Johnny Cupcakes refresh their classic ‘Make Cupcakes Not War’ design

by Andy on March 5, 2013

I don’t think that this is an improvement on the old version, but I would assume that isn’t Johnny Cupcakes intention, just offering a different option. The typework reminds me of large corporations trying to show their softer side, know what I mean?

Costiness=$35.99 Buy it from JC for Girls / Guys

Tagged as: johnny cupcakes, T-shirts

http://profile.yahoo.com/65CSAR3QATRNKJW4NYNB2BESZE JohnQPublic

this is an awfully pollyana message. It doesn’t take itself seriously and as a result, it just screams “sellout”… it doesn’t even attempt to pander here.
http://hideyourarms.com/ Andy (Hide Your Arms)

Pollyanna? You realise this is a design that JC have been selling for many years, right?
http://www.designjuices.co.uk/ Jared Thompson

Like many recent JC designs I feel there a little middle of the road compared to previous years.
http://hideyourarms.com/ Andy (Hide Your Arms)

This one is literally softer round the edges than the previous design, what a metaphor!
http://profile.yahoo.com/65CSAR3QATRNKJW4NYNB2BESZE JohnQPublic

Well, let me explain myself on this. I do feel it is pollyanna because the slogan takes the iconic “make love not war” message – one which was formed wholly out of an anti-war sentiment in the 60s – with one that infuses the corporate branding of Johnny Cupcakes into it.

If a slogan on a billboard said “Make Ford cars, not war”, what would your reaction be? Might it be one of “hey what the… why is Ford placing their name inside the context of an iconic slogan?” It would be like hearing a Joan Baez or Boby Dylan song with some of the lyrics changed to say “Open your Chase credit card today..”

I realize JC is kind of a golden child of this industry given its success and image, but to me it’s a corporation like any other, making and selling goods under a brand and logo like any other. So anytime I see a branding insert itself into something bigger than itself and then dilute its original meaning by adding a commercial dimension to it, it’s something I don’t particularly fall in love with.

Now don’t take that to mean I hate mash-ups. On the contrary – I love them. Put stormtroopers together with Super Mario Brothers. Do all those wonderful creative juxtapositions of imagery from one genre onto another. I just felt this particular one was a little cheap and tacky in its core motivation.
http://hideyourarms.com/ Andy (Hide Your Arms)

I think you misunderstood, I just didn’t understand the term pollyanna, I always thought it was just a name!

A bit of Googling later and I’m still not 100% sure how it fits in, the definitions I’ve got at that pollyanna is “excessively cheerful or optimistic”, or people agreeing with positive statements about them. I guess that second one kind of fits with what you’re talking about?

I think you might be taking it a bit seriously, when Johnny first started using the slogan his company was tiny, it might have even been during the ‘selling out of the back of my car’ days, which is hardly corporate, and I feel that the alteration to the slogan does fit with the sentiment of the original slogan, that there are better things to be doing than being hurtful. I see where you’re coming from though and understand how you feel that something pure could be tainted by being commercialised.