Brand Logos

Dunkin’ Ditches the Donuts

By Delphine Hirasuna | October 29, 2018April 15, 2019

Most people won’t even notice, but Dunkin’ has dropped the word Donuts from its name. The change is probably long overdue. The average millennial has no clue how the name originated or what made “Dunkin’ Donuts” so descriptive of their offering. The name is alliterative and fun to say, for sure, but only old-timers know how cleverly the name describes the favorite way to enjoy the snack. The practice of dunking doughnuts in steaming hot coffee or hot cocoa became popular around 1934 after movie idol Clark Gable showed Claudette Colbert how to do it right in the hit film “It Happened One Night.”

In 1950 when Bill Rosenberg opened the first Dunkin’ Donuts shop in Quincy, Massachusetts, the name was an accurate description of how to enjoy the snack. Since then the number of Dunkin’ Donuts franchises worldwide has shot up to more than 11,500, and the menu has expanded to include croissants, muffins, bagels, frozen drinks, sandwiches and wraps, hash browns, and 50+ kinds of donuts. The old name was limiting and misleading and needed to be retired.

Design Classic

Kilroy Was Here, There and Everywhere

By Delphine Hirasuna | November 15, 2013September 4, 2014

Sometime during World War II, graffiti of a man with a long nose peering over a wall and the message “Kilroy was here” began popping up in the most unlikely and often dangerous places. It was boldly hand drawn on rocks and trees on the battlefields of Europe and the South Pacific, painted on the side of warplanes, on U.S. troopships, Army jeeps and bombed out buildings. The little Kilroy man became the logo of American GIs, and a way to taunt the enemy that there was no safe place to hide. The more remote and inaccessible the location, the more likely a GI would paint the graffiti to announce they had been there first.