I did a little driving this past week and noticed two rebranding efforts in the hospitality sector. Holiday Inn did their’s a couple of years ago and Best Western more recently. I wonder what each company paid for their rebrand efforts. If anyone knows, please share with me. It seems a no-brainer that one job was worth its weight in design gold, the other not so much.
Holiday Inn’s logo is contemporary, active, clean and refreshing. It suggests the same approach was taken renovating all the properties. Though green is not one of my favorite colors, I have to admit the mark, type and name treatment work wonderfully.
The Best Western logo on the other hand, looks like a too-cool-for-type-school designer worked on it and it’s way over our heads, or, it was crafted by the CMO’s daughter who cuts hair in Jersey City. (Not that there’s anything wrong with beauticians or Jersey City.) The Best Western logo is the opposite of Holiday Inn: Logy, a tad unkempt, colorless and sans any fashion sense. Close your eyes and imagine what the new room designs must look like. That is, if they were done at all.
Logo and style manual design in a rebrand isn’t everything but it’s a HUGE thing.
McPeace.
