F1 Qualifying is sometimes more exciting than a regular race. Today’s quali was incredible. Going to be tough to beat Max tomorrow.
Every year at the USC State of the University address, I get a selfie with Cocky.
It’s finally cool enough that I can drink my coffee on the back deck.
Home today for a warranty repair to our AC unit that developed a slow leak over the summer. Service is expected to take 3-5 hours. Goodness, they must be disassembling the whole thing.
I think I’ll likely stick with the base model iPhone 17 this year. It will be a massive upgrade from my iPhone 12 Pro. I’ll probably pick up a new Apple Watch, too, to replace my ancient Series 4, which I still wear every day.
Happy 18th birthday, Jilly!
Looking forward to the iPhone event tomorrow. I’m in the market for an upgrade… and whatever they announce will be a big step up from my iPhone 12 Pro.
The end of the Bills-Ravens game was wild. What a comeback.
Scout Motors partnered with local coffee shops to buy coffee for Columbia today. Pretty cool event, and we are happy to have Scout in our community. Thanks for the free drink today! (And the stickers.)
I bought a wireless CarPlay adapter for my car and it’s awesome. I can’t believe I didn’t buy one earlier.
Some thoughts on the Cracker Barrel rebranding fiasco from a visual identity researcher
My Ph.D. research is focused on consumer response to logos and visual identity, so as you can imagine, I’ve talked about Cracker Barrel1 a lot over the last few weeks. Everyone has an opinion and is eager to share it. I held off writing this because the social media chatter was just chaotic, but now that things have calmed down, I wanted to share some quick thoughts based on my research.
People care about logos.
In my forthcoming study on logo attitudes with a sample of 1,000 American consumers2, over 60% of respondents agreed that if their favorite brand changed their logo, they’d want to know why. Cracker Barrel did a really poor job of explaining why they were changing their logo. It seemed to consumers like change for the sake of change and when challenged by consumers (plus a really strange political sideshow), they had no story to tell. And with no official rationale, people concocted their own narratives.
Context matters
When I saw the news of the Cracker Barrel rebranding, I only saw a picture of the logo on a white background. When news outlets ran their stories, the only picture they used was of the front of a Cracker Barrel with the old logo. After Cracker Barrel had announced they were going back to the old mark, I saw examples of the new logo in action, and you know what, it looks nice. I can see what they were going for.
My study published in the Journal of Product & Brand Management found that viewers reacted more favorably when the logo was shown with additional context — examples of the new logo in use, behind-the-scenes sketches, and implementation details.
Cracker Barrel provided none of these images at launch. All consumers had to go on was the logo on a white square. And in general, people dislike new logos without context.
Armchair quarterbacks are everywhere
Everyone seemed to have a solution to Cracker Barrel’s problem. I lost track of how many hot takes I saw on social media. Young designers quickly providing their versions like it was a design school exercise. Branding consultants rushing to talk about how Cracker Barrel had abandoned their loyal fans. And most of these people weren’t fans of Cracker Barrel, they just wanted to capitalize on the attention.
This is the reality of design criticism these days. It comes from everywhere. I’ve been digging into the literature on deprofessionalization and the democratization of design for my dissertation and it’s clear that some of this criticism is rooted in a skeptical view of the design profession.
This level of criticism is going to accompany any major rebranding and companies like Cracker Barrel need to expect and prepare for the inevitable criticism.
The launch is critical
Cracker Barrel seemed surprised and unprepared for obvious criticism. With no story and no context, they weren’t able to respond to critics effectively. This has nothing to do with whether the logo was “good” or “bad.” Instead, it shows how critically important the launch is for any rebranding. People will always have opinions. Logos are the tangible representation of a brand’s relationship with their consumers.
A good launch can go a long way to softening criticism, but a bad launch might completely sidetrack your branding strategy.
Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.
Most of our neighbors have doorbell cameras and motion-activated cameras around their house. We don’t. This morning, one of our neighbors showed us a clip of a guy walking through our yard and trying our car door (which was locked). He then went to their house and tried to open their car doors. Now, I’m wondering if we should have security cameras, even though I think it’s a privacy nightmare…
I switched from the Tiny Theme to the Mythos Theme for my main blog. It’s really nice, but it’s going to take me a while to fully customize it.
I loved newspapers and magazines when I was young. My first job was delivering newspapers. Publication design led me into a design career. But times change, and I’m sad, but not surprised that the Atlanta Journal Constitution will stop printing physical papers.
I’m working in the School of Journalism’s grad student suite for the first time in a while. It’s so quiet up here. I’m going to try to work from here one night a week. It’s a nice change of pace from coffee shops or the kitchen table.
I really want to use Ulysses or Scrivener for my dissertation, but I’m hooked on Zotero’s citation management integration with Word. And the process of connecting Zotero with Scrivener seems… complicated.
I’ve been in two active shooter situations. One turned out to be a false alarm, but it caused a real stampede in a crowded mall. The other was a murder-suicide on campus that caused a lockdown. While I wasn’t really in danger in either situation, the feeling of panic sticks with you.
An active shooter on the University of South Carolina campus. I know my daughter is safe, but so incredibly terrifying.
According to Facebook, I started grad school seven years ago today. I finished my master’s degree in 2021, and have a single independent study and my dissertation left before I finish my PhD, hopefully in 2026. It’s been a long process – I feel like I’ve been a grad student forever – but I’m thankful for my wife, kids, friends and coworkers who have been incredibly patient with me on this seemingly endless journey.
My PhD research is on how people respond to logos. One factor for a successful rollout appears to be context. How will the logo be used? What’s the story behind the change? More context = better response. Neither Cracker Barrel nor MSNBC gave any real context. Here’s my published study on context.