En Garde, Bad Logos

Les Mousquetaires (The Musketeers), is a leading French super and hypermarket chain founded in 1969, employing 130,000 people across Europe in over 4,000 stores, with a turnover of €35 million (US$47 million) in 2008. The name is, of course, a direct reference to Alexandre Dumas’ 19th century novel about the adventures and escapades of a group of sword fighting, good living, soldier friends in the reign of Louis 13th of France. The Musketeers are synonymous of friendship, adventures and the good life in France and are part of popular culture, an association this supermarket has happily adopted.

The old identity was an incongruous, complex juxtaposition within a hexagon shape (which supposedly symbolises the map of France), of increasingly smaller Musketeers, and a small rendering of the name in a curved band, all reproduced in a slightly aggressive and very “discount feel” colour scheme of black and orange. I have seen this logotype for years in my travels throughout France and have always been astonished by its dated imagery, its questionable appropriateness for a supermarket logo and its visual confusion. Coinciding with their 40th anniversary, Les Mousquetaires created this new brand — created by Paris-based design agency Carré Noir, part of Publicis Group — in the early part of 2009 and in the last months of the year began implementing the changes.

The design objectives, to quote Jean-Philippe Chavatte, Associate Director of Carré Noir, are to “Communicate a genuine image of renewal, to simultaneously evoke dynamism, modernity and innovation” and to distance the negative connotations of the old brand: “The hexagon which does not correspond to the international dimension of the group, the cross which could be a barrier in certain countries and the Musketeers silhouette which is too nationalistic and basic an image.” The new brand represents “the man, the entrepreneur” says Chavatte, communicating the spirit of this group of 3,000 independent store managers who own 100% of the group’s capital. It expresses “Confidence and balance, force and determination and the vision of the independent entrepreneur.” But enough for the press releases, now for the design.

What can I say? In the interests of fairness can I find anything positive to say about this work? Honestly, no. I have rarely, in my twenty years experience of working in branding design in Europe seen anything quite as disastrous as this. It has just been launched, and it already looks dated. And confusing. Is it inspired by a 1970s Olympics pictogram? Well, I have seen much better. Maybe Japanese Kanji and Hiragana inspiration? Consult a real calligrapher. Perhaps a motorway and bridge for a construction group? Again, I have seen much better in an industry that has less call for design, marketing and communications.

This is a meaningless collection of curves now that the Musketeer has been killed off. The graphic treatment of the curves and swooshes are all different creating a disturbing visual conflict and lack of cohesion. The positive/negative space relationship is uncomfortable. How will this work on a dark background or on supermarket signage? The typestyle is a small but inelegant improvement but remains so small as to be hardly legible in print. It has managed to preserve its old aggressiveness. And there is no communication of “renewal or the entrepreneur’s spirit.” This is a predictable, uninspiring and characterless mark that communicates virtually nothing. I am amazed that a leading branding agency is capable of producing work like this today and getting away with it. Or that a major industry player can select such work and endorse it.

But it doesn’t end there. Intermarché is a chain of supermarkets and hypermarkets owned by the Les Mousquetaires group, which has also dramatically changed its identity. The old logotype combined the Musketeers icon with a bold all capitals rendering of the name in orange and black, continuing the discount feel. Whereas the new Musketeers signature is in lowercase with capital “E”s, the new Intermarché brand is lowercase with capital “R”s. The typography has some of the same disturbing characteristics of the Musketeer brand: a combination of curves and angular shoulders. The inverted “a” for the “e” and the tapering stroke on the “R” (a reminder of the sword?) all add to the uncomfortable feeling.

The differentiation of type and size of store: Super, Hyper, Contact and Express is spelled out in a narrow black rule with a gradation and changes typestyle with each store type: bold caps, light lowercase italics and even a script for Contact, the local neighbourhood store. I hope the consumers can make sense of all this because I, as a branding creative director, am pretty lost. And in terms of strategy, coherence, design quality and visual standards, things can’t get much worse.

