Some Thoughts About Starbucks

Specifically, their new effort to ‘update’ their brand. As a Graphic Design student, I’ve taken great interest in watching the new brand unfold and to see how they have been changing the image of Starbucks through all their collateral. Simplified logo, new cups, bags, and coffee bags. New styles in the promos they run.

It’s taken me a while to decide what I think about it, and here’s what I’ve decided:

First of all; visually, I like it. It’s wonderfully designed. Second of all; it’s terrible for Starbucks.

The new starbucks logo and design style has slowly been pushed out for the last seven months and is still slowly being pushed out. I actually think the new design is much, much more aesthetically pleasing that the old one. Just as a logo, it’s great. Simple, clean, well-designed and clear. “This is the siren, you will want me.”

The problem I have is, the new design is not Starbucks. Well, maybe it is Starbucks (I think the new logo and design style looks corporate, homogenized and impersonal, so maybe it is fitting.) but it’s not what Starbucks is supposed to be. It’s supposed to be a coffeeshop. And a coffeeshop is supposed to be grassroots, quirky, unique and local. The old logo was endearing in it’s awkwardness. The old design style felt handmade, with overlays of burlap texture and hand-stamped lettering. The new design is too modern. (It reminds me of Paul Rand, but not in a good way.) All the lines are clean and all the text is sans-serif. And it feels corporate. It feels like each Starbucks is going to have exactly the same character, but that shouldn’t be the truth. Every Starbucks, though they should be consistant in the drinks they serve, should have it’s own feel. Starbucks has so many programs going on that are supposed to make it a part of the community instead of just a company plopping down in the middle of somewhere and not giving a care to what’s going on around them. Starbucks loves to tell its baristas that it’s about “the human connection” and “nurturing the human spirit,” but that’s not what their design is communicating.

Am I reading too much into things? Probably, but this kind of thing is going to be my job someday, so I don’t care. Starbucks, I would love to fix your graphic design problems. You could modernize your look without making it feel impersonal. I promise.

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