New Caribou Logo Fails to Impress

Just about any logo has to be better than the old Caribou logo, right? The caribou in the old one (on the right) looks like a bad piece of folk art furniture. The type treatment is one of those pseudo "native" jobs that makes me feel like I'm looking at some Pacific North-Western variation of the dreadful Papyrus font. The entire composition is all askew and, regardless of the woefully goofy caribou illustration, quite unfriendly.

Jump forward to the newly unveiled reboot and I can't say it's anywhere near an impressive upgrade... especially for what it probably cost. The underlying foundation of the composition is less askew, and more friendly, but the caribou itself is just a mess. The gesture of the antlers and legs are pretty much guiding your eyes away from the logo. Wouldn't you want the eyes to linger within the logo instead... to explore it and remember it well? The weight of the coffee bean body is fighting with where the head and antlers meet, causing a self defeating visual tension. Sure, the whole thing looks sorta like a caribou, but it easily becomes a bunch of weird shapes if you let it.

If you divide just the caribou, and badge it rests on, into elements, there are about 7 distinct parts to it. Now, it's probably best to have fewer parts, but it can work as long as there's some harmony, or symmetry to it. The Starbucks logo has plenty of fine detail, but it's symmetrical and graphically elegant, while the caribou is unruly and visually ham-fisted. If you look at the Starbucks logo (below) there are many parts to the mermaid image, but the black and white contrast creates a balance, so it's really only 2 parts because of the success of the illustration.


I read that Caribou marketing describes the new logo as being about “optimism and an optimistic outlook on life.” I call bullshit. Is this what the designers said to try to sell it? I obviously wasn't in on the meetings, but I would feel like I was pulling the wool over somebody's eyes if I said something like that so the client would be compelled to "get it" lest they appear to lack vision.

Otherwise, I'm cool with the new type treatment. It has a nice contrast of friendly, hand-written "Caribou," with modern, "Coffee," but the logo just seems to be unfinished, and more unintentional than it should. My eyes don't live in it like I'd want them to.

Ultimately, this re-branding is a big deal for a major coffee franchise and I have to wonder how this lackluster logo made it all the way through to the end. Bah... maybe I should just forget about it and focus on bigger design problems. I mean, I don't even drink coffee!