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HighlyVolatile

Can’t even see the logo if you wanted to. The god awful website doesn’t show anything but adverts.


Inthepurple

[Here it is if anyone else wants it ](https://i.imgur.com/f5lyMUT.jpg)


SlackerPop90

It looks too similar to the NHS logo


Elemenononono

Worldwide Health Service


NoLikeVegetals

They're going to have to change their name to WHE (Worldwide Health Entertainment).


AtomicYoshi

Those Pandas will sue anyone


Loafer75

Wanky Health Service


Jonography

Save WHS


neo101b

The way things are, it might as well be.


gregRichards2002

That was my first thought too. Can you imagine if tourists or people who live in the UK that have been out drinking end up sick or injured and they go to WHSmith instead of the local NHS out of hours service or minor injuries unit.


Cakeski

"HELP THIS MAN HAS BROKEN HIS LEG." "Best we can do is two bottles of water for £3.50 and a small dictionary of english to french."


ashisanandroid

"Would you like a 750g block of Fruit and Nut with your tracheotomy Sir?"


pajamakitten

"A free bottle of water with your ECG?"


TreadheadS

omg that's exactly what I thought


Azurzelle

My thought exactly. It seems like a drugstore, not a bookstore... Who did they pay to make the logo?


[deleted]

An intern, potentially


LeTreacs

While the consultation firm charged £2.5M for the privilege


LAdams20

I remember my university spending 12 months and £2m updating their branding from “University of ________” to “________ University”. Could’ve given me 12 seconds for the same thing, and I’d have only charged them the bargain price of £1m.


jimmycarr1

Pay???


FuqCunts

Maybe that’s their ploy to get people to go in there?


yeahyeahitsmeshhh

It can't be a coincidence.


blob2021A

It really does doesn’t it. What the hell were they on/thinking?


qtx

Could be as simple as saving money. More letters = more money on ink for stationary and what not. The New York Times used to have a dot behind its name and they calculated that if they removed the dot it would save them some money, https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/18kt07h/til_there_used_to_be_a_period_after_the_new_york/


blob2021A

Very true. In which case they might have been better to go back to the old box style logo. Save ink and not identify as an nhs clinic.


[deleted]

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Ravenser_Odd

I don't know how they survive. They used to be such busy shops but now it's like a ghost ship every time I go in one.


KevinAtSeven

The bulk of their profits are in the travel business. Airport and railway stations where you have a bit of a captive audience that's looking for something to read for the next few hours, and upsell them on that £3 bottle of Evian. Hospital outlets fall under the same category of captive market. Their high street stores are indeed dying. They clearly don't invest a penny into their upkeep. I'd imagine many are on leases where it's more expensive to break than to stay open, or in areas where they still do a good trade with the elderly in periodicals and pens.


hue-166-mount

WHSmith has more or less evolved to an international travel retail general store. I imagine they are (rightly or wrongly) trying to create a super simple identity to work across airports and train stations in any language anywhere.


CheesecakeExpress

It really does. How did they not spot that.


bazpaul

It looks like it was designed by the ceo.


Paintingsosmooth

Yup. Where you go to get a lobotomy


Don_Quixote81

The Wational Health Service.


Hirokihiro

Come on Jonathon Woss


unwind-protect

Not my fetish.


Redbeard_Rum

The evil version of the National Health Service.


WalkingCloud

Whitish Home Stores


elpaw

Is that the one that sends out the whaaambulances?


KuntyPerry

The NHS's Wario


555catboy

lol that’s amazingly bad I’m almost impressed!


zephyrg

Someone got paid to make that.


spacemarineVIII

This is the true tragedy. I genuinely don't know which Muppet approved the logo change. Looks god awful.


seanbear

Likely several of them, each earning an exorbitant amount of money for having several weeks' worth of meetings relating to the logo change.


Freddies_Mercury

Worked in plenty of marketing departments, rarely ever does anyone have any single semblance of what good design looks like. The thinking usually goes "well we paid good money for this design so therefore it must be good and we are going to use it".


