Bad Logos Shouldn't Work, Yet They Do. The Difference Between Design and Business
Graphic designers love logos.
We obsess over them.
We celebrate them.
We tear them apart.
And nobody loves judging logos more than designers.
But here's the thing...Some of the world's most successful brands have logos designers absolutely hate.
Nike.
Google.
Mastercard.
Calendly.
And somehow, they're doing just fine.
In this episode of The Angry Designer, we unpack why some "bad" logos continue to succeed, why businesses measure logo success differently than designers do, and why the world's best designers spend far less time obsessing over execution than most creatives realize.
You'll learn:
• Why ugly logos can still be wildly effective
• How businesses actually measure branding success
• The difference between small and big designer thinking
Because maybe the question isn't "Is this a good logo?"
Maybe the better question is "Why does it work?"
Stay Angry our Friends
–––––––––––
Join Anger Management for Designers Newsletter at https://tinyurl.com/mr4bb4j3
Want to see more?
See uncut episodes on our YouTube channel at youtube.com/theangrydesigner
Read our blog posts on our website TheAngryDesigner.com
Join in the conversation on our Instagram Instagram.com/TheAngryDesignerPodcast
1 SPEAKER_01: A few years ago, we created a whole damn episode
about how much I hated the Calendly logo.
Okay.
I think we said it looked like a toilet scene.
It looked like uh, you know, feminine products.
And I still don't really care for that logo, but it's a three
billion dollar company now.
What is that sexy book for you guys?
I am holding a crazy sexy book.
We we are not drinking today because instead of drinking, we
have an incredible book that has been gifted to us by the one and
only Mr.
Bill Gardner.
This is his new work.
So if anybody knows who Bill Gardner is, or maybe they don't,
but let me let me tell you, um, everybody's heard of the logo
lounge books.
Okay, and this has been like 15, 16 years now, right?
These are the books that are basically like the real life
version of of like all these these logo websites that
everybody goes and collects and looks through and obsesses over.
And he has, you know, literally created just just just it's just
such an iconic book series.
Well, now he's gone one step further and he's created the
logo lounge guide to iconic branding.
Okay, and I'm talking this is sexy.
Like it's got the matte black cover.
I love on the cover, it's actually like die-cut holes,
guys.
I think I wish you could see this with icons underneath,
right?
And the cool thing is he's got this, this, this, he's got this
whole saying trend casting or logos that last, which I mean,
he's really embraced this whole trend casting for logos.
And um, and I mean, again, the book is just beautiful, but
unlike his other books, his other books are really heavy,
you know, logos, why it's and you know, it's almost like a
logo dirty porn book, you know, and you're just like great logo
after great logo, you know.
This one goes into some real good, you know, like it's it
feels like it's bigger than just a logo guy, yeah, you know, or
what you know the hot logos are for the past year, right?
Because we've we've known many people who've had their their
logos actually make his books, which is really cool.
But this one is like it asks why some brands become iconic, you
know, and why some brand marks, you know, become like legendary
while other ones kind of disappear, right?
And again, it's got some neat things in here, like it talks
about logo lifespan and then crazy logo evolution models,
like just neat ideas that I was like, well, that's actually kind
of a really cool way of thinking about it, right?
Yeah, but the thing is, it's just like the thing I loved
about this is it really kind of made me think how you know, very
few marks are just born.
Okay, they kind of evolved over time.
It's like, you know, the most iconic logos that we know, you
know, and love, right?
Nike, Apple, McDonald's, right?
Everybody recognized these things, but they weren't just
born like this.
Okay, they didn't just come out and there they were, right?
Nope.
They didn't make the companies iconic, okay?
It's the companies that made these marks iconic, which really
kind of messed with me for a little bit.
Because I think we all kind of know that.
Yes, but as designers, I don't know how much we believe that.
Ooh.
Okay, and that's the funny thing, or at least our actions
aren't like because okay, if there's one thing, okay, I can
say about designers, okay, is that nobody in the world loves
logos more than designers.
