A Designer's Eye: Logo Obsession, Pt. 4 - Bad Logos

Okay, here is the last part to my Logo Obsession postings. Here are the final five logos that I thought were less than successful from Savannah Magazine.

This logo looks like something you'd see on realtor's business card from the '70s, not for a company selling linens. I'm so distracted by the absurdly large smile of Carol (?) that I don't even care what she's selling.

The main thing that bothers me about this logo is that the seashell is so intricate, I feel like it would not work at different sizes. At larger sized, the negative space becomes too large and at smaller sizes, the detail of the shell is lost. Were I the designer behind this logo, I would have used something a little less detailed, something more representational of the shell rather than a outline.


This logo not only screams of laziness, but also insults their audience at the same time. Assuming that no one would figure out that "ABC" stands for Allen Bonner & Co., the designer felt it necessary to underline the letters "A", "B" and "C" in the name Allen Bonner & Co. In addition, the drop shadow serves no purpose in the piece.

This logo looks like it could have had potential, but the designer stopped short on the development. This is supposed to be a leash and collar (to go with the name Black Dog, I'm guessing), but the proportions are all off. The text inside the leash seem jammed in there, as if there was no other solution. If I were designing this logo, I probably would have used illustration of a black dog and had the name of the studio on the tags hanging from the collar...

For this logo, I actually felt the version on the right was very successful, but the version on the left just didn't work for me. The one on the left is for a carryout version of the Japanese restaurant. I found the "Express" logo to be too distracting and the arc of the words almost gives me motion sickness. I think a modification on the logo to the right would have been more successful and appropriate.

Well, that's it for my crazy logo obsession (for now?!). Let me know what you all think.