Christianity’s Cross. The Red Cross was close, though, The Jesus Fish is a symbol, and thus lacks the power that puts the crucifixion’s cross at the top.
Sun Microsystems strange shapes actually looks like S’s, but are also obviously U’s and N’s. Holy Crap!