Google Me A Logo

As I'm writing this on Halloween night, it's almost impossible for me to keep my butt in this chair for more than five minutes without the doorbell ringing and my having to go and appease the desires of the throngs of costumed beggars which have appeared at the front door of the compound. (I lower the drawbridge for the moat on the occasions when tradition dictates that I allow the part of the public which consists of the small to traipse onto the grounds of "Chez Tiré à Vue". That translates to "Shot on Sight". Catchy, no?) They all seem quite surprised when I ladle piping hot creamed corn directly into their bag. It's odd.

The point here is that it's hard to keep a consistent thought in my head due to the ruckus, so I headed over to The Google to see what their Halloween logo consisted of. Very clever this year, it was. Behold! Now, when you would hover your mouse over said logo, it said "Click or treat". So I did. Click, that is. And the logo changed, as if by magic. And since you can't run your mouse over it now and have the same effect, I shall recreate the results for you. Behold!

I repeated that scenario two more times and two more times the logo changed. Behold!

And behold again!
It's cute and all, but they really need to be trick or treating in a different neighborhood. Look at all of those unwrapped candies in there! The horror! And who can manage to eat half of a Life Saver like that? Why not just finish off that roll of Smarties? Do they make those lollipops with the loop for the handle anymore? Where do I get some of those? I would like that.

That all got me thinking about some of the Google Halloween logos from the days of yore. If you're not familiar with yore, it's right around the time of yesteryear. In 2008, horror film guy Wes Craven designed the Google Halloween logo and it was just swell. Behold!

I was also a big fan of 2007's Halloween logo. It was sort of that Victorian-era-meets-The-Haunted-Castle ride at Disneyland. Behold!

But as I started looking over the past Google Halloween logos, I realized that there were about a gazillion different Google logos for about a gazillion different 'occasions' all across the land and the world. Who knew? I'm always amazed at what the self-righteous (and while they have perfected possibly the greatest invention/tool ever, that of accurate Internet search, and they have exactly the amount of money they deserve for such a feat, they're a little full of themselves at times) over there at The Google consider "logo-worthy". I mean, come on! From what I can tell, the very first custom Google logo to commemorate a holiday or event was that of the Burning Man Festival in 1998. What does that tell you? (I don't really know what it tells you, but it tells you something, I know that!)

Of course, before I continue with those that have been deemed "logo-worthy", I'm in no way implying that they're not "logo-worthy". Actually, you know what? Maybe I am implying that. You don't know. Even if I was implying non-logo-worthiness would I tell you if you called me on it? Damn straight I would. Forget what I just said. Take this however you want.

There's National Aboriginal Week in July in Australia. Really? A whole week for that? How does that work? According to the logo, there seems to be dancing with shields, presumably to protect one from that whirlwind of rocks behind them. Behold!

In Poland, there's Fat Thursday. I'm not sure if that's anything like Fat Tuesday in New Orleans here, but if you've looked around lately, it seems as though every day is Fat Day. People are huge lately. Behold! Good Lord, are those jelly donuts there? I have got to learn more about Poland if they celebrate the equivalent of Jelly Donut Day! But I digress. In Germany, something called Seven Sleepers Day gets a logo. I don't know what that is, but it sounds fabulous. Any day which promotes sleeping is just a fantastic idea all the way around. How can you go wrong?

I was a big Tetris fan, but does it deserve a logo for the 25th anniversary of the thing? If Tetris gets one, Pac-Man better get one, as should Atari (and/or its founder, Nolan Bushnell), Space Invaders and Pong.
Germany also gets a logo for Girls Day. We don't have a "Girls Day" in the US because it would be considered sexist. It would also probably be considered racist, even though race has nothing to do with it. One goes hand in hand with the other around here (which is why I cannot wait for this night to be over so the drawbridge can go back UP where it belongs and my walled off compound and go back to being walled off).

The 200th anniversary of the birth of Nikolai Gogol, the father of Russian realism, gets a logo. I guess I'm OK with that in theory, but I read about Mr. Gogol and I am confuddled by what the nose has to do with anything. It's not like he founded smelling. His realism didn't seem to focus on the human nose. So what's with the nose, Google Boys?

The Large Hadron Collider got a logo. I guess over there at Google they figured that they might as well get in one last custom logo in just in case that collider thing ended up killing everyone.