Thanks to Benoît Champy for the tip.

Adam Haase’s comment is:

What’s the font used in the new Les Mousquetaires logo?

On Mar.05.2010 at 06:14 AM

qwertyale’s comment is:

chinatown.

On Mar.05.2010 at 06:16 AM

qwertyale’s comment is:

not the font name… it’s my opinion about logo ok?

On Mar.05.2010 at 06:29 AM

Pierre’s comment is:

A very well known brand in France, indeed.

I always felt the old one tried to include too much ‘Frenchness’ - the musketeers, the cross, the hexagon. The new mark dispenses with this nationalistic feel entirely, not necessarily a bad thing.

Agreed with general sentiments of the redesign though - its very uninspired. I thought swoosh hell died out in the early 2000s! The new typeface is even worse than the old.

On Mar.05.2010 at 06:35 AM

John McCollum’s comment is:

Good heavens. What a waste. Aside from the fact that it’s aggressively and relentlessly boring, it forfeits the opportunity to truly differentiate.

A Muskateer? What a great starting point for a really unique brand in the world of whatever the hell “hypermarkets” are.

Some brand redesign projects are like polishing a turd. This one is like finding a diamond in the rough and turding on it.

On Mar.05.2010 at 06:49 AM

James’s comment is:

The old one is much better. They could have done something far more interesting with the musketeer theme, what a missed opportunity.

On Mar.05.2010 at 06:50 AM

buruno’s comment is:

ugh

On Mar.05.2010 at 06:53 AM

Jordi’s comment is:

Barcelona’92 is what first came to my mind. Nice to see it included.

The redesign can’t be worse.

On Mar.05.2010 at 07:02 AM

Plamen’s comment is:

Oh, swooshy madness!!! Fail! And, btw, it also reminds of the AFC Champions League logo - http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/a_soccer_logo_breaks_free.php

The Intermarche typography on the other hand is a vast improvement. Tho’ if I didn’t know what it is, would think it’s a gas station.

On Mar.05.2010 at 07:04 AM

Van’s comment is:

Adam, “Les Mousquetaires” font is Handeln Gothic.

On Mar.05.2010 at 07:11 AM

=David’s comment is:

On the Musketeer:
Horrifying. I can barely tell which one is the “Before” image. This is a truly bad redesign. The shapes are ambiguous, the colors are not winsome, the layout is hard to follow. There’s so much wrong with this, it’s hard to understand why they didn’t just scrap the idea and start over. I mean, I like negative space, but the way they used it makes it hard to understand that it’s intentional. It feels like something’s missing.

On the intermarche logotype:
I’m reminded of a logo for a racing company in the United States. This logo doesn’t do anything different or new, they didn’t put any real effort into this at all. It just is, and it’s completely uninspired.

On Mar.05.2010 at 07:16 AM

ScottyM’s comment is:

I actually quite like the old. Then again, I don’t have to see it every day. It has a solid, timeless-while-still-quirky quality to it. Reminds me of the 70s logos of old that still resonate.

On Mar.05.2010 at 07:17 AM

Rafe’s comment is:

So what specifically do you not like about the mark? Go ahead, be honest. Seriously, it is so unremarkable - I’d love to read the comments they had from any field tests.

On Mar.05.2010 at 07:42 AM

Michael’s comment is:

In general, the redesign is far worse. Truly a shame conceptually, to lose the musketeer.

ScottyM:
“I actually quite like the old. Then again, I don’t have to see it every day. It has a solid, timeless-while-still-quirky quality to it. Reminds me of the 70s logos of old that still resonate.”

I agree with you. But then, I still can’t wrap my head around that identity for a chain of supermarkets!

What a curious project!

On Mar.05.2010 at 07:43 AM

bottleHeD’s comment is:

Damn, the Intermarch store logos look like some design student’s first attempt at building a portfolio. Disturbingly bad!

