Are we digging the Walmart logo?

Honestly, I think it was a lateral move from there old logo. From generic to generic. Now that being said, in many ways that is what Walmart offers. Good brands at a low price. Their customer base is looking for value based goods that are more general in use.

Their new logo keeps up with the trends of most logos today. A softer sans-serif with an icon slapped next to it. That is why I think it is generic. Nothing very unique and yet nothing offensive either. It is a safe play. It gives them a little refresh without changing who they are.

Physician's Creed:

First, do no harm.

I agree with Corbet. As a copywriter, I'm not an expert on logos, but as a marketing consultant (and being married to a top-notch graphic designer), I see them attempting to portray a softer image, something that might subconsciously downplay Walmart's exploitation/breaking of labor laws.

It's a cute little flower, or, at first glance, I thought it was a windmill. Organic, environmental. A stretch for me, but maybe not for the average consumer.

I've only been in a WAL•MART once. Changing the identity to Walmart * isn't going to convince me to ever visit the store again. I agree with Corbet - it's so generic - and, in my opinion, boring. I'm also in agreement with some who posted their opinions of the identity on Brand New - the icon is somewhat sphincter-like.

I imagined that Wal-Mart needed to make a change because of the intense negative branding of their old image.

How 'bout that. I never even noticed the change. It's not that exciting of a change for me, but as they say, 'Half a loaf...'

I had the opportunity to discuss the Walmart logo in an interview with the radio program Inside Digital Design on Friday afternoon. The question asked of me was in regards to possibility of major corporations "dumbing down" their identities. I'll post the podcast link when it's on their site.

Jeff Fisher | Jeff Fisher LogoMotives | Vote for me! • StartupNation Home-Based 100

I detest Walmart for various reasons and will never set foot in their store.

I think with all the negative issues they have had they needed to do something 'positive'.

Their new logo gives the impression of being 'soft', gentle and even better.....green.

Not that Im buying any of it.

It just makes me think "Ouch, wasted budget"

I think it is an absolute waste of money. It is a fresher look for them... but think about the waste...

How many millions of dollars is this logo going to cost them? Every single store sign, flyer, magazine ad, grocery cart, etc needs to be rebranded over the next 1 to 2 years.

I went through a re-branding for GTE moving over to Verizon and that nationwide change had a price tag of multi-millions. Every phone booth and store needed to be changed over to maintain brand integrity.

That is a lot of cost. For Walmart probably tens of millions of dollars over the next two years. As a branding point, I cannot fathom that Walmart will ever see a return on investment.

Not owning a TV and not shopping at Walmart I did not know they had changed their logo until I saw this post. So out of curiosity I went looking.

Found some interesting things. Here is a WalMart Logo Timeline.

The funniest one I found is the sponsored link that comes up when you Google for the new logo:

**Comment on WMT's New Logo WalmartWatch.com Does WMT's new logo change it's image? Tells us your thoughts.**

There are no comments there except for this one: WalmartWatch.com reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to remove or refuse to post blog comments. I guess the comments have been underwhelming!

Lastly, as Jeff mentioned above Brand New on Underconstruction.com has a nice blog on it with the historical timeline. The comments there are fairly scathing.

Okay! Enough "productive procrastination" for me now. I am off to do some "real work".

Wallmart? What's a Wallmart? Art T.

I, too, had no idea about the change til seeing it here.

Feelings about the company aside, from a design point of view, I liked the previous logo better. At least it had some design and was slightly memorable. And meaningful in that it honored founder Wally by separating out the "Wal".

The latest incarnation looks like thousands of other website logos - that is, boring sans-serif font - is that Verdana? - with an irrelevant symbol next to it. If this was 1998 it would be a swoosh....

At least it is not an acronym as so many corporate giants have seemed to go for lately - KFC, WAMU, etc. I wonder what those guys are thinking. Either they want to hide their humble beginning, obscure their current identity, or figure that the collective memory of consumers can only handle 3 syllables tops for brand names.