New Starbucks Logo Proves: This Company Likes Ordinary Folk

A company's fate can rise, or fall, on a new look, and when Starbucks last year revamped the logo for its Seattle's Best brand, the general opinion was: fall (or "fail," if you lolz in social media-speak). It may have done a spell better with its new concept for the flagship siren logo, unveiled Wednesday afternoon to "a cheering crowd of employees" who had gathered at the company's Seattle headquarters, and on a webcast. The new logo is all mermaid, all the time: an iconic look without text or border, using the "same vibrant green" and circular shape of the iteration adopted in 1992 (and still in use on cups today).

Opinions are certainly mixed, but the design-conscious coffee drinkers and foodies whose opinions I value thought it was, variously, "I love it... [it] goes beyond language," and "nice move, good timing for the brand." On the Starbucks web site, comments were generally not so appreciative, with most tending toward "HATE the new logo" and "I will probably be embarrassed to carry around such an obnoxious logo on my coffee cups." The crowd of mostly Starbucks-partners at Starbucks Gossip were generally negative; their comments can be summed up by frappuccinist's:"overthought postmodernist crap."

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