"Life's tough... it's even tougher when you're stupid." - John Wayne

Well put Mr. Wayne.

It is a tough world out there, and the branding world is no exception. This last week proved that for both Seattle's Best Coffee (Starbucks) and United Airlines (also Continental). I am not sure where to start myself, as I am sure there were some very intelligent people working on these projects, and I am certain they had their reasons for the final design direction. I still don't know what those reasons are....

I will start with public outlash. Neither solution has been welcomed by the public as viable and smart options. A feeling of neglect has been shown by both consumer bases.

In the case of Starbuck's Seattle Best redesign, one article is comparing it to the disasterous Tropicana redesign, which we all remember was pulled from the shelves after mass chaos and almost an end to the world as we know it... People are having reactions to the logo as a cereal bowl full of tears, or a blood bank logo. The fact that it is very generic and has a liquid drop with the color red does not strengthen their case. Their argument for an adaptable brand with several needs for their logo, is no excuse. I guess they have never seen the simple solutions to an identity program... Nike, Apple, At&t, Coca Cola, Unilever and so on. All original with their own story and vision. Circles and tear drops with sterile type is not a logo, it's a cop-out...

Each design problem has it's own unique circumstances and individual path they can take. In the case of United, I would choose for United to swallow Continental whole and merge everything under the United name and identity, OR just keep them separate as a strategic partnership. Their solution of merging names and logos has compromise and corporate buy-out written all over it, without much vision for the emerging brand and it's impact on the consumers. They took decades of emotion, reputation and direction and dropped it from about 30,000 feet.

That said, it would be ignorant for me to pretend like I know the ins and outs of each brand and their vision, while sitting on the sidelines. No doubt Seattle's Best needed an update and that the merger of United and Continental is HUGE! I always appreciated how Adidas purchased Reebok, but kept them as separate entities with a parent holding company. No doubt the Continental brand holds a lot of value and good emotional content, but in this case so did United... For Seattle's Best, maybe they could at least change the red to brown and give some sort of hint as to what they offer, as cheap and obvious as that may be...

Someone got paid the BIG bucks for these solutions, so maybe they know something the rest of us don't. I wish they would reveal what that something is...