Before and After

Payless recently redesigned their logo, emphasizing more on the word "payless" and less on the entire phrase "payless shoe source." Not only that, they even added a little icon/symbol to the logo. In their old logo, shown on the left, it simply reads "Payless Shoe Source;" there's nothing that pops out about the logo, apart from the solid "o"'s. The font was a very standard font, possibly a Times. The yellow color of the letters did add a little spunk to the logo, but nonetheless, the old logo of Payless was stale and didn't attract a lot of attention.  The new logo, on the other hand, looks more modern and hip, and emphasizes the word "Payless." Overtime, people refer to Payless Shoe Source as "Payless." No one really refers to the store using its entire name, so the new emphasis on the "Payless" reflects that attitude. Not only does it reflect this attitude of society, but it attempts to attract buyers buy focusing on "Payless." Consumers are always looking to "payless" and get more. This emphasis is done through a large size of the word, as compared to the other two words, which are located in a small corner of the design, right below the word "less." Not only is a new design layout used, a new font is used. This new font is less standardized. It's still nothing fancy or crazy, like Zumiez, but the letters look less restricted and more free flowing.  The designers shifted away from the yellow color and instead decided to employ the use of orange and a sky blue.   The sky blue is incorporated through the new circle logo. The sky blue color here plays off well with the orange, since it adds a new twist. If the new logo had been entirely in orange, it would not have been any better than the old one, since there's nothing new with just a change of font and an rearrangement of the words. Adding the new circle symbol and the small color of blue adds a modern and funky twist that works!
  
Logos are always changing.  By changing the logo, the company itself is saying that something's changed about themselves, whether they've adapted better styles, or is just better than the old.  Sometimes a change in logo is needed--just to attract more attention, since they old logo has gotten familiar.  Sometimes the change works well, like this Payless one. Sometimes they don't, slike the Gap one that released recently, but was quickly revoked.

(photo courtesy of wikipedia.org and mytidewatermoms.com)