Burger King Design Starts a Jihad
by Adrian Hanft, (8 comments)
Following in the footsteps of the Quark logo debacle, logo parody debate and the LogoLounge/Lanor controversy, I came accross a story where design similarities have caused a scene. In this case, the lid of the Burger King Icecream desserts contained a swirly design that resembled the Arabic inscription for Allah. (And we thought their poor registration was bad!) An offended Muslim was so upset that he threatened a “jihad” and called for all Muslims to boycott Burger King. Needless to say, Burger King has recalled the lids.
Comments (8)
nate said:
That’s it. That’s the greatest BeADesignGroup headline ever. I always thought it would be me, or at least Tom…
Posted on September 20, 2005
Bennett said:
That is uncanny. This fellow declaring Jihad on BK isn’t exactly helping the world’s view of Arabs. Of course I’ve heard that the word Jihad isn’t always as bad as we think it is. BK has done everything in their power including a recall. I would assume that most people will be fine with BK’s quick reaction and not follow through on the boycott. It is obviously a coincidence, albeit an unfortunate one. Do you think this is something that could have been caught with testing and research?
Posted on September 20, 2005
Kyle said:
You’ve gotta be kidding me. It’s called coincidence.
Posted on September 20, 2005
Adrian said:
Thanks, Nate. I was going for maximum impact for our RSS readers.
It is impossible to do enough research to avoid this, or maybe even the Quark logo. When a person hates something enough, they will see validation for their hate in places where it doesn’t exist. Maybe that is why we are crucifying Quark. Many of us hate it so much that we rationalize our hatred by demonizing their new logo. Or then again, maybe the logo is just a ripoff…
Posted on September 20, 2005
JonSel said:
Who looks at an illustration of ice cream and says, “We better make sure this doesn’t say anything bad if we turn it on its side?” It’s this type of political correctness that drives me crazy. It’s why nothing gets done without a focus group or a poll.
Posted on September 20, 2005
Greg Pin said:
Portable Pudding : We all share the same vision.
http://www.caulder.com/page/museum_pages/portablepudding.html
I can’t believe “the” focus group didn’t catch that one. Just imagine the type of feedback the designer would have received.
Posted on September 20, 2005
jyoseph said:
I find the whole thing very hilarious.
I agree with JonSel on one side; Political correctness is putting a cramp on a lot of things, namely design.
On the other side though, this does resemble the arabic symbol very closely. You would think that these guys would be honored by that, I dunno.
Greg, the link you gave is pretty funny. If that isn’t blatant and intentional, I don’t know what is.
Posted on September 22, 2005
Bennett said:
I assume that Greg saw my Portable Pudding critique when Adrian linked to my Bad Packaging post. In the link that Greg provided I found it hard to believe that the date at the top of the page, “Dec 23 2002”, is accurate. The packaging is almost exactly the same as the Carmel Portable Pudding that I posted about. I find it hard to believe that Hershey’s would keep the “New!” on the package for over two years. I guess there is the possibility that the Carmel pudding was what was new and not the Portable Pudding itself. If it actually has been on the market for almost three years, I am surprised that they have not changed it to be less phallic.
Posted on September 22, 2005