Target, known for its iconic red bullseye logo, has decided to ditch its heritage clothing brands in favour of a brand-focused strategy that includes more niche offerings. According to Target, the new line will carry versatile pieces that allow shoppers to mix-and-match. The clothes will also emphasize on quality, to keep its customers feeling comfortable all the time.

However, Target’s branding efforts for their latest womenswear line has fallen flat. The new womenswear line, called A New Day, has left many scratching their heads over the design of its logo. When images of the new logo started to circulate on Twitter, many people confessed the styling of the words, which kind of looks like a crossword puzzle, proved confusing.

“A confusingly designed logo that it took me 4-5 Target trips to realize it didn’t say ‘and away!’” Racked’s Senior Editor Alanna Okun said in a tweet.

Fellow Racked Senior Editor Meredith Haggerty added, “Just put your letters in any dang order and make the people guess, why not. I am so annoyed by this because it would have only taken some small changes to make this name and logo comprehensible.”

Possible logo solutions

The main problem with Target’s new logo, which is supposed to read A New Day, is that there aren’t enough visual cues guiding the eye to read vertically; so ultimately it reads as “and ea wy.”

They explored how they could make “and” look like an acronym. And instead of vertical text orientation and large amounts of negative space, they could’ve utilized hierarchy. Since the most visually important part of the logo is the actual brandname, make those words bigger, drawing the eye there first. The “and” becomes secondary, so after readers absorb “a new day”, the corresponding letters above are understood as its initials.

These are just a few examples of what they could’ve done to improve the readability of the new logo design. Eventually, A New Day will join three more new apparel and decor brands Target is debuting this fall. Hopefully, they will have much better logos.

What are your thoughts on this logo design? How many times did you need to read it to get it right?

Source: https://www.racked.com/2018/3/23/17156212/a-new-day-target-logo-confusing