Logos with a semi hidden smile are something that is starting to get noticed and replicated in the corporate world, supposedly a symbol of consumer happiness and satisfaction. Some see it as a new subtle way to convey a positive experience to the consumer, others as being kicked back into the 70s when Nike came up with the ‘swoosh’ leading to it becoming heavily replicated.
Either way I believe there will be a gradual, yet heavy onslaught of smiling logos to come.
Argos
Argos rebranded early 2010 and went from the outdated swoosh, to the new positively appealing smile. I do like the simplicity of their new logo and it does look more appealing and consumer friendly.
Volvic
Volvic’s logo is debatable, it looks like it’s trying to be a smile but it could be a swoosh.
Pepsi
Changes are if you gave someone of the street a pen and paper and asked them to draw the Pepsi logo, they’d draw the old one. Personally I don’t like the new logo that much and I can see Pepsi ‘reverting back to their roots’ the next time they decide to rebrand. It’s not your conventional smiling logo, but all the same a smile.
Bledina
Bledina is a French firm that sells baby related food stuffs to the French public; I would assume mostly to those with children aged under 3. This is target audience that requires the upmost confidence in your product, what is one of the ways to accomplish this? That’s right, you put a yellow smile in your logo!
Danone
Danone is yet another company that upgraded their swoosh to a smile. Admittedly it is a refreshing upgrade from their old boxy and swooshy logo.
Kraft
Kraft is another company that decided to add a bit of happy to their logo. They decided to remove their 90s font and hexagon and add a smile and what appears to be a flower. That’s two happy pieces of imagery in one logo!
Thompson
Thompson has for quite some time had the smile in their logo, distorting what appears to be a T and I’m guessing a representation of the sun.
There seems to be a common theme with the smile, their target market is nearly always the average consumer, and some of those appear to be upgrading their swoosh to a smile. My guess is is that this is just the beginning; prepare yourself for a smiling logo in every shop window in the near future!