This is true.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
Also, I'm gonna say, I I I bet I know what the flip is of this.
SPEAKER_01: And nobody in the world hates logos as much as
designers.
What is wrong with us?
We love to love on logos.
True.
We even more love to hate.
I know it's insane, dude.
Right?
Like, I mean, again, it just you get a sniff of like a new logo
out on Reddit, and the whole community just goes nuts.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, and it's a pylon, too.
Holy shit.
Execution.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly, exactly.
It's it's fucking I honestly, I I I think it's great because I
think every designer genuinely believes that they're the one,
they're the designer who had the solution to fix that gap logo.
Oh, you know, absolutely that gap fiasco.
Just give it to me, I'd do 10 times better than that.
I could have done a logo ten times better than that.
I still think it's a Pierre Stone, but regardless, right?
It's like, you know, when there's an opportunity,
designers become experts on, you know, judging logos and they
will just chime in about everything.
And I don't know how often it's warranted, right?
Because again, it just it ever everybody knows how they would
have done it better.
Yes.
Okay, but very few people actually dig into you know, even
anything behind that.
It's always very thin and superficial.
Right.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm guilty of it.
I I'll I'll see a logo and look, it'll look if it looks shitty.
I'm you know, I'm I'm gonna say and I'm gonna point out what the
the parts I don't like.
Right?
But I don't know what what happened in behind the scenes.
SPEAKER_01: And and why, right?
But again, you know, as a designer, we we own the opinion.
We reserve the right to comment on this shit, right?
Yes, because we all know how we could have done it better,
right?
But the thing is, you know, and this so with that being said,
okay, and okay, this is something, you know, this isn't
a no guff, this is a no guff type situation.
No guff.
But where I'm going with this is we hate on these logos all the
time, and we we're we're so quick to say how how how how bad
they are.
Yet these companies who make these changes to the logos are
still wildly successful years later.
Yes.
Okay, like let's face it, okay.
A few years ago, we went, we created a whole damn episode,
okay, about how much I hated the Calendly logo.
Okay.
I think we said it looked like a toilet seat.
Yes.
It looked like uh, you know, feminine products, right?
Like there was a lot of weird shit about, and I still don't
really care for that logo.
No.
Okay.
I think it I think it it did a horrible job to the to the
product itself, but it's a fucking three billion dollar
company now.
This is true.
Boy, I got that.
But I mean, ultimately, my opinion didn't matter, right?
Right?
It really didn't.
And you know, this logo, in my opinion, is a very ugly logo,
but it's still wildly successful for the company.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, you know, it's crazy to think that like ugly logos
actually succeed.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this is that's the thing.
And and Pfizer, I'm thinking of too, right?
That they did all right.
They're still doing all right, right.
Their rebrand.
I don't really care for that logo very much.
But Google, Google done.
SPEAKER_01: Right, it's just letters, a bad word mark.
Yeah.
Okay.
And everybody seems everything from the kerning to the colors
to this to that.
Yeah.
I don't think Google cares.
And I don't think it's affecting anything on there.
Remember that that was it, the MasterCard logo?
I actually didn't mind that.
You know, the two colors.
Remember they they simplified it, they dropped the word
MasterCard, and then they made the the two circles kind of
merge.
And I kind of thought that was kind of cool.
That's interesting.
But man, the whole world hated on them.
Man, they're consistently, you know, killing problem quarter
after quarter.
They're just winning, right?
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
Exactly.
SPEAKER_01: So again, it's like, you know, it makes you wonder,
you know, how valid whatever it is, you know, our opinions are
when it comes to this, especially if we are supposed to
be experts in our field.
Interesting.
And that's the scary thing to think about.
It really is.
Yikes.
Right?
Yeah, then it makes me, you know, question like, you know,
how do you actually define if a logo is actually successful?
Right?
Like if if if we create a logo that designers love, okay, but I
mean it's forgettable for the company, okay, and the company
actually sucks, is the logo successful?
Although, and I think that's that's the the the the conundrum
here.
