Quizno’s

Type Violations

Sandwich shop Quiznos used to be known as Quizno’s. And for whatever reason they decided to drop the so-called apostrophe. Probably a good thing, since it wasn’t an apostrophe to begin with. Was it an attempt to subconsciously let their customers know they make foot-long sandwiches? I think not.

Witness the previous logo in all it’s glory, in huge signage letters for all to see the mistake.

It’s not an altogether bad logo. The type is actually handled quite well, but you think if they paid that much attention to the subtlety of the negative area of the foot of the Q, they’d be able to at least get an apostrophe right?

Well, instead of fixing it, they just removed it altogether. Here’s the new logo.

Type is a little less formal, but I actually don’t like it as much, even without the so-called apostrophe. Design as we all know, is very subjective. So just because I don’t like it, doesn’t mean it wasn’t designed by someone who had a clue. It clearly demonstrates some craft, but IMHO, it has a little less character than the previous. Plus, the new logo looks a little too much like the Carolina Hurricanes logo done by my buddy Pete ;)

While researching the logo, I came across this page, which has some funny commentary about the apostrophe, but none relating to the fact that it’s really a foot mark. I was hoping to dig up a little more info about the redesign but the page was full of dead links. All I managed to find was that it was done by Tesser a design firm in San Francisco. Their portfolio page shows a bunch of other restaurant brands with real apostrophes in their logos, but it’s hard to know whether they did the logos, or just had these other companies as clients. I didn’t bother looking deeper to find out.

Companies change or update their logos for a variety of reasons, and we’ll never really know why Quiznos did, but I’m thankful they did. One less improper apostrophe in the world. Way to go, Quiznos.

Ken @ October 7, 2007