Every time I see the Sherwin-Williams logo, my brain briefly and hopelessly breaks.And like any good intoxicant, I enjoy it. Because it is, hands-down, one of the worst logos in all of existencebut also one of the all-time greats.For the uninitiatedand theres no delicate way to put thisthe Sherwin-Williams logo features a moon-size bucket seemingly drowning the Earth with a quadrillion gallons of *blood-red* paint, wholly saturating it to the point where its runoff is in nation-size droplets.But any attempt to describe it fails to do it justice. It must be experienced.In the year 2024, this is the Sherwin-Williams logo:Its shocking. Its kind of terrifying. But ultimately, its perfect.I have seen many small companies with confounding logosbut Sherwin-Williams is a category leader that recently reported third-quarter consolidated net sales of $6.16 billion. Its in a category entirely of its own when it comes to modern branding. Major companies just dont have logos like this anymoreand, hell, even cofounder Henry A. Sherwin was daunted by its sheer audacity when he first saw it at the turn of the 20th century.Sherwin and his cofounder, Edwin Williams, created the company in the latter half of the 1800s, and they revolutionized the industry in 1875 by launching the first reliable ready-made paint that didnt need to be mixed by hand. Back then, the companys logo was very of its time (which is to say, odd if not archaic): a shield featuring a lizard on a painters palette, inspired by color-changing chameleons and . . . designed by Sherwin himself.In 1890, however, the company launched a publicity departmentand Sherwin hired a man named George Ford to run it. Though he likely donned the same turn-of-the-century duds as everyone in what would have passed for the C-suite, Ford was cut from a different cloth: that of the visual culture anarchist. And in a sketchbook, he jotted down a chaotic design that would endure in various forms for the next century-plus.In recounting the companys early history, an in-house publication celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2016 included: Ford, a gifted ad man, felt the chameleon design failed to tell a story, particularly that of a company beginning to stretch well beyond national boundaries. Nor was the subtly detailed image easily recognizable beyond close range. Ford wisely foresaw the potential of an eye-catching Cover the Earth design that said it all.Indeed. And yet, it continued, Persuading Sherwin was another matter. Sherwin liked the concept, but the ever-ethical founder felt that it was inaccurate to portray Sherwin-Williams as covering the Earth when it had at the time only limited presence outside the United States.In the end, someone overcame Sherwins wholesome (and refreshingly honest!) brand outlook by suggesting that the Earth could someday indeed be covered by the productand Sherwin gave in. And so, in 1905, the image of a can of Sherwin-Williams paint covering the Earth debuted as the companys logo.Over the years, the Cleveland-based company would achieve legendary status by being, as the Plain Dealer reported, the first paint company to make its own tin cans, the first to make resealable paint cans, a leader in the quest to make school buses yellow, and overall the nations biggest producer of paints and coatings, from Valspar to Krylon to Minwax, with its products covering such U.S. landmarks as the White House and the Golden Gate Bridge. And I like to think that its cleverly unforgettable logo played a part in all that.And yet, you may be wondering, as I do every time I peruse a hardware store: How in the name of God is that still the companys logo?!There are those who have tried to grant the Earth a reprieve from its all-encompassing covering. And they succeededbriefly.Walter O. Spencer became president of Sherwin-Williams in 1969, and in the mid-70s, the company hired F. Eugene Smith Associates to update the marknamely because Sherwin-Williams had expanded into categories beyond paint. According to the Plain Dealer, the designers tried to update the logo by scrapping the cosmic paint can but found themselves left with a globe. And per F. Eugene Smith partner and VP William F. Babcock, . . . five zillion people have the world as their symbol. So they ditched that, too, and went purely typographic, developing a dizzying wordmark with capital Ls that was so eccentric, Cover the Earth didnt seem so batshit bizarre after all. Mockups of the old and new designs were mailed to 500 randomly selected consumers who (incorrectly) chose the latter mark. But the decision to shelve the piece of industrial Americana brought cries of anguish from persons inside and outside the Cleveland-based company, the Plain Dealer reported in 1975.Employees were briefed in a 12-minute slideshow, while the Plain Dealer solicited a range of opinions in its coverage of the change.It is a pleasure to see the old cover the earth logo go, as it is one of the few corporate logos that I can remember from a very early age because of its offensiveness, C.W. Cadwallader of Cincinnati commented.Another, perhaps more astute, observer, one W. Allen in New York, opined: The new logo is awful. It says nothing about what the company does. Its totally impersonal, and those dangling Ls are offensive to my sensibilities.At a cost of application in the millions, Sherwin-Williams apparently was discovering that you cant modernize something unmodernizable. Luckily, a hero emerged: John G. Jack Breen took over as president in 1979 and brought something special with him: Cover the Earth, which he put back into play in the 80s, albeit in a Frankensteined version alongside the new wordmark, creating one of the most maximalist lockups of all time. The company had fallen on hard times at that point, and Breen wanted to return it to its glory days with a renewed focus on the paint and products that had brought it to the ball in the first place.At the turn of the millennium, the company dialed back the visual madness by simplifying the name typographicallybut that paint can and its quest to drown the globe endured.And you know what? In an era where rebrands are so often a tepid refresh, its a modern design marvel. When design is so often greenwashed, its perhaps brutally honest. And maybe we should celebrate that an anachronism as bold and bizarre still exists (not unlike my other favorite dinosaur-of-a-logo, the, um, Sinclair dinosaur).For Sherwin-Williams, the company seems to be saying theres power in the familiarand embracing it. For an official statement, even just a comment, I reached out to Sherwin-Williamss general PR and media contact, but have yet to hear back. Then I reached out to someone directly on the team, but its almost like Im being ghosted. And you know what? In retrospect, thats like the most punk rock thing they could have done.Here it is, almost 2025, and Cover the Earth still goes as hard as it ever did.