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"On January 5th, Starbucks announced that after almost 20 years, it is changing its famous logo. Since 1992 the Seattle-based coffee chain has been known for its ubiquitous round green emblem - the company&amp;#039;s name encircling a black and white illustration of a crowned mermaid.  But in honor of chain&amp;#039;s upcoming 40th anniversary and a desire to branch out from coffee, the lettering has been dropped from the logo, leaving just the image of the mermaid, now in green. On the Starbucks blog, Howard Schultz, the company&amp;#039;s president and CEO described the design change as a &amp;quot;small but meaningful update.&amp;quot; In a video posted to the website Schultz went onto say that the new logo &amp;quot;embraces and respects our heritage [and] evolves us to a point where we feel it&amp;#039;s more suitable for the future.&amp;quot; He added, &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ve allowed her to come out of the circle in a way that gives us the freedom and flexibility to think beyond coffee.&amp;quot; Starbucks&amp;#039; many fans, however, are less pleased with the move. Since the announcement was made, hundreds of people have expressed their displeasure with the new design, posting comments such as &amp;quot;Who&amp;#039;s the bonehead in your marketing department that removed the world-famous name of Starbucks Coffee from your new logo?&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;HATE the new logo.&amp;quot; Wall posts on the company&amp;#039;s Facebook page revealed a similar consensus among Starbucks&amp;#039; over 19 million Facebook followers. &amp;quot;Love the peppermint white chocolate mocha! Hate the new logo!&amp;quot; expressed one disgruntled fan. &amp;quot;The release of the new logo will mark the start of the company&amp;#039;s downfall,&amp;quot; predicted another. The public response to the change has led some experts to compare the change to the disastrous rebranding that led the Gap to quickly scrap its new logo at the end of last year. &amp;quot;Dropping the Starbucks name from their logo will only serve to confuse customers who are not as familiar with the company,&amp;quot; James Gregory of the branding consultancy firm CoreBrand told Forbes. For now though, Starbucks shows no signs of following in the Gap&amp;#039;s path. &amp;quot;This was made for business reasons. It was a strategic decision for us to accommodate our growing business,&amp;quot; company spokesman Deb Trevino told Forbes. &amp;quot;[We&amp;#039;re] excited that so many of our customers are so passionate about the brand that they want to comment on it and engage with us.&amp;quot; After all as the old adage, says, &amp;quot;Any publicity is good publicity.&amp;quot; But tell us, what do you think of the new Starbucks logo? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.delish.com/food/news/a38390/starbucks-new-logo-has-fans-in-an-uproar/>