The old Dairy queen logo had some compelling features. The typography is startlingly modern, the shape is retro-fifties and the whole package sings "make an awesome well-lit retail sign out of me."

True, the food is now and has always been unadulterated sugar-spiked trash, but that is why we love it, right? The Dairy Queen mystique for me has always had to do with some sort of vague 50's ice-cream parlor RootBeer-float feeling that you get - it is a summer destination in the way that 7-11 never could be, and fun for kids in a way that Royal Farms fails at utterly.

Well our good friends at Dairy Queen weren't satisfied with their terrific logo and so have gone into competition with - cool ranch doritos. And all other snack food.



The new font is nothing special, and I see a little too much Quiznos in the Q and nothing distinctive about the D at all. The only partially acceptable move was to put the trademark "R" in the red shape instead of it dangling out, as it was before.

Usage is problematic because the light swoosh and the dark swoosh make it so that no one color (dark or light) can make the logo pop against the background.

The way the problem was solved below, with a white halo around the whole logo - is just confused and lame.



So whats my takeaway?
"Don't Fix It If It Ain't Broke."
I think that if a change HAD to take place, it could be a change in usage or treatment, perhaps they could even go so far as to animated it and trend towards animated signs, at points of purchase, etc. (Wachovia has done this very elegantly with their logo at ATMs and I admit, it has me thinking of their logo in animated form even with I see it still.)

The OLD OLD logo, just for reference: