Famous Logos in Algerian Font

After finding a Tumblr that features famous logos done in Comic Sans, I decided to create some of my own logos done in hated fonts. Last week, I featured logos in Papyrus font; an ill-proportioned font popular with restaurants. This week, I’m redoing logos in the Algerian font. Algerian is a decorative font that features ornate letters with a built-in shadow. Some newer versions have lowercase letters, but traditionally Algerian is all caps. In that spirit, I stuck to capitalized wordmarks (with the exception of the NeXT letter “e”). As with the Papyrus logos, I sometimes took a few liberties with the font. Here are the final designs:

Best Buy

Best Buy Logo in Algerian Font

Chase

Chase Logo in Algerian Font

Dell

Dell Logo in Algerian Font

General Electric

GE Logo in Algerian Font

General Motors

GM Logo in Algerian Font

Goodyear

Goodyear Logo in Algerian Font

IKEA

Ikea Logo in Algerian Font

Lego

Lego Logo in Algerian Font

NeXT

NeXT Logo in Algerian Font

Subway

Subway Logo in Algerian Font

As with the Papyrus redesign, some of the logos look better than others. Best Buy and GM don’t look that different, but GE and Lego are totally off. The other logos fall somewhere in the middle. Overall, the Algerian logos work better than the Papyrus logos I made last week, and Algerian is still leaps and bounds better than Comic Sans. But that doesn’t mean that Algerian isn’t overused. It is. And because of its distinctive letter “A” and its built-in shadowing, it sticks out like a sore thumb to anybody who knows their fonts. There are of good fonts out there that aren’t overused. If you’re starting a new business and want a wordmark logo, I suggest you steer clear of Algerian.

Are there any fonts out there that you really hate? What bad font would be good for redesigning logos? Let me know in the comment section.

Steve Lovelace

Steve Lovelace is a writer and graphic artist. After graduating Michigan State University in 2004, he taught Spanish in Samoa before moving to Dallas, Texas. He blogs regularly at http://steve-lovelace.com.

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14 Responses

  1. Mary says:

    These logos hurt to look at.

  2. Dave Wright says:

    Mistral gets my vote.

  3. rileytog says:

    the good year logo it’s fine.

  4. flatts12 says:

    the ikea logo I think.

  5. Mike Perdue says:

    The Subway logo I think.

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