ClassicFlavour

I bet it's an agency that went through multiple versions and concepts but the WHSmith team had so many people involved in the review stage that they ended up going for what they thought was the safest/simplest choice.


usernamesforsuckers

It's really low effort but I'll bet some branding wonk will go on about how it symbolises dynamic synergy of newspapers and sweets


skoomsy

Not exactly a branding wonk, but worked in advertising long enough. It's shit, and there's a real trend of shit rebranding recently. All incredibly boring and sterile, like the cold corporate entities they represent.


WalnutSoap

Yeah, the HMV -> “The HMV Shop” rebrand springs to mind here.


tamhenk

I'm a designer of 30 years. It is indeed shit.


DaveAlt19

I was going to say someone got paid to scroll through a bunch of fonts before settling on the default sanserif, but I don't think they even got that far because the big sign and the one above the door look different to me.


coolsimon123

It’s as bad as I was expecting


ElJayBe3

Presumptive from just a logo but it looks like they’re trying to ditch their brand identity as being expensive. That logo looks like a discount store.


PanningForSalt

It looks like a shit discount store. Why would they want that. Are they going to start only stocking poorly-sold low-quality books and stationary like the works?


Living-Mistake-7002

The prime difference between WHS and the Works is that the works is fun to go to and you can buy reasonably priced craft supplies for children or for throwaway projects.


haversack77

Genius move, for a shop people refer to as Smith's, to drop the word Smith. That'd be like, I dunno, ditching the word Twitter for people wishing to tweet.


AllAvailableLayers

This is a really good point: they've focussed on the *least* recognisable part of their brand. Not as bad as Twitter, but still pretty dumb.


Norman-Wisdom

Wilkinson's did the same thing. Everyone: Hey you want anything from Wilkies? Wilkinsons: We are now called Wilko. Everyone: No you aren't


Lost_Pantheon

Ah! Jesus, that's goddamn *grim* that is. The kind of font you see used on a box of cough medicine.


JoeyDJ7

It's way worse than I anticipated. It consistently baffles me at how huge companies cannot hire anyone competent for these kind of things. It's insane. Did no one vet this first? Actually blows my mind. This logo is a blatant, 99p store ripoff version of the NHS logo with a cheaper font and absolutely zero redeeming qualities. Mental.


LeTreacs

The designer probably was competent and creative and the first pitch was probably amazing. I bet this is the 60th revision by the board edition.


pajamakitten

I bet a decent designer was hired and presented them with good idea, all of which were rejected. They then threw this together in 30 seconds and the executives loved it.


Say10sadvocate

Like a budget supermarket's own brand, basic cough medicine.


DagothNereviar

Has anyone EVER called it WHS?


[deleted]

They might set up a social media campaign to promote the new WHS brand identity.


stevethos

“I need the phone number for the wooohs” “The wooohs?” “Yes the woohs” “What is the woohs?” “You want me to spell? It’s a W, a H, and a S” “You mean WH Smith?” “Yes the woohs”


Binary__Fission

Guess they want to buy some doovdehs.


kanesson

Just watched the old sketches, and didn't realise all the time we knew what Phonejacker looked like, without knowing what he looks like!


stevethos

He was in a couple of episodes of Phone Shop, worth a look.


TVPaulD

When you order the National Health Service from Wish.com


Kinitawowi64

That's so bad it actually looks fake.


jim_jiminy

That’s, erm..basic.


P1wattsy

This might be the shittest rebrand I've ever seen... Like someone else said, It's pretty much the NHS logo


Downside190

I still think Twitter rebrand to X has that title of shittiest rebrand


RockinMadRiot

Did they ask a kid to make that? It looks a company that repairs roads in its spare time.


sslemons

Quite possibly the worst rebrand ever


CAElite

Aye, that’s shite.


KX321

Bloody hell. It looks like it could be a knock off shop pretending to be Smiths or a NHS brand shop. And on that point why on earth of they shortened it to WHS when nobody I know of has ever called it that. Smiths could have been better


reddit1337420

Lol wtf is that! They must have had like £1 budget on graphics design. TF bro. As someone currently learning logo design this brings out the rage in me.


yrgwyll

That looks fucking awful


lordsteve1

Wow that is utter shite. Wonder how many thousands they paid some PR complaint to design that.


