216

Paywall bypass: https://archive.is/5iAVx

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] Corelli_III@midwest.social 7 points 15 hours ago

please talk about brands bro

its so important to constantly talk about and reinforce the existence of american brands bro

do you think they are woke or cringe?? hey what about their commercials??? talk about the brands

we all have to talk about american brands bro this is what real life is

[-] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 9 points 21 hours ago

They're still mad about Cracker Barrel for ending segregated seating in 2004... after a lawsuit.

[-] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 4 points 18 hours ago

Right wingers are idiots, in the sense of being exclusively emotional driven. Like children, without the excuse of being children

[-] turdburglar@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 day ago

ok, so since we’re talking about the cracker barrel logo, can i ask the question i’ve always had about it?

what is the symbol/shape under the text? it’s like a bean with a pointy bit. is that just a style flourish? is it a silhouette of something foreign to my eye?

i’ve wondered this in isolation for years, but there was never enough interest in the cracker barrel logo for me to inquire about this until now.

[-] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Kidney bean

[-] Redecco@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Maybe the side view of a saddle? It feels familiar but not sure.

[-] 4grams@awful.systems 3 points 1 day ago

I always assumed it was a lasso.

[-] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

my money is on style-flourish as you've mentioned, but that pointy bit does seem out of place.

[-] butwhyishischinabook@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Oh I thought it was supposed to evoke the bottom of a rocking chair, but idk actually.

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 63 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Here's a logo comparison of old to be, because the article didn't for it for some reason:

Web site this image comes from.

[-] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 14 points 1 day ago

The personality got sucked out, and all that was left is a indistinct husk.

[-] plant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 day ago

To be fair it's tasted that way for far longer than they've been remodeling

[-] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

So it fits their food. That's great advertising.

[-] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Looks like a belt buckle for a cowboy

[-] Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 33 points 1 day ago

Definitely worse, no doubt about it.

[-] quick_snail@feddit.nl 5 points 1 day ago
[-] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)
[-] Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

Yep. Generic is exactly how I'd describe it too.

[-] untorquer@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

It looks MORE like it's from the 70's.

[-] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 3 points 19 hours ago

Maybe that’s the goal. Is Dennys still around. This reminds me of their logos general shape, but melted.

I like it the direction, but the topography needs adjustments. Full disclosure I’m also a design snob with a fucking BFA who got stuck coding shit for the last 20 years.

[-] untorquer@lemmy.world 2 points 18 hours ago

I mean like the UV brittled plastic retro microwaved steak & potatoes with a sprinkle of asbestos variety of looking like the 70's. Not the nostalgia kind. It's a vibe and i guess it fits the restaurant.

[-] megopie 129 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Fucking really? When they fired huge percentage of the kitchen staff and ruined service, when they switched the suppliers to cheaper and mostly pre prepared ingredients, when they cut potion sizes and jacked prices. That was fine, no problem… but, they changed the logo… slightly? DISASTOR!

Like, this really is what I find absurd. That people are so willing to let their discontent be redirected to symbology, rather than question systems making things materially worse.

As insignificant as a mid quality restaurant chain is, it just seems emblematic.

[-] Ryktes@lemmy.world 60 points 2 days ago

As insignificant as a mid quality restaurant chain is, it just seems emblematic

Because it's a perfect representation of their cult behavior. Brainwashed into only caring about surface level snapshots of issues instead of actual material details.

That said, new logo is actually trash compared to the original. Can we please just let this trend of minimalist corpo slop die already!?

[-] megopie 16 points 2 days ago

Honestly, If they changed the logos of things but did’t gut the quality… it would really not matter.

[-] Ryktes@lemmy.world 23 points 2 days ago

Oh yeah, fair.

I just personally hate that all major business logos now seem to just be the name on a single color background. I miss when logos had personality.

[-] frunch@lemmy.world 31 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I really think they're finding the last corners they can cut for profit, meager as it may be. Less colors, less details, less $ to print. That's my theory at least. Another good example of what you're talking about is the Pringles guy:

Edit: Dunkin Donuts is another one, come to think of it. I swear they're going to pull a Prince one day and have their name become a single emoji/symbol or something. They managed to squeeze all the way down from Dunkin' Donuts to Dunkin' to DD... I'm convinced they're going to be the first major company to be named a symbol and people will call it DD or maybe they'll even come up with a new sound that will represent their symbol, and you'll have to get their app to make the sound 🫠

[-] nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 19 hours ago

I already call it DD when I cave to needing a quick coffee when I’m running late.

[-] bcgm3@lemmy.world 17 points 2 days ago

A lot of folks lack curiosity.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] abbiistabbii 6 points 1 day ago

Imagine attaching your identity so much to a chain restaurant, then again, that's all there are in most Right Wing areas in America.

[-] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 points 1 day ago

they have a very short attention span, they attach to any thing new and shiny that comes along. which is why putting everyting in gold is so common with these people, or paying up the wazoo for a low quality item.

[-] ch00f@lemmy.world 52 points 2 days ago
[-] HeyJoe@lemmy.world 20 points 2 days ago

At least put the brown border around it back. It looks so plain.

[-] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 54 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I oppose this logo change not for a political reason or anything of that ilk, but only because it's yet another senseless and uninspired simplification of a brand that eliminates the distinctiveness of its silhouette and turns it into another bland and uninspired sponge cake with no flavor. Say what you like about Cracker Barrel and their food (and I'm sure many will), but at least when you saw one of their signs on a pole from the interstate you knew damn well what it was.

