This should be old news to you by now but in case it isn’t, Walmart , yes the hyphen is gone, has updated their logo. I’ve seen a good bit of blog action on this subject and it’s all been negative. Even Dwell magazine listed it as an example of bad design. Now I can think of plenty of reasons not to shop at Walmart and generally this company is not known for good design of any kind. But to be fair I think this rebranding deserves a second opinion.

As you can see the old logo was a clunky sans-serif with a star that replaced the hyphen in the early nineties. Not exactly inspiring, but that’s what we expect from the store ubiquitous with low prices, low quality and lots of it. Apparently Walmart is trying to step it up a notch in the design department, no doubt to combat Target’s fantastic harnessing of good design (and even better commercials) and hopefully shed their lack-luster image.

The new logo incorporates what I feel is a wonderful sans-serif font that’s as friendly as it is modern and puts it in America’s favorite color - blue. I especially like the flow of the r into the t at the end and I don’t have anything bad to say about the kerning. The little starburst sun thingy is pretty generic but lets not forget who this logo belongs to. It’s unique enough that, when used alone, you’ll still think Walmart after about the fifth time you see it. I say this logo is a success and that to me is good design.