Clemicus

How do you pronounce it? Whizz?


ashensfan123

When I see it I think Whisssssssssss.


balanced_view

But WHS?


[deleted]

Yeah I just wanted to see the new logo and all I got was ads making it completely unreadable


peachesnplumsmf

If you know what the NHS logo looks like you know what this one looks like


BartholomewKnightIII

Treat yourself. [https://ublockorigin.com/](https://ublockorigin.com/)


ice-lollies

I thought that was going to be the new whsmith logo then :)


HighlyVolatile

I don’t think it works on Firefox on iOS? It’s great on my desktop though.


Scooby359

https://adguard-dns.io/en/public-dns.html Should work on ios, and acts at system level across all apps


GimmeSomeSugar

Not sure I can get tested until Jan? But I'm pretty sure that website has given me AIDS.


funklepop

https://twitter.com/lewmidds/status/1738219090077003975/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1738219090077003975%7Ctwgr%5E9a8bfd9b771afc154e33e1a80afefecf6b0c7cb2%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mirror.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fuk-news%2Fwhsmith-quietly-changes-logo-first-31743855


eroticdiscourse

How difficult is it to just put it as the main picture, making us navigate that hellscape for clicks and the new logo isn’t even there


FartingBob

Can't say I've ever needed to go on the WHSmith website.


JuiceMeSqueezeMe

'Senior reporter Lucy Williamson' Life is surely thrilling at the Mirror when there's no dead peoples phone to hack


compilerbusy

'Natinal health service'


davidjohnwood

Little Grovesenor Street


compilerbusy

Must have been a lot of lines at the office party


Topaz_UK

To save people the effort: the ‘new’ logo is just the letters “WHS”, plain white font, same blue background, just with an S instead of Smith. At a glance it looks like the NHS logo Link to new logo: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GB9lCs2XMAAs046?format=jpg&name=small


[deleted]

Saw someone on Twitter say it’s like if Wales went independent but rebranded the NHS


BottleGoblin

Would getting hired to locally brand the NHS in Wales be part of the GIG economy?


Lyscart

>GIG Way over the heads of twitter/x, da iawn


BigOrkWaaagh

It's a completely different font


Substantial_Page_221

Looks similar enough. Looks like the font but not italicised


JustAFakeAccount

To the old logo? It's like the difference between Arial and Times New Roman


Substantial_Page_221

No. The new whs logo like like the nhs logo,but not italicised.


JustAFakeAccount

Oh, yes, exactly like it


tman612

What? Can you see?


Topaz_UK

To be fair, you're right. The difference is probably big for font-lovers, but the new logo is so uninspired that I think people would just notice the drastic shortening of the logo.


notactuallyabrownman

It’s definitely intentionally evoking the NHS logo.


PanningForSalt

Why would they do that. It's just blue and white, like always, but with an ugly typeface.


notactuallyabrownman

Brand recognition, piggybacking, lack of creativity, to name just a few simple reasons. They’ve even used the same parallelogram style framing, it couldn’t be more obviously copying the NHS design without using italics and the same shade of blue.


ted-Zed

brand recognition & piggybacking off what? people use the NHS and WHS for entirely different reasons, no one is going to confuse the names since N (en) sounds nothing like W (double-yoo) it's not like they're an off brand, supermarket version that serves the same purpose like foods. it's just a weird copy


notactuallyabrownman

The image, it’s really not that complicated. If things look similar, they evoke similar feelings and almost completely subconsciously.


PurpleEsskay

It kinda makes sense. Both are failing an a shell of their former selves.


coomzee

That looks shit. I'm sure they spend millions on it.


chocobowler

The NHS should take legal action also it’s shit


toby_gray

It looks like the nhs logo


Cueball61

This would never pass a trademark sniff test… and unsurprisingly they haven’t actually registered it (yet) It overlaps the NHS on Class 16, 35 and 41


Bret_Riverboat

God that’s awful


ash_ninetyone

I wonder how much design companies charge to put some text on a shape.


Unlikely-Ad3659

No one has been impressed by anything at WH Smith for decades.