Okay, because I think what's happening is what how designers
qualify if a logo is successful is very different than how
businesses define how a logo is successful.
And I think, you know, after going through this, this is I
think this is the huge you know headbutting that we're
constantly getting.
Because I think this this can clarify a lot of shit for us,
right?
Because again, it would definitely explain why a lot of
really ugly logos still belong to successful companies, right?
Because I do think that, you know, the metrics are completely
different than what they're looking at.
Okay.
And the definitions of success for the you know, designers
versus companies, you know, are are clear as day.
I went through some of these, right?
So again, you know, designers and businesses, they measure
they do measure success differently, right?
Because designers measure success a logo success as, you
know, if it's original, if it's creative, right, if it's clever,
you know, some might, you know, say, well, if it's trending or
if it's, you know, um, you know, gone or or passe, right?
You know, this is how some designers are measuring success,
where companies really don't give a shit about a lot of those
things, right?
Because a company's looking at the completely different,
they're measuring success.
You know, is it you know recognizable?
Will customers remember it?
Okay.
Does it, you know, will it adopt, you know, our our whole
brand ethos?
Okay.
So I mean, again, you know, will it grow with a company, right?
Like companies measure logos in a completely different way than
we would.
Yes.
Okay.
So that's one thing, right?
Um familiarity.
You know, that beats cleverness.
Yes, yes, okay.
So again, designers will look at a new logo mark, right?
And if it's clever, if if it has hidden meaning, if it if it uses
negative space, you know, in a clever way, like the FedEx,
right?
Well, we applaud it.
Yeah.
Okay, we're thinking great, right?
All over that.
But, you know, and again, the thing is, customers, on the
other hand, they would rather they prefer recognition, okay,
versus cleverness.
Okay.
They're not analyzing the shit out of these marks like we are.
Right.
Customers will look at a mark and they'll be like, yeah, I get
it.
I like it.
Or, huh?
Okay, and they move on.
That's it.
They won't give it more than three, four seconds, and that's
it.
But they're looking for this consistent recognition over and
over.
And again, so that's a completely different way to
measure those two, right?
So this whole familiarity versus cleverness, right?
Um, another time is obviously, you know, I've got here
businesses create the meaning of a logo.
Okay.
So logos, you know, they're never born.
Right.
Okay.
They're not born in a company, right?
But over time, companies like Nike and Apple, right, they
develop with the meaning behind that logo, right?
And that is completely different.
So, you know, the symbol might actually come first at the
beginning, okay?
But the meaning of that symbol comes over time, which is why a
lot of times companies will have a really ugly logo and you'll
hate it.
But a few years later, when the company does great work and
maybe the product's good, eh, it might not bother you as much.
Well, yeah.
SPEAKER_02: And in fact, I think it would improve it.
Like Nike is a great example.
Exactly.
Because you put it on a shoe, you get that familiar
familiarity already you talk about.
Yeah, yeah.
And that, you know, that creates that, that makes that logo put
puts it into legendary territory, right?
Yeah.
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: And then the the athletes behind it, all the
billions of dollars of brand dollars.
Because if you look at it, it's a it's a kind of a weird, like,
what does it it is just a little, it's a sweet.
It's just a sweet, right?
And I mean, now you can look into it and be like, oh, it's
athleticism, the arches of motion and everything.
SPEAKER_02: It's got everything.
SPEAKER_01: And really, it was just like, oh it was actually
originally designed to be upside down, but by accident, when I
just hashed it across the desk.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_01: I know, I know.
It's funny.
It's over time.
Yes, you know, that ugly logo can develop that that
familiarity, that that love, that passion behind it, right?
Right, right.
So again, you know, so the business can create the meaning.
Yes.
And that's how an ugly logo can survive.
Um, you know, uh, a big one, hey, guess what?
Designers might not actually be the freaking audience for that
logo.
What?
What?
So again, let's face it, you know, the the the the bass logo
that you see on the hats everywhere right there is not
exactly the coolest logo.
No, but the enthusiast market, they love that freaking it is
iconic.
