Marketing

5 Bad Logos That Will Make You Cringe

Last updated by

August 25, 2023

Good logos communicate a brand’s identity and what it stands for. Great logos set brands apart from competitors, making them friendly, marketable<, and immediately recognizable.Bad or poor logos confuse, offend, and make people even cringe at how ugly and awful they are.

Have you ever seen a logo so bad that it made you cringe? In this article, we’ll cover 5 famous logo fails and why they were such bad logos.

Table of Contents

5 Famously Bad Logos

For every great logo, a few tremendously awful ones confuse, disappoint, and even offend consumers. Here are 5 famously bad logos:

Catholic Church’s Archdiocesan Youth Commission

Regarding bad logos, the one for the Catholic Church’s Archdiocesan Youth Commission can’t be beaten. The logo, which is supposed to look like a priest protecting a child, looks like the opposite of that. And given the church’s sordid past with child sexual abuse, they only needed a bad logo that would quickly remind people of that controversy.

Gap

Gap’s logo redesign in 2010 proves that if something’s broken, you shouldn’t fix it. The company, which had the same logo for 20 years, released a new logo that was so ugly and uninspired it had customers up in arms. Six days after launching the new logo, they reverted to their original design, proving that something new isn’t always better.

Pepsi

Pepsi has changed its logo many times over the years, and most recently, it decided to do away with the brand name altogether and rely on its ball image. It’s not the best move, considering many people think it looks like a fat belly, which is the last message you want to communicate as consumers become more health conscious. And when your brand has a competitor like Coca-Cola with a rather elegant logo, you must ensure you’re offering the same inspiration and appeal to customers.

Animal Planet

A bad logo takes away the context needed to understand the brand. That’s what Animal Planet did when they stripped the elephant from their logo and randomly positioned the letter “M” on its side. Not only did this eliminate the immediate animal connection, but it left customers wondering why the “M” was randomly on its side.

Starbucks

For many years, the Starbucks logo with a twin-tailed mermaid accompanied by the text “Starbucks Coffee.” But in 2011, they decided to redesign their logo and remove the text, leaving just the mermaid. It would be fine if customers had any idea why there was a mermaid there in the first place.

Most people didn’t know the mermaid was supposed to be an ode to the company’s Pacific Northwest origins. So, instead of providing immediate brand recognition, it ultimately confused customers and forced them to find a new way to identify Starbucks.