Starbucks’ global creative director Connie Birdsall told Fast Company that in 2011, the Lippincott branding team agreed they needed “to step back and put some of that humanity back in,” regarding the contemporary, perfectly-symmetrical logo that the coffee chain touted for so many years. “We didn’t want her to be perfect, like Barbie, or other brands with characters,” Birdsall added. “Wendy is too perfect. [The Siren] is more worldly. And not in the negative sense of ‘worldly.'” So, what had to change to make the siren look more human? Her symmetry.
The design team took to change a few things about the logo, like dropping the text from it altogether, changing the black background to all green, while also adding a shadow to the right side of the siren’s nose, making it dip slightly lower than the left side – which many people never noticed. “It felt a bit more human and felt less like a perfectly cut mask,” Starbucks design partner Bogdan Geana told Fast Company. So, did you notice the asymmetrical shadow?
