Not a good week for venturethree.

Not a great week for them at all. I much prefer the new Little Chef branding too, I really like it as it happens. The problem with Little Chef was it's prices not it's branding. My parents used to call it the Little Rip-Off.

As for the Waterstones branding, I'm undecided. They definitely met what I imagine the brief to be "we need a brand refreshing, bringing it up to date and appeal to more people, giving reading a friendly edge etc etc"... but, it just doesn't stack up for me next to the old Waterstones classic.
 
I guess it takes more than a rebrand to save a failing business. I've eaten in one Little Chef since it changed and I wasn't that impressed with the food.
 
Even Heston Blooming what's his face could not turn them around because their food was terrible.

As for the waterstone's re-branding all they did was change the font and use all lower case, and have a big "w" above it. What was the point.
I have just had a look at the website of venture three and their portfolio is shocking check out the re-branding of XL the big insurance company who I have never heard of:
venturethree
 
I'd love to have a client base that looked like that too. However, the rebrand paul_hutton is on about really isn't that great.
 
I quite like that XL branding. I don't particularly like the UPC branding but everything else looks great to me.
 
I personally much prefer the 2 new logos, but it appears both rebranding missions have done nothing for business for either of them.

I think in this case chopping and changing logo is a bit like fiddling while Rome burns..
 
I have some sympathy with the view that venturethree's output isn't up to much (impressive client base, yes, but generally mediocre work I reckon). That said, I don't think they carry the can for the difficulties faced by a high street bookseller in the internet age or a low-end roadside cafeteria with a bad reputation stretching back decades.
 
Nah they definitely don't. It takes more than a brand to make a business work or fail. The reputation of Little Chef is what eventually sent it down.

Waterstones I'm guessing is failing too, but again, I don't think that's anything to do with the brand identity and a lot to do with the Amazon Kindle.
 
Litlle chef,yuk

waterstones is a shame. i think its the economy not the kindle really.

I dont understand why these big book stores didn't get into selling books online big time. Its call they should have made
 
Shocking? Really? What international brands have you worked with? I'd guess that 99% of designers would love a client base and portfolio that looks like that. I know I would.

Yeah it would be good, but not if they don't like the work you do for them and end up in the media for the wrong reason.
 
Yeah it would be good, but not if they don't like the work you do for them and end up in the media for the wrong reason.

I'm pretty sure these clients do like the work, otherwise they wouldn't have signed it off. As Dave said above, Waterstones just can't compete with the Internet, so they embraced it and re-branded to something more modern (hence the .com in the new logo). Little Chef's new branding in my opinion is 100x better than their old stuff, and I actually prefer it to BK, KFC, McD's etc, but if their food is shit, they aren't going anywhere.

What I would say is if these people thought that a re-brand would help business, business which is failing in their main objective, high-street book shopping and take away food, they are pretty stupid.
 
Because the rebrand obviously didn't help with business like they expected it too. Hence why Little Chef have gone bust. Waterstones may well have gone bust eventually, but have decided to go back to the original logo to bring some customers back.
 
That could be the reason but from the article it made out that they were unhappy with it in general. Their portfolio does not appeal to me but at the end of the day it is only my opinion
 
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