LOGOLOGY (4)
By:
April 20, 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.
In-N-Out’s logo is tremendously appealing if you sentimentally long for the good old days of drive-thru burger joints; it hasn’t changed much since 1954. As a result, it’s one of the few fast-food chains about which many communities — in which McDonald’s and Burger King are unwelcome — get excited.
The flip side of this phenomenon? At a preconscious level, In-N-Out is coded “white” and “Christian.” The good old days weren’t always good, not for everybody.
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.