And even Alexander Popov got a logo. If you're asking "Who?" you're not alone. Alexander Popov is the guy who the folks over yonder in Russia consider to be the inventor of the radio. Now, according to Russia Today, "Americans are convinced it was Nikola Tesla who invented radio. Italians claim it was Marconi, but for Russians it was Aleksandr Popov who gave radio to the people." I haven't found a logo for Marconi or Tesla, but then again, Google co-founder Sergey Brin was born in Moscow. Enough said.
Whew! Doorbell stopped ringing. Time to put away the ladle, raise the drawbridge, release the alligators and sit back, relax and enjoy the confines of the walled off compound for another year. I hope you had a Happy Halloween.

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Jack's Sort of Back

All I meant to do was look at the new logo that Jack In The Box has rolled out. That's it! Instead, what happens? Instead I end up looking at the logos for a whole bunch of different products that have "changed" recently. Now, I've quoted "changed" because some of them really aren't that different! I don't know if the product label design guys (that's their official title, yes) don't see the similarity between some of their "Before" and some of their "After" designs, or if they know there's not much of a difference, but they think that the consuming public is so dumb that we just flock to anything that we think just might be new. I'm guessing it's the latter. Seriously, look around you. What do you see? Morons, that's correct.

Oh, but I will give them this: Some of the design changes are very apparent. Hoo-boy are they apparent. It's quite apparent that some of the new designs just suck. Those are the ones where I really want to talk to the person who was in charge of that project and said, "Looks good!" (Probably with an enthusiastic thumbs up sign, a wink and a smile, too.) Why doesn't everyone know that crap is crap when they see it? I don't know why it takes some folks longer to go, "Ooooohhhhh. Yeah. I see what you're saying. Yeah, that's crap. Sorry!"

But back to Jack. Old Jack in the Box:

New Jack. In the box. Behold!

Yeah, I don't know if I can get on board with this one. It bugs me. For one thing, there's Jack. He's not in the box! He's very much out of the box! And while I'm happy for Jack (no one particularly enjoys the confines of a box), it's misleading. But there's something about the new one that bothers me. It sort of bears an odd resemblance to the hammer and sickle on a USSR flag. Behold!

I don't know if that's it, but it reminds me of something. Thus, the chances are good that I'm going to make everyone I know crazy by continuing to bring it up any chance I get until I figure it out. Oh, you're welcome, friends! What else do we have?

Pepsi has redesigned everything they own! And apparently they figured that what was good for one redesign would be good for another redesign. And another. And another. They're not very creative over there at Pepsi. Behold!


I seem to be the only person on the planet that hates that font on everything. It's everywhere. Fat, lowercase letters...what does that prove? Not much. Not much at all. (I blame texting. Next thing you know, companies are just going to start leaving vowels out of product names. We'll have to decipher everything in the grocery store just like we do those damn text messages from our friends who don't use vowels! But I digress.) I suppose I can live with the can design, but the bottles? Well, it could just be me, but they're rather, um, see....the contours on the bottle....near the top....it has a sort of, how do I say it, um, oh, that's right. It's phallic as hell. Behold!

Eh? See! Told you so. Now, Pepsi also owns Tropicana, the orange juice people. You might remember your Tropicana juice carton looking like this:

Not anymore! And keeping with their same font and their same phallic-y sort of design, well, behold!

I don't know what was wrong with just a regular little screw top on the carton. But that rounded item there? I'm sure that their intention was to have it look like an orange. It's orange juice, that could be an orange, I see the connection. But I look at that and I don't see "orange". I look at that and I see "breast" or "nipple" or....another....anatomical part. I can't help it! (And while I can never help it, it's rarely this distracting!) Could the folks at Pepsi not think of anything else that they just had to port their lowercase, phallic design over to the juice department? You'd think that they'd have more ideas than that, really.

Pepsi works with the folks at Kraft. (I know. I know. It seems like an odd partnership, but from what I can tell, Pepsi owns just about everything out there except for Coca-Cola.) Apparently their love for the lower-case font has worn off on Kraft, as the Kraft logo has changed also.

