Over in Iceland, there’s a supermarket chain called Bónus.1 When I visited the Nordic nation six years ago, I became very fond of the company’s logo, which I call the Bonus Pig. It’s a piggy bank (for savings!), and it’s so round that it often takes the place of the letter “O” in their name.2 Feast your eyes upon the Bonus Pig:
If you’re thinking “That looks rather silly”, you’re not wrong. It is silly, and that is what makes it great. But my friend, this little piglet used to be so, so much sillier. Please, click the play button below to morph the Bonus Pig back to its former glory:
Just look at that incredible wonkeye. It is the epitome of glorious imperfection. From the moment I happened upon the Bonus Pig in 2016, I was smitten. I shared it on Instagram:
[Photo courtesy of P. Kafasis]
For quite some time, I also re-used one of their plastic bags:
[Photo courtesy of S. Hiraiwa]
Can you believe this was the logo of the largest supermarket chain in an entire country? It’s amazing. Here it is on one of their storefronts:
The little piggy who owned a market also flew on flags:
A few months ago I even received a Bonus Pig shirt as a gift.3 I wear it proudly and wonkeyedily:
Please insert your own pig snort sound.
Alas, the original Bonus Pig was sanitized in the past year or so. Some swine, no doubt thinking that they could “fix” the Bonus Pig, went and gave the little dude corrective eye surgery. Just as when the execrable SAP Concur killed off Hipmunk, joy has once again been sucked from the world. It is a travesty. This is not my beautiful pig:
Before too many days go by, I hope the designer in question says to themselves “My God, what have I done?”, and sets to work undoing this regrettable change.
For now though, my wonkeyed little friend can still be spotted in various places around Bónus’s website. If and when it eventually disappears completely from there, this page will remain as a memorial to what was lost.
Footnotes:
Apparently, they’ve also got eight stores in the Faroe Islands. ↩︎
Technically, it’s the letter “Ó”, but I’m not really down with diphthongs. I’m going with a standard “o” in this post, and in my life. ↩︎
This shirt is a knockoff, so it’s particularly amusing that they kept the registered trademark ®. ↩︎
