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McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

enlaso.com

11–20 of 164 posts

Re: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

#13

> “We have accomplished our mission: keep the information simple, easy to understand, language-free and top line.” I find this amusing since the first icon is "kcal"... The information is perhaps too simple, as none of these really lets me know what they mean. Without a legend, I wouldn't know what they mean, and if your icons need a legend, then they really aren't doing their job effectively.

> Without a legend, I wouldn't know what they mean, and if your icons need a legend, then they really aren't doing their job effectively.

They are presumably trying to establish these icons so that they will eventually become common and recognizable to many people.

Re: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

#14

I don't see a good explanation here about why they need to have a universal set of icons. If they allowed a greater quantity of icons that work better for each region, why wouldn't this simply be better?

McDonald's has made billions from standardizing operations as much as possible across the world.

> If they allowed a greater quantity of icons that work better for each region, why wouldn't this simply be better?

Economies of scale, consistent printed materials.

Rather than have 109 variants of the icons printed on 109 variants of the packaging you standardize as much of the package as you can, allows you to print larger volumes and distribute them more easily.

Re: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

#18
post #4

Don't get me wrong, but I just don't see the point in this. This looks like a pretty in-depth study, why couldn't we use these man hours to create something of actual value? Why does someone care that some people associated an icon with "scary alien"? Just put the icon descriptions somewhere on the page and use circles with a single letter inside for all I care.

> for all I care Just because you don't care about something doesn't mean it's not worth thinking about, especially when we're talking about international assets.

Are you trying to tell me you understand what any of those mean without a legend? The only one that's decipherable is "kcal", all the others could as well be scary aliens.

Re: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

#19

Except for calories, I would not be able to understand what means the information on nutrient icons without having the corresponding word next to it.

Ditto. I suspect they could have gotten better international recognition by just using the English words.

It would have pissed off the French of course, but that goes in the win column. ;-)

Re: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

#20
post #15

Except for calories, I would not be able to understand what means the information on nutrient icons without having the corresponding word next to it.

And doesn't most of the world use kJ, not kCal?

Typically (or perhaps always) in EU countries, both kJ and kcal are specified on nutrition labels. And in my experience most people only ever talk about calories (kcal), much like in the US.
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