Motel Massacre!!
I’ve been noticing a recent trend in hotel/motel logos as of late, and that trend is that they are generic pieces of trash with little to no visual appeal. There hasn’t been a massacre of this scale in the hospitality industry since the infamous Bates Motel closed its doors.
The new Holiday Inn logo looks like a line of frozen vegetables or a discount air line. Say goodbye to all the brand equity of their old marks which harken back to the golden age of the great American road trip. Say hello to gradients and drop shadows that look like they’d be more at home flanking the Green Giant.
The recently unveiled Super 8 logo doesn’t fare any better, losing the homey hospitality of it’s old mark in favor of something that would be more at home on the side of a slot machine in a Truckee, Nevada gas station.
Days Inn hasn’t abandoned everything like these others, but instead just went for a cheap refresh – morphing their formerly pleasant rising sun of dawn into a doomsday nuclear blast.
Lastly, Quality Inn was apparently smitten with Quaker State motor oil (a fine motor oil in its own right) and had their new logo made to closely resemble it. I find it hard to believe that the uncanny Quaker State proximity never came up during any creative meetings. Maybe it’s a new motel/quick lube combo concept?
When I think of appealing hospitality industry marks, I think of the warmth and whimsy of the motor inns and motels of the 50′s and 60′s. Friendly, fun and bold…welcoming and hospitable. Gone are these hallmarks of Americana, and in their place trendy lifeless designs. Whatever happened, something has possessed these designers to suck all the joy out this industry’s formerly enchanting graphics and signage. Maybe they took their creative brief to heart and actually attempted to stay in one of these dumpy motels for a night…that might explain their motivation for this half-hearted work: revenge.
2 Responses to “Motel Massacre!!”
Jason Dorn - March 13, 2009
Reminds of Aaron Draplin’s rant about how American is fucked, graphically at least. Harkens to exactly the issue of lame modern hotel signs:
http://vimeo.com/1465284
admin - March 14, 2009
Draplin is the bomb.
Leave a Reply