Logo design is a powerful tool and an essential element of brand recognition. But logo designs, (which sometimes cost thousands or even millions of dollars) often prove controversial, with loyal customers, competitors and graphic designers giving you a good pelting if you make something that they don’t like.

In an age of instant complaint, the last year has seen several high profile logo controversies going nuclear on the social networks. In most cases, people railed against the design work whilst others shrugged off coincidences and wondered if it all mattered. And then there were those designs that polarized people’s opinions, and those that were just utterly worthy of public hate…

5 Rio Olympics

You’d think the 2016 Olympic logo was on easy street after the controversy with which the 2012 logo was received. Likened to a sex act being performed by a popular cartoon character, Iran later went and claimed that it was offensive because they discerned the word ‘ZION’ within the vague forms of its fuchsia mess. Either way, it isn’t a design you’d be all that happy to print business cards of.

The Rio 2016 logo is visually harmless by contrast, a flowing three-person scribble that abstractly looks like the chambers of a heart. Unfortunately, it looks rather less abstractly like the logo of Colorado-based charity the Telluride Foundation, a flowing four-person scribble that takes the form of a cartoon heart. The impression isn’t helped by the use of green, yellow and blue in both logos. An unfortunate coincidence? Probably. But people weren’t especially happy anyway.

4 Comedy Central

The great thing about making a minimalist logo that everyone hates is that people literally get mad over nothing. Comedy Central unveiled this ‘C within a C’ to a predictable backlash, its skew on the copyright symbol taken as a joke that nobody particularly understands or recognises. See. It’s turning corporate America on its head. Hilarious.

So, the logo is probably not strides better, but who really cared for the original? The font and ‘towers’ logo are icons of the kind of hip, edgy comedy that are very last millennium. They’ve been using a cleaned up variation for the last decade, but it has always looked a little bit like something made for the MTV generation.

3 Rosa Parks Google Doodle

An ‘old-look’ GM transit bus stands at a curb and four children of various creeds and colours run out with hands linked. As far as Google homepages go, December 1st’s illustrated logo entitled ‘55th Anniversary: Rosa Parks refuses to move’ was a poignant one that symbolised not just one of the most important actions in American civil rights, but the dream of the civil rights movement realised.

The controversy wasn’t about what the image was, but what it was not. December 1st is also designated World Aids Day, a fact that Google have never celebrated in a Google Doodle. They did mark the day by turning the Google Maps view red when people spread awareness by tweeting, but dissenting voices felt that a ribbon should have been added to the homepage.

2 Starbucks

Whatever shall disgruntled people do now that Starbucks no longer prints the words ‘Starbucks’ and ‘Coffee’ on its materials? Surely they’ll never again find their beloved chain of bean blenders… and if they do, will the smell alone be enough to inform them of what kind of beverages are sold in such an establishment?
There was a lot of hot air expelled over this one for nothing. The three most important elements of the Starbucks logo have long been its circular-shape, the siren and the specific shade of ‘Starbucks Green’. The latest redesign merely consolidates these three elements whilst allowing Starbucks to expand beyond coffee houses.

1 Gap

Minimalism is a trend in these controversial designs: the idea that someone has gone and spent thousands, maybe millions of dollars on removing elements from their corporate image just seems unjustifiable to anyone who doesn’t work within design (and to many that do). But every now and then, the design process throws up something so obviously objectionable that the backlash is completely justified.

The thing I hate the most about this Gap logo is the way that I can hear the brainstorming session in my mind every time that I see it. ‘See, we keep the old box as part of the design’ says the ever so expensive creative mind, ‘but we put the lettering outside it. Get it? Gap is outside the box. Genius.’

Still, there was a happy ending. After a deluge of negative Facebook feedback Gap stopped the rollout of the new design and reverted back to their old branding. And the designers were chased into a canal by an angry mob, never to be seen again. Well perhaps not the last bit.

About the author: Steph Wood is a blogger and copywriter with an eye for creativity, currently working for the UK-based Solopress flyer printing service.