On Mar.05.2010 at 07:53 AM

anom’s comment is:

if you’ve ever been to france you’ll know this is just another example of the typical poor design you come across in every town across that nation! ‘orrible

On Mar.05.2010 at 08:05 AM

Joseph’s comment is:

Every time an agency produces work like this, an eskimo clubs a baby seal.

On Mar.05.2010 at 08:25 AM

qwertyale’s comment is:

we need licenses for designers. it’s an aberration and reduces people self esteems.

On Mar.05.2010 at 08:31 AM

Cory ’s comment is:

What the hell is this thing?

On Mar.05.2010 at 08:45 AM

Barcl’s comment is:

It’s only the beginning of March, and I think we already have a great candidate for the worst new look of 2010. I think they had a lot of directions they could have went to improving the now old mark. It’s another on of these logos which most likely took days or/and months to design, but looks like it took 5 minutes… tops.

On Mar.05.2010 at 08:47 AM

cody milhouse’s comment is:

the caribou coffee caribou strikes again.

On Mar.05.2010 at 08:53 AM

Larry W’s comment is:

Why do people hate illustration so much that they feel the need to actually get rid of them from a logo and replace it with abstract shapes?

On Mar.05.2010 at 08:54 AM

Penn’s comment is:

If I see one more ‘dynamic, contemporary, forward-thinking’ swoosh person logo …

On Mar.05.2010 at 09:05 AM

Cory ’s comment is:

The designers of this need to be impaled on it.

On Mar.05.2010 at 09:22 AM

Mr Miyagi’s comment is:

swoosh… right into the trash bin.

On Mar.05.2010 at 09:36 AM

MSGDS’s comment is:

This is horrific! I don’t understand how could anyone allow for this logo design to be presented as an identity for a supermarket chain. When I first saw it, I thought it was for a sporting event for fencing.

Very dated and completely inappropriate.

On Mar.05.2010 at 10:08 AM

grubedoo’s comment is:

The Les Mousquetaires rebrand was lead by a committee who wanted to Art Direct and had a huge budget. Carré Noir saw them coming, signed the contract, handed the job over to a first year intern and a couple weeks later cashed the check. Now the employees of Carré Noir are all on vacation for the next six months indifferent to the unfolding brand saga.

On Mar.05.2010 at 11:02 AM

Jason D’s comment is:

What always amazes me about projects like this is not only did the design agency think it was good enough to present but the client signed off on it. Dreadful.

On Mar.05.2010 at 11:06 AM

Gigi Frias’s comment is:

Oh, Wow! I can’t even begin how turned off I am by these new brands. I find them so aggressive and off-putting, it makes me feel like they intentionally tried to intimidate their consumers away. The only thing I disagree with your review on is that this is in any way a predictable approach - I can’t conceive how this would be anyone’s go to design!

On Mar.05.2010 at 11:30 AM

Artur’s comment is:

my eyes are burning….

On Mar.05.2010 at 11:58 AM

M.’s comment is:

Wait, not saying the new logo is successful, but am I the only one that sees a musketeer represented by the swooshes? He’s parrying forward, probably stabbing at high prices.

On Mar.05.2010 at 12:11 PM

Joseph’s comment is:

@M. - Yeah, it is certainly meant to represent a musketeer, but it’s done in such a way that well, as I said before, makes eskimos club baby seals.

On Mar.05.2010 at 01:12 PM

Splashman’s comment is:

@M., the musketeer in the swooshes seemed obvious to me; I assume it is to everyone else, too.

Here’s the big-picture problem, as I see it. The agency guy said, “…the Musketeers silhouette which is too nationalistic and basic an image.” If that is true, the name of the chain should be changed, as the name itself evokes an image. Either embrace the name and have the visuals clearly reinforce it, or dump the name and start from scratch.

