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LOGOLOGY (3)

By: Joshua Glenn
April 18, 2025

An installment in a 10-part series that will feature selected excerpts from Josh Glenn’s 2024 contribution — a top-of-mind, semiotics-adjacent analysis of fast food and cannabis brand logos and pack design — to issue no. 1 of the marketing-culture zine Cash & Carry.

Chick-Fil-A’s doodled-upon cursive logo is an example of reduction — its current line weight is more evenly weighted and lighter than it used to be, thus easier to read at all sizes — which helps. Do we miss the chicken’s more realistic, slightly scary beak? Yes, but again — a smart move.

The new logo look was undertaken as part of the brand’s Millennial-centric makeover; apparently, the idea was to scrape away line weight along with the company’s anti-LGBTQ+ ideology.

PS: The logo today looks even more “1940s” than did the original 1940s logo… which is the sort of thing to which Baudrillard refers when he speaks of the “precession of simulacra.”

***

MORE FURSHLUGGINER THEORIES BY JOSH GLENN: SCHEMATIZING | IN CAHOOTS | JOSH’S MIDJOURNEY | POPSZTÁR SAMIZDAT | VIRUS VIGILANTE | TAKING THE MICKEY | WE ARE IRON MAN | AND WE LIVED BENEATH THE WAVES | IS IT A CHAMBER POT? | I’D LIKE TO FORCE THE WORLD TO SING | THE ARGONAUT FOLLY | THE PERFECT FLANEUR | THE TWENTIETH DAY OF JANUARY | THE REAL THING | THE YHWH VIRUS | THE SWEETEST HANGOVER | THE ORIGINAL STOOGE | BACK TO UTOPIA | FAKE AUTHENTICITY | CAMP, KITSCH & CHEESE | THE UNCLE HYPOTHESIS | MEET THE SEMIONAUTS | THE ABDUCTIVE METHOD | ORIGIN OF THE POGO | THE BLACK IRON PRISON | BLUE KRISHMA | BIG MAL LIVES | SCHMOOZITSU | YOU DOWN WITH VCP? | CALVIN PEEING MEME | DANIEL CLOWES: AGAINST GROOVY | DEBATING IN A VACUUM | PLUPERFECT PDA | SHOCKING BLOCKING.

Categories

Codebreaking

Tags

brand-semiotics, Chik-Fil-A, logo, logology

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About the Author

Josh Glenn, HILOBROW's editor, is a principal of the commercial semiotics agency Semiovox. He is co-author and/or co-editor of several books, including The Idler's Glossary, Significant Objects, and the bestselling family activities guide UNBORED. In the ’00s, Josh was a columnist and blogger for the Boston Globe's IDEAS section; in the ’90s, he published the zine/journal Hermenaut. He lives in Boston.

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