Last week, Starbucks announced that they were changing its logo from the familiar green circle to the somewhat less familiar siren in the middle of the circle. The mark is still green, but they’ve lost the circular type.

Later that day, the AFP (Agence France-Presse) contacted to comment on the new mark, which was already causing stress among Starbucks strict constructionists, or at least media that feed on debate. I had a nice chat with the interviewer, resulting an AFP release, and in trickle-down fashion that is the news today, subsequently appeared in various forms here, here, here, here, here, etc.

First a few remarks on the logo change - er, evolution - itself. For those overly concerned about the change, as our friend Armin would advise, please chill. This isn’t Gap all over again. After all, Gap’s logo was not only crowdsourced (to the dismay of quality-minded people everywhere), but the results were just, well, bad.

In the Starbucks logo evolution, the illustrative portion of the mark hasn’t substantively changed. The mermaid is larger, which may allow us to get to know her better. The type will be elsewhere. In many cases, the Starbucks name is already disassociated from the mermaid in exterior signage.

Starbucks CEO Mike Schmidt suggests life beyond coffee, which isn’t a stretch for a brand which already extends into entertainment and merchandise, not to mention the rise of well-designed Starbucks stores as the ubiquitious third place.

For me, perhaps the most interesting dynamic here is the ripple effect of the announcement, press releases, blogs, tweets, and retweets, echoing and amplifying the message, as I am here. It’s a good lesson in viral messaging and the dynamics of social media, where others tell your story better than you do.