It speaks to them, okay?
It is to the point where it's trendy and rappers wear that
dip.
Okay.
So again, it's like the logos out there that we might not
think are very cool aren't really there to impress
designers.
Right.
They're there to impress the customers, to reach out to the
customers.
So we're not the freaking market.
Right.
Okay, so that's why, in our opinion, even though it's
luggage ugly, it wasn't designed for me in the first place.
So it doesn't mean it's not successful.
Yeah, it just means it wasn't for me.
Right.
Okay.
And ultimately, great businesses can carry a mediocre logo.
There we go.
Okay, and this one's this one's it's it's horrible, right?
But again, you know, if a company has a great logo, but
it's got shitty service, it's got shitty products, right?
Well, that logo's not gonna save that in any way, shape, or form,
right?
But you know, if a company has a really shitty logo, but your
first experience with that company is awesome, you give it
five stars, they follow up, the product is good.
Man, you're not gonna give a shit.
That company will survive.
We've had so many customers with shit, crap, we still have some
successful customers with horrendous logos.
Yes.
And you know, it's like, we dare not try to fix this because
obviously they know something that we don't, and they're
wildly successful with a horrible logo.
And I don't know if it's because it resonates or if it's just
voodoo magic, whatever it is, we dare not touch it because it's
working for them, right?
So again, there's so many factors to consider, you know,
when you know why a logo is successful for a company.
And in that case, you know, it's probably all those touch points
that a company has with that end user.
Yeah, I think designers forget that logos are part of the
system, right?
But they're not the whole system, the whole thing.
It's not be all and end all.
Yes, exactly.
Right?
It's not, and that's and that's a scary thing.
That's something that that kind of shakes us, right?
It hurts us.
It does us.
Exactly.
Well, because again, this, I mean, again, because for us,
logos are like they're just fun to watch.
There are comic books, they're Saturday morning cartoons,
right?
They're fun to flip through, and you know, on so many levels, you
know, we love this stuff.
They're the probably arguably two the most fun to work on.
Oh right?
SPEAKER_02: That end solution part is yes, yes, that's yeah,
that's the thing.
But I mean, there's more meat in the in the rest of it, in what's
behind the logo.
SPEAKER_01: Well, and that's and that's the thing, right?
Um, you know, so designers, and this is the part that I don't
think anybody wants to admit.
I think we all know it, but nobody wants to admit to this,
okay?
We cry that, you know, we want to be respected, we want to be
viewed as experts, we want to be brought to the table sooner and
included in strategy meetings.
Yes.
But, okay, very few designers will take accountability for any
sort of business advice, success.
We don't want any responsibility for, you know, anything that
goes wrong.
No, no, no.
We're like a freaking teenager, okay?
We we want all the credit, but we don't want to have to do any
of the work to get to that credit.
So it's the same thing, right?
Like, I mean, you can't sit there and say that you want to
be treated like an expert and charge more and and get bigger
projects, but yet, you know, be like, well, the res the results
aren't my responsibility.
You know, you know your client, you know your target market.
Yeah.
Like as though you're you're just brought in as a prima donna
to just put the icing on top of that.
You know, we obsess over that 5% execution model.
But the thing is, nobody wants to understand or or or or step
up and work on the 95% that nobody ever sees.
Exactly.
Right?
And I think that's that's the opportunity that most designers
are missing right now, okay?
Which is why I think the field in the future is gonna start
getting thinner and thinner and people are gonna die off, right?
Because again, you know, the the designers who are making the
biggest impact in the world, working with the biggest
companies, the gang over at freaking pentagram, right?
They're not talking about fonts and colors and weights and
current and shit like that.
They're they're they're digging, you know, the business behind
it, they're looking at the positioning, the products.
You know, where do you want to take this?
What does your future look like?
Yeah, you know, we see the the the Paula Shore example.
Oh, she got a million dollars for the city bank local.
There was a lot more to that than just her little scribble.
Exactly.
Um Michael Beirut, I wrote this down.
