Spotted a branding fail at a coffee shop in Nashville last month

I was waiting for my pour over at this hip spot and noticed their logo was this tiny, thin line drawing on a mustard yellow wall. You could barely see it from 10 feet away. I asked the barista about it and she said customers walk in and miss the name all the time. She pointed out they spent $3,000 on that design. Has anyone else run into a logo that just disappears into its background?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_ben19d ago

Three grand on a logo that literally disappears? Sounds like they paid for a design that looked great on a laptop screen but nobody tested it at actual human eye level in the space. Take it from someone who's painted over a lot of bad color choices in commercial buildings, that mustard yellow is the real villain here.

alice_barnes3519d ago

You mentioned the mustard yellow being the real villain, and @the_ben, I think you're spot on there. I read something a while back about how high contrast is the first rule of signage, but designers love trendy colors so much they forget it. That tiny thin line drawing on a warm yellow wall is basically camouflage. I once sat in a coffee shop for ten minutes before I realized their logo was a pale gray circle on a white wall. Somebody spent good money on that too.