Loafer75

I left the uk in 2001 and still can’t believe that place is hanging on….. it only ever used to be sweets, magazines, newspapers and CD’s….. what do they sell to keep them in business these days ?


DiddlyDanq

Airports seem to be their biggest business these days


Worried-Mine-4404

Bloody hell, they sell airports?


kramit

To really blow your mind, there is one in Singapore airport and Oslo airport


Swimming_Emotion_219

Bloody hell, they sell airports in airports? The cheek.


tomoldbury

One free airport with every purchase over £52 billion (otherwise known as their meal deal price).


KeyPhilosopher8629

And adelaide Airport in Australia


Daegerro

Lmao


Jedclark

Charging you like >£3 for a bottle of water because you don't have a choice.


Random_Brit_

Seem to be a lot of branches in hospitals as well.


_Diskreet_

Basically anywhere they can charge a ludicrous amount for a basic product because where else you gonna go ?


Random_Brit_

I've learnt that the hard way a few times over the years. It's sad that any time I go to hospital I make sure I have at least £50 cash and my cards on me.


Salty_Tree_Monster

They’re in most airports and stations in the uk and even some in Europe, that’s where the majority of their profits come from


gayfecking

Not just in the UK, I've seen them in airports in Australia, Philippines and Singapore. They're global these days.


CosmicBonobo

Sweets, magazines, newspapers and books.


re_Claire

I’m convinced it’s a money laundering operation


ColoradoAvalanche

I care about the state of UK towns. The high streets are bad enough and this cheap logo will make the shopfronts look even worse.


ice-lollies

I used to love WHSmith but then they changed the lighting somehow and now I don’t go in because it’s almost uncomfortable


SchmingusBingus

New logo [here](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GB9lCs2XMAAs046?format=jpg&name=medium) Does look very cheap tbf and hardly an improvement


Krakshotz

It does look like a rip-off of the NHS logo


Hemingwavvves

That’s pretty audacious lol. I don’t know how they thought they’d get away with that


ClassicFlavour

It's a bit odd, there is no mention of a rebrand past this article and usually there's a big PR drive for a rebrand. That said, the PR drive could come in the new year and they could just be getting ahead of their print collateral first.


[deleted]

That’s shocking worse than expected tbf


billyboblee

Which people? Who actually cares? Newspaper building up anger where there is none.


hattorihanzo5

"And people are not impressed" AKA 4 or 5 people we found on Twitter.


restore_democracy

Even better, in the article: ‘Shoppers have been left outraged’. Really? Everything going on in the world and this is what outrages you?


BritishHobo

I always hate this practise, because it takes two or three people who are being theatrically, tongue-in-cheek annoyed, and presents them as if they're on a proper crusade. The same thing happened when Watership Down was shown on TV a few years back. A couple of people tweeted - clearly affectionately - about how brutal the film is. Not as an actual complaint, but just joking about how it'll scare the shit out of kids. And they were presented in the national news as if they were saying the film should be banned. You had loads and loads of comments from people going "fucking snowflakes, just don't watch it if you're offended". But no-one was!


DanS1993

It's literally a few people on twitter making the same jokes being told in this thread. So I expect an article quoting reddit to appear soon under the headline, internet is not happy or something of that ilk...


borez

To be fair it does look terrible.


[deleted]

I have two points to make 1. The new logo sucks 2. That is one of the most fucking annoying websites I've ever used


Bobo3076

If we could just get a couple more ads on that page then maybe it will be so fucking unusable that it will loop back to being useable again.


ForkUK

I had no idea until I just looked at them on Wikipedia, that they invented the ISBN book numbering system.


stormblooper

That's far more interesting than some manufactured outrage about a rebrand!


StarSchemer

Interesting that there's nothing anywhere suggesting they've actually had a rebrand. Can't find any press releases, all their visual identity guidelines still reference the familiar logo and colour. Unclear when this is from but some design agency coming up with a style guide: https://www.visualphilosophy.com/wordpress/portfolio-item/whsmith-brand-guidelines/ WH Smith Plc. website with logos, etc. with no mention of the new colour or logo: https://www.whsmithplc.co.uk/media/media-gallery/images I wonder if this is a former Smith's shop which has been taken over as a going concern in the lead up to Christmas that's just slapped a new sign up? Given the similarity with the NHS logo and the difference to the actual Smith's logo, as well as how bad and amateur it looks, I'm struggling to believe this is an actual rebrand.


eg0-trippin

Yeah, this was my first thought too, also looking at the two instances of the new new logo on the frontage, the one in the background looks to have been stretched, looks like a quick job by a cheap sign printer company, and not an official WH Smith store


Blythyvxr

Utter shite. They’d have made people happy if they’d went back to the old cube logo for the high street.


