Business Type - Manufacturing
Logo Type - Wordmark
Business - La-Z-Boy Furniture
The use of all capital Copperplate typeface definitely speaks the idea of a quality furniture supplier, such as La-Z-Boy. The typography portrays solidity and foundation with slight stylization, as seen through the font's thin serifs. I believe the angled ellipse surrounding the 'Z' continues to convey this reclining comfortability associated with the furniture. La-Z-Boy uses a pure white and a touch-darker prime blue as support, further communicating the immaculate nature and the solid professionalism of the product. This Wordmark is clean, simple, and concise, which is perfect for a furniture company.
BAD logo
Business Type - Manufacturing
Logo Type - Wordmark
Business - Wayside Furniture
Wayside Furniture is a functioning furniture business, operating within the past few decades around Akron, Ohio. Their royal blue on white wordmark needs an upgrade to diversify themselves from the competition. The company uses an overly italicized script-style typeface; which provides a nice level of interest, but an inaccurate portrayal of the company's ideals. Furniture is intended to be structurally sound and comfortable, and I feel this logo strays left of center. Also, there is not much else to the logo beyond the typography. The royal blue utilized here feels a bit tacky in comparison to it's upper-middle class target demographic.
Your critique of Wayside Furniture was refreshing to read, because not only did you critique the design, but you analyzed it in context to its competitors, audience, and products. Those are all extremely important to consider; a designer can make a brilliant logo, but if the application is wrong or it fails to speak to the audience for which it was intended, it ultimately is a failed logo.
ReplyDeleteThank you, too, for actually stating the demographic to which that logo is supposed to speak -- I never even thought to do that in my analyses, but looking back, I really should have. You can critique a logo's design when not knowing the basics about the company, but you can't assess how well it applies to that company's philosophy and how clearly it speaks to the desired demographic.
Until you mentioned that, I assumed that Wayside Furniture was one of those stores that takes old furniture, sprays it off a little bit, and sells it for cheap....