New logos: refreshing, or no?

This weekend I was thumbing through the Week In Review, and what would have been a pretty decent article on some recent logo redesigns was completely ruined by the fact that the magenta plate was about 1/16 of an inch off on press, which meant that every image that had even the tiniest bit of magenta in it pretty much sucked.

Thank goodness the article is online.

Behold the new breed of corporate logo — non-threatening, reassuring, playful, even child-like. Not emblems of distant behemoths, but faces of friends.

Companies like Walmart, Stop and Shop, and even Cheer laundry detergent are going out with the old; in with the new, softer, more fun, wheeeeeeeeee, we're having a good time over here! I mean, lots more lowercase and swooshes (but not those late 90's/early millennium tech swooshes).

Check out the slideshow at the top of the page for some before and afters.