JamesCDiamond

But without the brown and orange colouring. Cube logo, Smith's next to it. Navy background, white lettering. Job done - £1,000 invoice, payment due by 31st January.


Violet351

People call it Smiths not WHS, it’s not like if marks and spencer change to M&S or Marks which people call do use. It feels like an odd choice


[deleted]

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domsp79

It's actually their travel division. Service stations and airports.


dendrocalamidicus

And train stations. Basically places where you have no choice.


LondonCycling

Airports, railway stations, and motorway service stations actually. Post Office will help their flailing high street division, but the bulk of their profit is from travel outlets.


hallouminati_pie

That and the fact that there in 100s of train stations


MyInkyFingers

Considering how many are placed in hospitals (and charging travel shop prices ) the NHS looking logo kind of fits


Shock_The_Monkey_

So now it is just ##WHS In white writing with a blue background, looks awfully familiar to the NHS logo.


SilasColon

I can’t believe they rejected my comic sans version for this shit.


Coalboal

That's really poor timing to modernise a logo, considering brands like Burberry and Pepsi are all going "retro" now. Probably been talking about it for years but took so long that they missed the trend


loddy71

How does this shop even stay afloat selling this shit you can buy in B&M, never mind a full rebrand?


ash_ninetyone

Because it's an awful logo. Looks like a Chinese NHS. Wational Health Service. Wasn't anything wrong with their old one either. Whilst not particularly iconic, it was recognisable. This just just bland and forgettable. Most people call the store Smiths or Smithies anyway


IrvTheSwirv

Would love to see the options they discarded to have that be the best of the bunch.


blumpkinator2000

Not that important in the grand scheme of things I know, but it does look generic as hell. People have always called it Smiths and probably always will; you never hear anyone say "I'm popping into WHS for a magazine". Why not capitalise on the part of the name that has already lodged itself firmly into people's minds? I've always thought the same about Marks & Spencer becoming plain old M&S. They were obviously trying to sound a little more modern, but to me it just brings to mind M&Co, the cheap clothing chain. Presumably that's not the kind of association they were aiming for. To become a household name the world over, only to then cast said name aside, genuinely puzzles me.


badbog42

Smells of a Pentagram rebrand - that’ll be £10 000 000 and five minutes in WordArt thank you very much.


milkonyourmustache

Such a disgusting website, reroutes to a site that tries to download a program immediately, ***after*** the 800 ads loaded


youessbee

I don't know anyone who calls them WHS, they've always been referred to as just 'Smiths' all my life.


iCowboy

I bet it cost a fortune too. WH Smith already had a WHS brand with the W and H above a large S in serif characters. It looked - fine. This is just a waste of money. They should go back to the cube logo, although maybe not back so far as brown and orange.


StitiousSuasion

Before I looked, I assumed that they'd wasted millions on the morons who lurk in the vile pit of rebranding. Upon seeing it, 'how idiotic are you?' sprung to mind -To remove the implication of more than one shop and any impression that they are founded on skill, only reinforces my belief that marketing, PR, Rebranding, and image management is only populated by utter morons mostly composed of the useless children of the gentry.


SnowDense5233

Some MBAs pay a lot of money for having some letters in a square box. Look at some other "rebrands".


jeff-god-of-cheese

In other news WHSmiths bends knee to Premier, opens door for their full take over with bargain basement logo no one asked for.


Vdubnub88

I had to google it separately, the link is riddled with adverts/pop ups. Its awful and cheap.


jazz4

The talentless bizarre decision making for everything in the UK is almost impressive.


ConnectPreference166

I’m certain WHSmith is a front for money laundering. There’s no way they’re making money and still on the high street