Did you see the pictures of the ‘re-designed’ WHSmith logo that appeared on a few stores last month? Oof. Fugly.
The company has since issued a statement saying that it’s part of a trial looking at localisation and Mark Ritson has told us all to calm down but even if it’s true It doesn’t make me feel much better. Whatever they are testing it still looks awful. Shouldn’t a trial involve something dynamic and forward thinking? In its defence, I gather that the brand has seen a significant improvement in revenue in the last 12 months, so it’s not all bad and, let’s be honest, it’s not worth getting upset about.
However, all the commentary about whether it’s a test or wondering what the strategy is feels beside the point to me. What’s bothering me is just the aesthetics of it all. No matter what the reasoning behind this little experiment I’ve long believed that brands have a responsibility to improve the environment around them, which includes how they look and how they make us feel about the world we inhabit. Our lives are improved by good aesthetics and our high streets and retail parks are important parts of that but this logo is, to be frank, shit and largely because it looks like nobody put any effort into it.
I’m not an expert on the history of WH Smith, but I do know that the original look and feel was designed in the early 1900s by Eric Gill, who was employed by the company to paint the fascia of its Paris bookshop in 1903 and in so doing created one of the first examples of an official corporate font. Search for it for online – it’s genuinely interesting and characterised by little nuances, influences and subtle design features. It was then followed by R. P. Glossop’s (or Gossop?) lozenge shaped design a few years later. I also remember the classic WHS cube that was used from the 1970s through to the 1990s which was genuinely iconic. You can read more about it on WHSmiths’ own blog here. WHSmith has an identity history to be proud of.
Those identities were interesting and added something to the world around us. This latest logo just makes me feel like WHSmith can’t be arsed. I appreciate, of course, that the company has financial and commercial challenges that might reduce the time and effort afforded to its identity but is it really too much to ask brands to look half decent and like they care? It all feels like a form of brand vandalism to me.