Okay, he said identity design is about solving the communication
problems, not making pretty symbols.
Ah, Michael Beirut.
There we go.
I mean, that's he's the expert, right?
He's the king.
Yes.
Okay, and the shit that he does, uh the reason why I love
watching a lot of his videos is because he doesn't just show his
icon, he shows how he got to that mark.
He talks about the company behind it, their attempts, their
successes, their failures.
And I mean, again, he's right here talking about exactly that
about what we're supposed to be doing, isn't just that last five
percent.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, so but again, nobody thinks about that.
It's true.
He's thinking bigger.
Yeah.
The way I'm thinking about this is there's small designer
thinking, and then there's big designer thinking.
Okay.
And and in all in all fairness, I think small designer thinking,
okay, is being the you know, judging just based on colors,
the looks, the font that they use, the the you know, the the
kerning and all the stuff that is very aesthetic, right?
But it's also very thin, okay?
Oh, how would I have done that?
I would have done it different by doing this.
What would I have changed?
You know, like is it unique?
Is it clever?
Oh, could could they have found negative space opportunities?
This is, you know, small designer thinking.
Right, right.
Okay.
Big designer thinking, on the other hand, right?
They first and foremost obsess over the bigger brand messaging.
They're digging in, they're looking into the differentiators
between, you know, this company versus your competition, right?
What are the outliers?
What are your strengths?
What are the problems that we're trying to solve, right?
And then they're wondering, you know, not, oh, I would change
the logos or or I would change that.
It's why did they change the logo?
Okay.
Did did their market change?
Did their business change?
Okay.
They're trying to understand the why before understanding what
the execution was, right?
SPEAKER_03: Right.
SPEAKER_01: It's like with that whole Uncle Cracker thing that
we saw, right?
Again, a lot of people hated on it right away.
Right.
Just because all they saw was was just the um the mark.
They got rid of Uncle Herschel, right?
Right.
And again, we saw that, we discussed it, right?
Yeah.
I didn't care about the execution.
And I wasn't upset about the execution.
I think the whole time, we we had a full episode on our
opinion on this.
I think the whole time about that episode, we didn't bitch
about, you know, oh, it's so simple, it's blended, and this
that we bitched because they lost the brand, Mark.
They lost, they weren't thinking about their end user.
Okay.
They simplified it to the point.
Right.
I didn't care about the design.
I didn't care if they put it in uh something that looked like a
barrel.
They got rid of the soul, the brand, the positioning behind
the logo.
Right, right.
That was the upsetting part.
And that was the part that we were trying to understand.
Yes.
And I think that's why so many people got upset.
Yeah.
Not because they just removed a character and made the logo
modern, but because what they were trying to do is they they
basically pissed all over what they what they were, yes.
What they were and trying to attract somebody new while
neglecting who they currently had.
SPEAKER_02: But I understand the reasoning behind that because
somebody somewhere is like, we need variations, like the Disney
logo, right?
Yep.
We need we need to make this small.
And and you're not going to make Uncle Cracker or whatever his
name is smaller or Uncle Herschel, yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
So I I I understand the company perspective of why you would
want to change something like this.
Because the times are different than what, you know, going into
a newspaper ad.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean again, but then thinking in in that
way, you know, like the Disney logo, right?
What's more iconic, the D.
Right.
Or is it the castle?
Okay.
If they wanted to bring down the cracker barrel logo so it fits
on a digital purpose, that's fine.
Yeah.
But on a whole, you don't have to get rid of Uncle Herschel on
the side of the building where the sign is.
Exactly.
And again, that's the whole point of you know, the
importance of a responsive logo.
Right.
But you can't, you know, d cut out what what your core market
identified with and who and had the most, the biggest, you know,
brand market, the the biggest brand representation of your
whole company.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that's the difference.
Um because a lot of people just went in and said, oh, uh, the
old one was old, outdated, it was time for a refresh.
But the ones who actually really dug deep, they didn't care about
the refresh.
They they were more worried about the reasoning behind the
refresh.
