New Starbucks Branding
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Thursday, 10th March, 2011
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I’m not one to spend £3 plus on a cup of coffee. I’d much rather buy some good beans and make some myself at home rather than cruise by Starbucks every morning for my fix. But I do make a trip to Starbucks every Wednesday; not for coffee-related activities, but rather for a knitting group.
Yesterday, the Starbucks we meet in had their new branding rolled out. I’d seen the new logo and packaging previously online, and wasn’t really too sure how well it would work in situ; after recent poor branding revisions by GAP and Waterstones, a rebrand by any big company makes me worry. But I was pleasantly surprised by how well it does work.
Starbucks products with the new branding
With the logo left on it owns with no text around it, it does gain more of a lease of life, and its simplicity really makes it pop off the packaging. I was initially worried as to how the lack of edges would work, but the way the white parts of the logo flow into the white packaging creates something bold but very attractive. The typography, freed from the logo, feels almost more prominent where used. And, of course, the reason for the branding – removing the important of “coffee”, something that hasn’t really been suited to the brand for a while now with their range of drinks and food – opens the prospects for an even more extensive product line.
Starbucks bags with the new branding
The mugs in the UK maybe a little different from the North American ones though. Instead of the strong green logo which drops off the bottom of the mug (as can be seen in the screenshot below, taken from the promotional video going around), the cups we drank from yesterday had a white logo physically embossed onto the central point of the mug, meaning the logo had a lovely tactile quality to it. As a big fan of chunky mugs for coffee, I was quite surprised by how nice it was to drink from the new bone-china cups. They are thinner rimmed, more like the traditional tea cup, but much wider in dimensions which make them feel a little better suited to coffee. I’m guessing this is part of their move to decentralise coffee from their menu as these new cups work perfectly for both coffee and tea.
Starbucks products with the new branding
Illustrated history of the Starbucks brand
