Watched a dentist rebrand fail in real time at a networking event

I was at a small business mixer in Austin last month and this dental office owner was showing off their new logo. It had this tiny tooth icon with a smiley face and three different fonts, none of which matched their website or the sign on their building. The worst part? They paid a friend $300 for it and bragged about the deal. I pointed out that their old patients would see the new logo on a postcard and have zero idea it was the same place. They shrugged and said it felt more modern. A week later I looked them up and the Google reviews were full of people confused about the name change, even though the name never actually changed. The icon was just so busy that nobody could read the business name at all. Has anyone else watched a local brand try to refresh and just make everything worse?

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theabennett3d ago

You paid a friend $300 for it and bragged about the deal" just about broke me. That's not a bargain, that's a donation to bad taste. The worst part is the trust people put in their friend's 'design skills' instead of just looking at it with fresh eyes for five minutes. You can't tell me nobody at that event squinted and asked what the tooth was supposed to be. I hope they at least kept the old sign up, because that new logo sounds like a ransom note written by a toddler with a mouse.