The only vacuum good enough to be named for a shark that pilots boats around Europe professionally.

TO: Euro-Pro Logo Committee

Hi guys, sorry to be so long in getting back to you. I’ve been working all week on sketches for a logo for your vacuum, and doing my best to incorporate all the (unsolicited) feedback I’ve gotten from various members of your staff. Let me just say again for the record that I think you’d be a lot better off if you just dropped one or two of the product’s names. I know, I know, I’m in the minority on this one, but it’s just—

Well, you’ll see what I mean. Let me just show you what I’ve got. First, I took a shot just at illustrating “Shark Vacuums.” Pretty straightforward, and “shark” is a word that immediately brings an image to your mind anyway, so I thought that was going to work.

But then Debra from Marketing let me know that the “Navigator” part of the name was an integral part of the vacuum’s identity, so it was essential that I get that across somehow. That brought me to this concept here:

That’s supposed to be a sextant, incidentally. See, because he’s a shark navigator. Anyway, I was already thinking this draft was pretty cluttered, but then Debra’s boss Mike emailed me that we really needed the logo to communicate “Euro-Pro” somehow, too. So I made the shark a French soccer player.

I don’t mind telling you that this logo seems like a complete disaster. But this was before Gus, the CEO’s son-in-law, pointed out there was nothing “vacuumy” about it, and asked why the Euro-Pro Shark Navigator mascot couldn’t also be sucking up dirt, dust, and hair. I did this sketch:

This is the worst idea for a logo I have ever seen, let alone drawn. We desperately need to start over on this thing, and step one should be shortening the product name so there’s just one idea in it. Think about what makes a successful logo. Take the Dodge Ram logo, for example. It’s simple, it’s bold, it’s memorable. How much worse would that logo be if it was for the “Dodge Ram Stargazer Atlantis Wishbone?”

Thanks,
Goober McGee
McGee Grafix, Inc.

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