Right.
And that's where the flaws were.
Right.
Right.
So again, I think the real shift here, okay, that that I think
what we're talking about is we're not saying that um, you
know, to stop caring about logos.
No, no, no.
Because that's not what this is in, right?
This this absolutely isn't, you know, it's it's it's just I
think the idea here is to try to stop treating the logo like
it's, you know, the end all.
Yes.
Like it's the only part, okay.
Where in fact it's just the end of the story.
Right.
Okay.
It is like that exact.
It's not the entire story.
No.
It's just the end.
It's that like we said, it's that last five percent.
They don't exist in isolation.
Okay.
Logos, they're part of a bigger system.
Yes.
Okay, so it's funny when we do go in and critique, which we do,
right?
We're only critiquing on the one little point.
One thing, exactly.
Where, you know, I think the opportunity for Designers, okay,
is to take a step back and take a look at the bigger picture
when doing this greetings.
We absolutely have the right as designers to have a personal
preference to the style that they use, the colors they chose.
Yeah.
But it's to our benefit, to our advantage, to actually try to
understand the reasoning why they got there.
That's the key.
SPEAKER_02: That you know, that's the thing, is what we're
looking at is is tiny little thing.
There's a million little things.
Tiny little thing that may there might be some flaws in it.
You could you could pick apart or whatever.
But there might be a million things behind the scenes that
went right at the time.
That went right.
That will elevate this to the next level.
And that's why these companies need to grow.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
Right?
So and again, people need to so instead of saying, you know, is
a logo good or whatever, you know, or or is that the right
font I would have used, or giving it a mark, or whatever
like that.
Think about it, like, you know, you you want to think about the
bigger meaning.
What problem was it trying to solve?
You know, what has their pro has their audience changed at all,
right?
Who is this being designed for, right?
Like there's a lot more to it than just the aesthetic side.
And this is where we need to shift our thinking to, okay?
Because the the moment that you start uh asking those kinds of
questions, okay, is basically the moment when you start
shifting to being a more strategic uh designer.
There we go.
And that's what I think that the future requires, okay.
I think that's what's gonna survive in the future, okay?
Because when all said and done, you know, when when when design
becomes easier because of the tools that are out there and
because of the services that are available, what's gonna keep us
ahead of everybody else is our thinking, okay, and our getting
there process.
And that is still a designer trait.
It's just so few designers embrace that right.
And that's key, that's critical.
Yeah, so again, you know, start evaluating these decisions more
like a design strategist, not like a designer or a design
decorator, okay?
Because again, the solution isn't necessarily caring less
about logos, okay?
It's about caring more about what surrounds the logos.
There we go.
And I think that's how designers need to start changing their
own.
SPEAKER_02: And and wouldn't anybody want a Nike logo in
their in their portfolio?
You know what I mean?
Like something like that that has grown with a brand.
Exactly.
And is something that's ubiquitous, it's all over the
place, right?
SPEAKER_01: Right.
That would be awesome.
Again, to bring it all back, you know, this book, it really kind
of did spark this whole conversation.
And again, it's more than just, you know, a source.
This book is more than than just an inspirational book.
Oh, yeah.
And I think that's that's why I I recommend this one.
I recommend all the logo lounge books for, you know, for
inspiration and for cool.
But this is a good step to learn how to become a lot more
strategic.
And this book is like key.
And it needs to be key if somebody wants to start being,
you know, thinking like a embrace a big designer thinking,
as opposed to just like a doer, decorator, and everything else.
Right, right.
Cool.
SPEAKER_02: It's a beautiful book.
It's a great book.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
Oh, and Bill's such a great guy.
And he's like, We're gonna have an episode with that guy coming
up soon, so hang tight.
Oh, nice.
Guys, I hope you got a lot out of this one, and I'm sorry if it
felt a little scrambled today, but we're struggling.
We're struggling with other external reasons.
SPEAKER_02: All right, everybody.
My name's Mossima.
My name is Sean.
Stay creative and stay angry.