Is Walmart’s Spark Logo Strong Enough to Stand on Its Own? Headquarters Thinks So.

If the changes err on the side of restraint, Ordahl believes that it’s the right step for a company of Walmart’s size and stature, which is unlikely to make radical changes.

“This is a journey for them,” he said. “If they want to start to modernize and bring more warmth into their brand experience, this is one component.”

Walmart’s logo

The spark, as its own, has been muscled up, kerned to reduce the space between the beams. Walmart has also switched to more saturated colors (True Blue and Spark Yellow, in company parlance.) The changes should make the logo “a little more effective at any scale,” Hartman said.

In the long term, management hopes a heftier profile will also allow the logo to stand on its own—without the Walmart name—in certain settings. “Especially when you look at how the brand appears in a digital context, on the app tile, on the site, on the home page—that’s definitely the direction that we’re leading,” Hartman said.

That’s a worthwhile aim to be sure, but Clark Goolsby, chief creative officer for Chase Design Group, said that a visual tweak is only a first step.

“As a designer, I can create assets that have the potential to become iconic, but it is up to the business to make them iconic,” he said. “If their goal is to use it without their wordmark,” Goolsby continued, the brand “needs to be ready to invest considerable time, be faithfully consistent and make myriad impressions to achieve this goal.”