Somehow, the logo of a company that makes "food products" (Yes! "Food products" is in quotes. Hey, macaroni and cheese is not supposed to glow orange!) must have caught the attention of a company whose product is supposed to get stains out of clothes (probably left by the "food products") because suddenly Cheer and Kraft are looking remarkably similar. It's kinda weird. Behold!

And I'm not thrilled with the muted multi-colored design, either. It has a very "feminine hygiene product" feel to it. (And no one really wants that associated with their macaroni and cheese. Ever.) I could maybe see why they'd be similar if they had anything to do with each other, but they really don't. But take the redesigns of Sunkist and Fanta Orange. Both are orange sodas. Both now look similar to each other. Both are a mess and an utter disaster. Behold!

And again with the splash-y look to it. It's soda! You don't want it to splash! (Fanta just should have left well enough alone and not changed anything. Sunkist is a train wreck from beginning to end. They just need to start over. Do they think that leaf over the "i" is going to fool anyone into believing that there is anything that might have grown on a tree at some point in that soda? Last time I checked, orange coloring does not grow on trees.)

So there you have it. Be prepared for more product design and/or logo changes with many more products in the near future. Say goodbye to capital letters and say hello to splash-y, lowercase goodness! Or something like that.

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Always Proof! Always Proof!

I'd better start this off by stating that I am vehemently against child abuse and even more against child sexual abuse. Furthermore, I am very much in favor of organizations which provide education about how to help keep kids safe from sexual predators. That being said, if you're going to have a foundation or an organization that is going to be against child abuse, do yourselves a favor and please, please stop and think about your logo choice and then please stop and think about how you would like to word your message on your website. I'm not talking just logo colors and punctuation. I'm talking about the overall message that you might unintentionally be conveying.

Let's look at the website for the Tonya Allen Foundation. The website states their mission as an organization "...that raises funds and bestows grants to community-based organizations that serve Sexual Abuse Survivors. This Foundation is committed to proactive steps to help protect children. Our mission is to recognize, prevent and to react responsibly to child sexual abuse." And that sounds like a fine cause and I certainly hope that it is. Here is their logo. Behold!

Um, whoops? That doesn't look good. It looks like...well...like.....like exactly what they're against! Does nobody proof these things anymore? They must not, because at least that would explain some of the wording on the site. Phrases such as:

• If you were abused, you know how it feels and what it did to you. (Yes, I would imagine you do know how it feels. Geez...)


• Child sexual abuse is a very complex problem, and this website touches on only a small part of it. (Touches a small part of it? Again....geez....)

This isn't the first time that I've seen a logo with some serious problems. Take, for instance, the unfortunate logo design of the Office of Government Commerce over there in England. It seems fairly harmless at first, as it looks like this:

But when the thing is turned on its side, then we have something that sends a different message.

When the OGC was asked to comment on the logo, a spokesman responded by saying, "“It is true that it caused a few titters among some staff when viewed on its side, but on consideration we concluded that the effect was generic to the particular combination of the letters OGC - and it is not inappropriate to an organisation that’s looking to have a firm grip on Government spend.” Good Lord, was he the one who designed the logo as well? Not a good idea to include the term "firm grip" in this situation. Not so much.

I don't know, maybe it's just me that sees these things in logos everywhere. (It could be. Things have been a little slow lately.) There's always the logo from the Arlington Pediatric Center. (Not a good choice at all. Compromising, to say the very least!)

Then there's the Computer Doctors. They claim to "make computers work for you." With that sign, my question is "Doing WHAT, exactly?"

I'm probably going to hell for this one, but who in God's name (Pun intended. Hey, it's not like I'm not already going to hell!) designed this light switch? Who?

This one comes from the Brazilian Institute of Oriental Studies. I'd ask what they study there, but I don't really want to know.

I am not going to this dentist. Ever. And neither should you. Unless you have a toothache and you're really lonely. (Is it any wonder people are afraid of the dentist?)

Next is the poor, poor, choice for the Amadeus Frankfurter Company. Enough said.

Here is some sort of a pharmacy that specializes in some sort of back pain. (Your back would hurt too if you were a compromising position such as that!)

This was seen on a Norwegian bus. Judging from the big red 'X', it appears to be telling you not to do something or that you cannot do something. That is clear. What isn't so clear is WHAT exactly it is that is forbidden on the BUS.

Quite possibly the worst oversight of the biggest design flaw EVER. Who's idea was THIS??

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