Business Logo Design Ideas - 5 Famous Logos Highly Criticized in 2011!

It is an honor for a logo designer to work with famous brands and their identity development. Aside earning big bucks, this process of developing a prominent brand and its logo design, boosts the design portfolio and credentials of a creative individual. But the biggest drawback of designing for these heavyweight companies is they are highly well-known in the market and are exposed to public criticism in no time at all. Over the years, many logo design controversies have taken place in the branding world. Several new logos and various redesigned ones have been hugely criticized by the general public for one or more reasons. In the hullabaloo of logo controversies, the creative designers/agencies behind them also get severely reprimanded of their actions. Today, I wish to discuss 5 famous logos which were highly criticized this yearand what were the reasons behind the discourse.

1. Gap – Laird+Partners

Last year, the renowned chain of clothing GAP, experimented by changing their decade old logo design. As expected, there was so much fierce criticism received from public that company had to revert to the old logo. The creative agency behind the Gap logo redesign blunder was Laird+Partners. For starters, the new logo overlooked its 20-year-old association of customers with the old Gap logo. Secondly, criticism from the designer community revealed that the fonts and colors used in the redesign were not consonant with the values of GAP identity.

2. London 2012 - Wolff Olins

Another well-known logo design that has caught public attention for the wrong reasons is London 2012 Olympics Logo. Designed by the brand consultants Wolff Olins in 2007, this identity cost a colossal sum of £400,000. Days after its launch, there were immense public reactions against London 2012 Olympics Logo. At first, it was criticized for its stark resemblance to an objectionable and explicit pose. After that, it was booed for its similarity with Nazi symbol. The latest controversy surrounding this identity was brought by Iran who alleged that it was designed to spell the word ZION.

3. Pepsi – Arnell Group

Back in late 2008, world famous beverage manufacturer Pepsi introduced a redesigned Pepsi logo. The entire rebranding was administered by Arnell Group, a creative branding agency based in New York. This logo redesign cost Pepsi Inc. a total of $ 1 Million and attracted immense criticism. Besides its close resemblance to the Mona Lisa Smile, some people said that it looked like the Obama campaign logo. Several logo parodies of this new logo were made as well.

4. Big Ten –  Pentagram

Big Ten Conference is the oldest College Sports conference in US. Big Ten logo redesign took place last year when they had a twelfth school added as a member. The previous identity was a cleverly devised hidden logo that concealed ‘11’ between ‘Big Ten’ denoting the number of members. But after the addition of 12th member school, design agency Pentagram was hired to redesign the identity. The new logo attracted several negative reactions from the public. Some were of the view that it was a hasty and naïve work. Others expressed their regret of not finding a ‘12’ hidden somewhere like in the previous logo.

5. Rio 2016 – Táti

After Rio de Janeiro was selected as the venue for 2016 Olympics games, a new identity was beckoned. Last year, on New Year’s Eve, Rio unveiled a new logo designed by Brazilian creative firm Táti. The logo portrays a ring of multi-coloured figures hand in hand which is evocative of Matisse’s painting ‘The Dance’. But the general public had several criticisms. Some were of the opinion that the design is cheapened because of the way the colors fade into one another. Others argued that the identity was confusing as the design has too much going on in it.