Logos I dislike...

I'm not in any way, shape or form saying these logos are bad or inefficient. Lots of them are well known and have served their purpose well. I'm saying I personally don't like them, and while it's true that rules are meant to be broken - these logos definitely break the rules, and not in a good way. Don't pick on me for disliking these logos, it's just my lowly, personal opinion.

So without further ado, here's the logos I'd love to see redesigned:

Fabricland
I've heard through the design grapevine that an actual designer did this logo. Whether under bad influence from the client, or whether the choices that were made were done so on purpose, it leaves several things to be questioned. Now the font is uninspired, but when your audience is the crafty type, this logo does seem homey and "crafty". But why oh why oh why is that "R" yellow?! It doesn't make sense to me! Perhaps that was on purpose. Give the audience something to question and they will remember you. True. The company even seems to acknowledge the oddity of the logo since they held a contest a few years back asking customers to write in, and give their theories as to why it's yellow. And in all their "new" marketing materials, the yellow is gone leaving the logo in only red and white (oh, how Canadian, eh?). So whether it was on purpose, or by accident, this makes my top choice for ugly logos. And yellow and red? Really? That just screams "cheap" to me. But that's just my opinion...

Kudawara Pharmacy
I'm not sure where this pharmacy is, and I must confess I've only seen this logo on the internet as a poorly designed logo. What were these people thinking when they designed it? I can only guess. Some people theorize it's one person "helping" another (think heimlich maneuver). But my theory is it's not supposed to represent people at all. Just unfortunate juxtapositioning. Nuff said.


MegaFlicks
I really don't need to say why this is a bad logo, except that it looks frighteningly similar to a logo of a current client (who I won't mention here). Just a note, people - please look at your designs from the eyes of someone who has never before seen your logo. Many modern fonts run letters together, and if you have an "L" preceeded by an "I" - just beware. And if you're in it for the shock value, well...STOP IT! It's just tasteless.

Kids Exchange
A kids consignment store is a great idea. How much wear and tear DOES an average 6 month old go through? This is just another example of why all capital letters is bad, and why running words together without spaces is bad. Sigh. See above for those two examples as well. I can only hope this is a very old photo, and they've since corrected this mistake, or have changed their name. I can only imagine what kinds of mistaken identity and possible arrests have been made due to this error.

Computer Doctors
Again, I'm not going to go into detail why this is bad. It just is. Sometimes some bad designs are done SO badly, I can't tell if they're done by accident or on purpose. In this case I believe it's the latter. Sigh. Reminds me of the recently recalled Tinkerbell & Friends toy. You don't remember this? Read about it here: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml10/10131.html
Now the bad design choice of the toy has absolutely nothing to do with the recall, but look at the rosebud toy. Scroll down on the page, I'll wait... What does that toy remind you of? I think the people who sculpted that toy must be very bored with their lives.

United Way
This is a very well designed logo. I like the United Way and the good work that they do. We should all support the United Way. My aversion to it is something my sister said to me when we were kids. She said the logo reminded her of blood squirting out of someone's wrist, and the little person dancing in it. That dark imagery of her overactive imagination has always haunted me, and I've always thought they needed to change at least the colors. And they have. Let us never see this logo in red again. Amen.

Sinclair
The logo itself is clever. Where does oil come from? Yay! It's clever, and it's unique. There's just something unsettling about puttin' dead dinos in your car. Weird. But then again, I never grew up with Sinclair gas stations. Up here in Canada, our gas does not mix with humor. Wait. Lemme re-phrase that...

Best Pals
Now I can't find this logo yet. I thought I saved the packaging from years ago, and all internet and dollar store searches turn up empty. I hope this means this that this logo has finally been laid to rest. Not to be confused with the Best Pals rag dolls (which are very popular in the states). This was a dollar store version of a plastic baby doll, complete with blanket, bottle and cheap ass diapers. It came in a sickly saccharin pink box with their Best Pals logo emblazoned on it. Only thing was, the logo lettering all ran together to make it appear to read "BESTIALS". Which I'm sure you all agree is a very bad image for a baby doll. If anyone has the logo, or a package with this logo on it - please send it to me so I can put it on my blog. It definitely deserves to be here.

That's all I got today, I try to be as positive as possible with my critiquing. Me not liking a logo has absolutely no bearing on how effective it is, or how wonderful the company may be. I've certainly designed some absolute stinkers of logos in my years. Maybe I'll put them all up here for the internet to laugh at some day. But until then, keep looking for the beauty things. There's a whole lotta ugly to make up for!