As a re-design, this is awful — already dated, neither here nor there, and poor execution to boot. I think @grubedoo nailed it: design-by-committee, executed by an intern.

On Mar.05.2010 at 01:34 PM

Gigi Frias’s comment is:

Just ran into a logo which reminded me of this monstrosity, thought I’d share.

On Mar.05.2010 at 01:58 PM

Dallas Criminal lawyer’s comment is:

Seems like an improvement. Can see the strenghts in both the logos.

On Mar.05.2010 at 02:00 PM

Splashman’s comment is:

@Gigi, please, there are enough gag-inducing logos on Brand New already. And that one needs a warning label.

On Mar.05.2010 at 02:14 PM

Joseph’s comment is:

Maybe instead of baby seals, we can talk the eskimos in to clubbing “Dallas Criminal Lawyer” for constantly spamming the comment section of these posts just to get a link to his site out there.

On Mar.05.2010 at 03:12 PM

Adam Haase’s comment is:

Thank you so much Van.

I’d been wanting to know for almost 8 years.

Now to the logo.

I feel the retail company has no complete intentions in fact none at all.

On Mar.05.2010 at 04:47 PM

Chris Herron’s comment is:

Purely from the point of view of the rendering… the singular differentiating aspect of a musketeer is his sword/foil. Why would you remove all detail from the sword (and eliminate its hilt) so that it cannot be distinguished from the musketeers arm? Perplexing.

On Mar.05.2010 at 04:48 PM

Eric’s comment is:

It’s not a “meaningless collection of curves,” it’s a musketeer. If Splashman is right and this is obvious to everyone, someone should tell the reviewer.

Stylistically, it feels like a dot com era leftover, but as far as abstract illustrations go, this is rather well done. If someone can illustrate a musketeer with less information than this I’d love to see it.

Whether a musketeer is an appropriate symbol for a supermarket group is an argument that has passed its time. By now, it has brand equity, and it’s as valuable a symbol to them as a pig is to Piggly Wiggly.

The supporting type is a mess.

On Mar.05.2010 at 05:12 PM

valt1’s comment is:

In France à “logo Expert” know this logo to spring 2009. I say it just banal, and not créativity. Whent i see it i know à logo to Des Moines tows in Iowa, with his arche. but @anom it’s an attack !

+1 @cody milhouse : the caribou coffee caribou strikes again.// Whera is à logo.

And i ajout a Brand ECOMARCHE has been… with this new consept,

but a Brant Netto (hard discout) keep same logo.

On Mar.05.2010 at 06:25 PM

Olivier Courbet’s comment is:

I cannot believe it!
I used to go all the time at the Intermarché when i was a kid.They are all over France, mainly in small town and villages. I have obviously some kind of affection for the old logo, even if it is not that great.
But now, what an awful update. This is just totally plain bad and there is nothing else to say about it. Coming from Carré Noir, it almost sounds like a joke, a very, very bad one.
C’est vraiment de la merde.

On Mar.05.2010 at 09:04 PM

dwight schruter’s comment is:

Get the hell out of here ‘Dallas Criminal lawyer’. You’re just here to advertise for free on this blog by posting a comment and you nothing about design.

Anyways.. The old one wasn’t great but it’s better than this new monstrosity. Both of them don’t like they would fit for a supermarket. When I first saw this post, I thought this was a design for something fencing related.

This ‘international correspondent’ guy is annoying. I don’t like him. For example..

“I have rarely, in my twenty years experience of working in branding design in Europe seen anything quite as disastrous as this.”

Is he trying to show off his experience when he’s suppose to be critiquing the design? Even on his free blog (too cheap to get Wordpress) at the top heading banner, he’s showing off his experience. He’s just another guy trying to sound like Armin.