Compare it now to the Denny's logo:

Bojangles:

Or Golden Corral:

Etc.

Wow, some text in a yellow ovoid diamondy blob. How original. No iconography whatsoever. It's barely even a wordmark. I wonder how much some asshole got paid to come up with this and how I can get in on that game.

[-] FenderStratocaster@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago

There's a reason they are choosing simplicity over ornate/complicated logos. Printing, embroidering, sign making. All of these are much easier and cheaper to do with simpler logos. It's always about money.

[-] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 46 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I'd doubt that's it. Practically everything is digitally printed these days, so the complexity really doesn't matter. In some specific processes the number of colors used may be a factor, but the original design was already only two colors to begin with (or three if you count the transparent bits). The shape would matter if they were trying to make illuminated signage with the same outline as the logo which Cracker Barrel already don't do. Their pole signs at present are just rectangular with rounded corners to begin with. I'll grant there may be a minor complexity advantage to having machine embroidery done of it, but the last time I was in one of their restaurants their employees all had logo and name tag pins and their uniform shirts were sans logos, so that's a moot point anyhow.

I'll certainly concede that some C-suite idiot may think this is going to save them on uniform and printing costs but in reality it actually won't. If that's why they really did it they're even dumber than we're giving them credit for. (And another commenter below pointed out that rebrands cost money to pull off. Not just whatever seven figure consultancy fee you just paid to some twerp with a Macbook to render your logo unreadable, but also all the materials and signage you then have to get made, printed, have somebody install.)

Herewith I will prattle on about the topic because Design Is My Passion (well, okay, at least part of my job) and this whole trend obviously honks me off and I'm starting to feel like the only sane man left standing.

The rationale for dumbshit logo oversimplification I usually see bandied about is "increasing brand recognition," with the notion that a simpler logo is more readily and quickly recognizable. This has a kernel of truth to it, however only those with the pointiest of spectacles with the beadiest of chains know the secret. And that is mostly what drives this is the logo's silhouette, not the words inside it. (And to a lesser extent, its colors. But tell that to all the fast food chains who insist on using red and yellow for their branding, so that's already on the way out.) This is especially so if the logo will be seen only briefly or at a distance, for purest sake of example and for no particular reason at all, let's say at the top of a pole next to an interstate highway 200 yards away while hurtling past at 75+ MPH.

People don't read. Even so, a large portion of them probably don't have great eyesight. If your logo is going to be a wordmark, it had better have its own very distinct silhouette, and preferably it ought to be short. The frillier and less sans-serify you make it the less likely anyone is to be to comprehend it, let alone bother to process it. If your design vision absolutely cannot accommodate that for whatever reason, its surrounding geometry had better have a recognizable silhouette. And for fuck's sake, make sure it's high contrast against whatever's inside it.

I'll throw out some examples. Here are four brands who, apart from any other shortcomings and even after going through various rounds of logo simplification, still get it:

I've brutally reduced these to only their silhouettes and in the case of any that also included wordmarks and haven't already removed them from their official logo, I've also stripped them of these.

I'll bet you can name three out of four of those without even thinking about it, and third from the left will only slow down some people for a second or two.

(This is also why so many traffic signs are shaped such as they are, and the important ones don't share shapes, and also why it feels so unnervingly wrong in a Mandela effect kind of way when you visit a country whose highway authority hasn't quite figured that out.)

Meanwhile, here's a lineup of a few who fail the test:

Yes, I deliberately cherry-picked these to form a lineup of options that all suck. But in my defense, there are ever so many to choose from. Go on, whose are those? No cheating and using Google image search to try to match up the minutiae of the aspect ratios. You have to do this right off the top of your head. Remember, these are flying by on an interstate sign.

It's the same deal with app icons, which these days all seem to be devolving into "some circular swirly thing, possibly multicolored, that doesn't tell you anything about what our app does." It's even worse now that everyone's launchers seem to want to automatically badger any icons that still do manage to have a recognizable silhouette into solid colored circular backgrounds.

[-] BananaIsABerry@lemmy.zip 18 points 2 days ago

This is a good post. I wanted to add that the "saving money" aspect of changing the logo also ends up falling flatter when you consider how much existing branding have be changed. That doesn't happen for free.

[-] petit_fou@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago

Thanks for the hindsight that's very interesting!

load more comments (8 replies)
load more comments (6 replies)
[-] Lucky_777@lemmy.world 41 points 2 days ago

Republicans really love cancel culture I guess 🤣 🤣 🤣

[-] quick_snail@feddit.nl 4 points 1 day ago

Something something Buttfuckers

[-] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

is that the golden corral with a gift shop attached?

[-] deacon@lemmy.world 19 points 2 days ago

They just keep getting weirder and weirder.

[-] CluckN@lemmy.world 23 points 2 days ago

Finally a bipartisan agreement that the new logo sucks

load more comments (7 replies)
[-] DarkFuture@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago

In case anyone was wondering if conservatism was a mental disorder.

[-] WizardofFrobozz@lemmy.ca 1 points 17 hours ago

Nah. They chose this. End them.

load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2025
216 points (100.0% liked)

Not The Onion

17756 readers
353 users here now

Welcome

We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!

The Rules

Posts must be:

  1. Links to news stories from...
  2. ...credible sources, with...
  3. ...their original headlines, that...
  4. ...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”

Please also avoid duplicates.

Comments and post content must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.

And that’s basically it!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS