A Makeover for the Starbucks Mermaid

A Makeover for the Starbucks Mermaid

By STEVEN HELLER

Published: January 8, 2011

Logomania has been in the air since the chief executive of Starbucks, Howard Schultz, announced another redesign of the Starbucks logo last week. In March, on its 40th anniversary, the Starbucks name will be entirely removed from its logo, leaving only a stylized illustration of the green mermaid, which Mr. Schultz calls “the siren.” The decision set off a wave of criticism from designers, much like the Gap logo fiasco last year. Gap unveiled a new logo so bland that the company was bombarded with complaints and scrapped it. 

Why does such a small change create such alarm? 
Fear of change may have something to do with it. Trademarks and logos are so integrally linked to our daily lives that any tinkering with the familiar is suspect — and to be avoided. And altering the symbolic public face of a corporation is often accompanied both by unreasonable expectations of success and by superstitious resistance. 

Paul Rand, a graphic designer who designed the I.B.M., ABC, Cummins Engine and Westinghouse logos, which have been in use for decades, said logos and trademarks were like good-luck charms or rabbits’ feet. In his book “Design, Form and Chaos” (Yale University Press, 1993), he writes, “There are as many reasons for designing a new logo, or updating an old one, as there are opinions.” 

He added, “The belief that a new or updated design will, like a talisman, magically turn around any business is not uncommon.” A redesigned logo may imply a new or improved product, but, as Rand said, “this boost is temporary unless the company lives up to these dreams.” So when Mr. Schultz introduced the new logo in an online video, he did something chief executives don’t usually do: He explained the symbolic relevance of the change, hoping that his own confidence in the new format would persuade critics. 

The new mermaid mark “embraces and respects our heritage,” Mr. Schultz said. But “the world has changed and Starbucks has changed.” By allowing the siren to “come out of the circle,” he said, the company is thinking “beyond coffee.” He used sincere brand-speak, the jargon commonly used by designers selling their designs to executives like Mr. Schultz. “If in the business of communications, ‘image is king,’ the essence of this image, the logo, is the jewel in its crown,” Paul Rand argued. This means that not only is the logo valuable, it also should be crystalline and recognizable. The lone Starbucks siren is familiar, but is it good design? The new minimalist form is crisper, but without the circle of type, the mermaid appears naked. Is it hubris to believe that a slick version of the mermaid, in green, can sell coffee? The rock star known as Prince replaced his name with a symbol. Maybe Starbucks is the rock star of coffees.