On Mar.05.2010 at 09:43 PM

Rodrigo’s comment is:

I agree with Eric: while the style is dated, the fact that it’s a musketeer is a bit hard to put your finger on, and the identity more appropriate for, say, a hypothetical France Olympics, it’s really not a bad hypersimplified rendering of a musketeer. Perhaps they should’ve just saved this design for something else, and chosen to evolve the old logo rather than discard it.

On Mar.05.2010 at 11:15 PM

Anthony Hawkins’s comment is:

Nothing about either one says “Supermarket”. This logo is hardly inviting or friendly to look at. The colors don’t work at all. They are too aggressive and intimidating for what a super market should be.

On Mar.06.2010 at 12:23 AM

phanyxx’s comment is:

This looks like the most unanimously hated redesign of the year so far… lol

On Mar.06.2010 at 12:55 AM

tobias b köhler’s comment is:

I’ve frequently been treated quite unfriendly in Intermarché, and prefer alternatives such as E. Leclerc if I can. The rebranding does nothing to improve that image ….

On Mar.06.2010 at 03:15 AM

E. Serrano’s comment is:

It is a clear example of a brand redesign aiming for something more modern and composed of just some simple lines. But the resulting logo is just too abstract, and not specially original or clean. I would have tried to simplify the overlapping musketeers / swords concept, which was a good idea.

On the other hand, I don’t find the InterMarché text specially disturbing. Yes, it might be something too modern or technical for just a supermarket related business. But it has some quick and distinctive feeling which could even be an improvement on the default font of their previous brand.

Radical brand designs are a complex task, because:
- Even in old, complex design approaches, there is usually a good underlying idea: don’t discard them when trying to rebrand your company.
- People remember your previous symbol, so you better make your re-branding subtle and progressive.

That’s why, against what common sense could suggest at first, a good redesign could be even more complex than a brand new design.

On Mar.07.2010 at 08:34 AM

Q’s comment is:

i’d like to have a mid level button on the voting options there’s “great”, “fine” and “bad” it should have a “more or less” button =)
i think the logo is not all that great but it isn’t bad also and certainly not fine.

On Mar.07.2010 at 11:17 AM

Paul’s comment is:

Eh. It’s nothing remarkable, but seriously, if I have to read another grand mal seizure of outrage from a Designer of Note who is OMG HORRIFIED at some rebranding that is, at the end of the day, both a) not that bad, and b) and still just a goddamn logo, not an international tragedy… I’m gonna kick Brand New off my RSS reader. Oh, the drama!

Get. Over. Your. Self.

On Mar.08.2010 at 12:31 AM

Katie’s comment is:

Until you told me this was the logo for a supermarket, I assumed it was for an auto parts store like Pep Boys or Kragen. That is 100% the feeling this logo evokes. It strikes me as incredibly bizarre that a supermarket would have a logo like this.

On Mar.08.2010 at 12:54 AM

Fl’s comment is:

Hello all, in all fairness, Carré Noir didn’t do the Intermarché logo, only the Mousquetaires logo. The Mousquetaires logo is not the commercial brand (it is Intermarché) but a group brand (not saying it’s better!).

On Mar.08.2010 at 02:19 AM

Greg’s comment is:

Hi, this is my first comment here. I’m French, and I’m really baffled by this change. The old logo is certainly dated and maybe needed a little facelift, but it’s one of the most famous and immediately recognizable logos in France. And that brand is one of the most liked in France. I hate what they’ve done here. It really is a soulless logo, which looks just like hundreds of other logos. The old one is associated with many memories, and I loved its quirky feel.
Sigh.

On Mar.08.2010 at 08:58 AM

David Sanchez’s comment is:

Another visual metaphor abstration taken the minimum. There are many little ways to depict the human shape. However good Olympic improvement.

On Mar.08.2010 at 01:55 PM

smirker’s comment is:

Great.

I just vomited on my keyboard.

