Established in 1893 as a mail ordering catalog company, Sears had been one of the leading US department store chains for a long time until it began to concede the top positions to Walmart and other popular retailers. After winning its bankruptcy auction a year ago, the company changed its identity by rolling out a logo that was much criticized for resembling the emblem of Airbnb and lack of expressiveness. Recently, Sears has updated its brand, but the new refreshment is still considered as unsuccessful.
While renewing its visual brand in May 2019, Sears wanted to add motifs of warmth, home and heart to its identity, but when the company had presented its new logo, people noticed that it reminded the Airbnb logotype with the heart-shaped design and the loop in the middle. While a Sears press release explained that the new icon was intended to represent home, heart as well as unstoppable moving, the chain’s management said they would be thinking of some changes in the future.
Now, ten months later, Sears has unveiled a new version of its logo. However, the modification is hard to be called an improvement. As we can see, the company didn’t refuse the “home” idea, and has only rid of the loop. This artless solution has evoked a critical reaction as well. On social media, the updated emblem met adverse assessments with such epithets like “outdated”, “undecided” and “extremely lame”.
