Someone with a stronger background in design and/or art history than me can probably explain it better but I feel like it basically goes back to “apple made a shitload of money with minimalist design under Johnny Ive so that’s what we will replicate for the next few decades because culture in decline and original ideas aren’t good for business”
All I know is every time I complain about how soulless logos and design has become over the past 20-40 years there’s always a sizable contingent of people who reply and vehemently defend this banal soulless flat shit under the guise of accessibility. I don’t get how the right is “far more” accessible and I don’t get how just having clean text in a highly readable font and braille next to the logo wherever possible wouldn’t be far better than any stylized logo for that
My take on the reason is that logos become more abstract in proportion as the business expands and therefore generalizes its products and services.
Amazon started out at something very specific, an online bookstore, but evolved to become just Store in the abstract and universal sense. The old logo becomes a fetter on the brand and has to give way for a more abstract logo that can accommodate all of the different things that the brand wants to do.
Cracker Barrel, as a simple restaurant chain, is limited as a brand. Cracker Barrel as an experience, well that can be anything. They can pivot into anything that vaguely instills the same nostalgic feeling, and if the groundwork has already been done, then consumers won’t be confused or alienated when Cracker Barrel starts selling cars or something. So more and more, Cracker Barrel isn’t a particular thing, it’s an idea. The capitalist tendency toward monopoly necessitates this result, as the very point of branding is to convince you that two identical commodities are in fact distinct and not interchangeable.
Someone with a stronger background in design and/or art history than me can probably explain it better but I feel like it basically goes back to “apple made a shitload of money with minimalist design under Johnny Ive so that’s what we will replicate for the next few decades because culture in decline and original ideas aren’t good for business”
All I know is every time I complain about how soulless logos and design has become over the past 20-40 years there’s always a sizable contingent of people who reply and vehemently defend this banal soulless flat shit under the guise of accessibility. I don’t get how the right is “far more” accessible and I don’t get how just having clean text in a highly readable font and braille next to the logo wherever possible wouldn’t be far better than any stylized logo for that
My take on the reason is that logos become more abstract in proportion as the business expands and therefore generalizes its products and services.
Amazon started out at something very specific, an online bookstore, but evolved to become just Store in the abstract and universal sense. The old logo becomes a fetter on the brand and has to give way for a more abstract logo that can accommodate all of the different things that the brand wants to do.
Cracker Barrel, as a simple restaurant chain, is limited as a brand. Cracker Barrel as an experience, well that can be anything. They can pivot into anything that vaguely instills the same nostalgic feeling, and if the groundwork has already been done, then consumers won’t be confused or alienated when Cracker Barrel starts selling cars or something. So more and more, Cracker Barrel isn’t a particular thing, it’s an idea. The capitalist tendency toward monopoly necessitates this result, as the very point of branding is to convince you that two identical commodities are in fact distinct and not interchangeable.