On Mar.08.2010 at 03:46 PM

Andrew’s comment is:

There seems to be a lot of people in favor of getting rid of the “frenchness” of the logo. To me, that was the brand’s defining characteristic. It would be like McDonald’s getting rid of the arches or BMW the cross. The new arching shape is generic. The curve shapes look more like a sporting logo than a grocer.

Ack… I don’t know how anybody could call this a successful re brand. Less identity, less at-a-glance identification, more generic and by association less charm (even if it was 80’s throwback hokey).

The original may not have been a tight design by any means, but it had a structure any good designer should have recognized and built off of.

On Mar.10.2010 at 11:36 AM

Andrew’s comment is:

Oh and if a brand associated with food is “french” I would take it much more serious. France has such a rich history with food and cuisine it would be foolish to disassociate yourself from it if you are in that business.

On Mar.10.2010 at 11:41 AM

kikeon’s comment is:

I’m spanish, and when I saw it, I thought of Barcelona 92.

On Mar.10.2010 at 02:22 PM

FG’s comment is:

That Mousquetaires logo is awful. It looks as though someone barfed 1998 all over it. I thought swooshes were passé!

On Mar.10.2010 at 05:38 PM

Juan’s comment is:

The InterMarché logos look like something you’d find on a pack of off-brand batteries.

On Mar.10.2010 at 06:22 PM

Amicus’s comment is:

The Musketeers logo looks like the horrendous logo you put next to your preferred option in a pitch just to make it look good.

Unfortunately, it seems like no one on the approvals committee has any sense of taste or style - which is to be expected of people working in the higher echelons of a discount retail chain.

It would be a shame for the designers if this is exactly what happened.

On Mar.12.2010 at 06:19 PM

enrolled agent’s comment is:

The new logo just lost its Musketeer identity. I cannot, for the life of me, imagine a Musketeer with curvy looks.

On Mar.13.2010 at 12:57 AM

Berthold’s comment is:

Sacre bleu! What an ugly, ugly logo. They must not have read the brief at all. Why on earth would Les Mousqetaires, one of the most trusted brands in France, try and alienate their loyal customers?! I hate it when designers just echo the brief they got from the customer (let’s see, fresh, trustworthy, customer-oriented, vertically leveraged, holistic approach blah blah bloody blah) without reflecting what they actually need . Namely keep their bloody customers. It’s not like they’re changing their business from hypermarché to a car dealership for crying out loud. Ugh.

And the font, my god is that ever a bad choice! What were they thinking?

Way to ruin a brand. And the stink doesen’t end here, it extends to the website. A visual and UX nightmare.

Carré noir, off into the corner with you.

On Mar.16.2010 at 07:38 AM

Prrd’s comment is:

This is an incredibly bad logo. I’m French and it counts because I see it quite often. The former was bad but this one is plain terrible.

Regarding your questions: Carré Noir is, oddly, a very famous creative agency despite a collection of failures. Look at their portfolio: http://www.carrenoir.com/index_en.html . Having learned how to draw a curve on Illustrator, they put one in everything they do along with a cheap rounded font. Even their own logo is cheap.

On Mar.24.2010 at 07:58 AM

Erwin von Hosenstall’s comment is:

Well I’ve been to France lots of times and when you were there you know that the inter-marché logo is omnipresent. I wasn’t really a fan of the old logo, but the new logo is triggering my puking-sense.

On Apr.09.2010 at 10:49 AM

neil whitehead’s comment is:

Living in France and first saw this visual rubbish on a the smart new building near Pau airport. Intermarche is the independant arm of Les Mousquetaires which sources local products and produce. Interior signage is better but still poor. Another area of design here that needs a radical makeover is that of wine labels. I am visiting local producers in the Madiran and Jurancon to try to get them to update their offerings - which mainly consist of a line drawing of their premises with a bit of foil blocking - but time and again I am told that the label printers throw in the design for free!! I have offered to swap design work for wine but no takers yet. Well designed labels are often produced in other countries.

On May.21.2010 at 12:13 PM