People Are Still Doing Double-Takes At These Terrible Redesigned Logos

Logos don’t often tell us much about a company. They tend to be broad and rather generic looking in design, and you’d often have no idea what businesses the company in question is involved in based on their logos. Yet despite that, these logos come to identify companies to us, and quite surprisingly, may even come to mean something to us, if only because they are the prime identifiers of companies that could have many different and even powerful meanings to us.

Despite the power inherent in having an iconic brand and logo, some companies reach the point where they feel a change is needed. Whether it’s simply to show a fresh face to the world, to improve upon a design that may seem outdated or archaic, or to strive to embody noteworthy changes in a company’s business endeavours or philosophy in a new logo, it’s a big deal when a company makes a move to change its look.

And these changes aren’t always cheap. Pepsico, Inc. (NYSE:PEP) reportedly spent $1 million updating its logo, though the bulk of those costs were not spend on the logo redesign itself, but on the task of updating all of the logos on its trucks, buildings, etc. Regardless, it’s a steep price to pay for a slightly updated logo (and one which wasn’t very well received).

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In this article we’ll take a look at the logo redesigns executed by five companies, which we believe are some of the worst imaginable. Not only did they spend money and possibly impair their brand loyalty, but they did so for the sake of new logos that were just plain ugly, unappealing, or nonsensical. Read on to check out the terrible redesigned logos by tronc Inc (NASDAQ:TRNC), Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ), Pandora Media Inc (NYSE:P), Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA), and Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE:COF).

After finishing the article, don’t miss the list of companies which could afford to blow a mere million on a new logo no problem, as they’re the 11 Most Profitable Companies in the World.

We’ll start with tronc Inc (NASDAQ:TRNC)‘s rebranding efforts, which are probably the worst of the bunch. It started with the company first changing its name from Tribune Publishing to tronc, in a baffling move that could only go downhill from there. That name change of course necessitated a redesigned logo, at which point the company went from having a stately logo befitting its respected publishing operations, to one that looked like it belonged on a cereal box. Horrid.

Old Logo:

New Logo:

While it doesn’t get much worse than tronc’s failure of a redesign, Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) also wasn’t pulling any punches in the race to find the bottom of the logo barrel. The company’s old logo wasn’t anything to write home about, primarily featuring a zooming Z to go with a slightly slanted name, and an inexplicable giant checkmark above the name. Instead of taking the element with at least some promise (the Z), they carried over the worst element of the old logo (the checkmark) and tacked it on at the end of the name, while straightening up the writing of the name to make it look immobile and boring. Overall, Verizon somehow failed to improve upon a logo that was already considered to be one of the worst in the world, and arguably made it even worse. That takes a special, inept touch, which is why it lands on our list.

Old Logo:

New Logo:

Next up is Pandora Media Inc (NYSE:P), whose logo redesign was largely unnecessary and a failure for the most part on top of that. The update to the name itself was not terrible, with a more striking blue color replacing the darker blue found in the original. However, the updated font and lowercase makeover is extremely generic looking. Even worse, the P logo was transformed into a giant blob that mimicked Paypal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:PYPL)’s logo transformation, from a more clearly defined P to the mere broad outline of a P (and a rather hefty P at that). The company’s branding to go along with the updated logo also hearkened back to the MTV days, making the whole thing feel like a step back into nostalgia rather than a step forward into the future.

Old Logo:

New Logo:

Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA) is another company that did a switch to lowercase branding (which is all the rage now, because punctuation is so 1995) and geometric sans font last year. This isn’t the worst of the redesigns and some people are big fans of it, but the end result of bland black lettering and an empty logo just scream half-hearted effort. It’s like they wanted to rebrand, yet were too afraid of a big change, so they got stuck doing the best they could with their existing parts. The result looks more like a tech startup’s logo than a leading financial institution’s.

Old Logo:

New Logo:

Lastly we come to Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE:COF), which added a swoosh to its logo. Not much else needs to be said really, except that the swoosh is utterly pointless, generic, and completely irrelevant to anything. It’s not like the old logo was much to behold, with its clashing colors, fonts, and uneven levels, but a swoosh? Really? …No, really?

Old Logo:

New Logo:

There you have it, the worst of the worst redesigned logos, some of which are still causing double-takes from confused or disgusted consumers. Which logo makeover was butchered the worst? Or did we miss an even more egregious affront to logo redesigns? Let us know in the comments.

Disclosure: None