I just powered on my new Pixel phone and noticed that the Slack icon was different. It took me a few minutes to figure out what happened; I thought my phone's screen was messed up! :O
It's always a little sad to me when technology companies make sure a big deal about logos, marketing, and brand. Im not sure if I disrespect them more but Id rather such focus be on the technology aspect of what they do vs the look at the font we made, or the logo marketing put together.
How do you figure-do you have any specific cases you're thinking of? Like the platform itself, the brand and positioning of a company is constantly evolving.
Large companies often do it. Microsoft has rebranded their visual assets a bunch of times. Doesn't seem like it was particularly ominous. Some companies in very competitive verticals are often built on their branding.
Some companies do waste a lot of money on debatable rebranding efforts (Uber / HP, etc.). It's a mixed bag.
Except Microsoft's Windows logo is merely an evolution of the previous, which keeps the brand identity but refreshes the look, this one is not. The new Microsoft logo builds off of their existing brand and brands. Same for Apple, same for basically every big brand, even Google. Slack...messed up.
Every company must have a logo with four colors -- some variant of red-green-blue-yellow. It should also fit into a square, and the colors must stay separate, splitting the square into 4 parts if possible.
I was thought quite the opposite for logos (re: colors): fewer colors is better, and the logo should be instantly recognizable in monochrome. It being something a layperson could draw reasonably well is also a good thing.
Edit: Did I just miss the sarcasm train here? It's very possible.
But where is the swoosh?.. and the globe. The globe is like the dot in dot com. Also that type needs to be leaning to the right.. like it's moving forward at speed.. leaning in...
At first I thought this was interesting, mainly because of all the design talent that is at Slack already. But then I realized, it was probably just an easier move to get an outside company to do it and make it a lot less political than had it been done in-house at Slack. And well, Pentagram is also huge, to be fair.
One is just colons added to the name and the wave emoji. The one beside it looks like it's from a 1997 tech company. The whole bottom row seems like it should be titled "We created these to show what not to do."
With these I always feel like they just made some shitty ones after the job was finished just for the ‘look we did a whole design and thought out of the box’ articles like these
More likely, they had a pile of shitty drafts that they cleaned up slightly for the same purpose. In a process like this, a pile of shitty drafts is pretty much a given. You're exploring a range of possibilities, and if you're too self-critical during brainstorming you might not sketch out the draft that becomes your best submittal.
WHY change a logo which has served, embedded and part of the company's soul for over 40 years no less, especially if it was designed by someone like Vignelli.
Timeless design (Swiss typography, Braun industrial design, Muller-Brockmann's grid system, Ando's architecture) - they're timeless because they don't follow trends or try to catch up with current fads - they're built from fundamentals and aesthetic sensibilities that appeal universally.
They look "outdated" because everything else around it is following current trends. You cannot ever say the Coca Cola logo is outdated, nor can you ever say the LOC logo by C&G&H is outdated. If anything else, it is advantageous to be constant and "outdated" (there are exceptions such as Fashion brands).
Regarding flexibility - I agree. But, most companies understand the value of their decades old brand - see recent tweaks of the Lufthansa logo, American Express or MasterCard - they tweak them for future compatibility and digital media. They don't just throw it out the window without good reason. "Outdatedness" is not a good reason.
The Mastercard rebrand is one of the most...masterful...logo refreshes I've seen! Kept what was iconic (you know some design firm wanted to update the "outdated colors") but gave it a touch of modernity.
like...seriously? they really thought there was improvement to be made on the Library of Congress logo? Its a book...and its nice and iconic, recognizable. They said the new design gives a brand identity thats more "accessible"...what is not accessible about a book? I get that the library has more than books, but that doesn't really make the old logo any less relevant.
Seconded. In these type of high visibility projects and prestigious consulting companies usually charge in hundreds of thousands and in millions for a single deliverable (narrative document, logo, brand). The whole process might months to a year with several people involved from the agency.
A partner is involved in every Pentagram engagement though. Pentagram is not really like a huge Landor-esque firm, it's basically a series of small design consultancies each led by a partner that are loosely tied together. So anything that Pentagram is gonna do, at least one of the partners has to get behind it.
In some ways I guess that makes it very loosely like a VC fund.
A lot of those “logo explorations for the octothorpe” look like swastikas to me, including the final shape. Basic shape I suppose, easy to find in most any circular-comprised-of-geometric-shapes kind of design, but still imagery you’d probably like to avoid associating with your brand.
Still, I love these kinds of process breakdowns. Having been involved in writing a few of my own, I know there’s probably a lot of pretentious nonsense to fill in the blanks (i.e. designers mess around a lot when working) but still it’s a nice read, short as it is.
I was playing around with the logo for my company, which features a configuration of overlapping boxes. A significant percentage of my brainstorming iterations ended up as swastika-esque shapes. Go figure.. Now I'm not a designer at all, just fiddling around, but those versions ended up in a not-to-be-opened folder immediately, because.. of course it shouldn't see the light of day! That's a bad association waiting to happen
But Pentagram didn't let that stop them, did they. Guess that's why they get paid the big bucks
This new logo is a departure from their old art style that was everywhere in their old project, the game Glitch. (Interesting that it was exactly 11 different colors, like the 11 Giants in Glitch).
I just refreshed my desktop app and I have to say I am not crazy about the new default avatars. It is entirely possible I just got accustomed to my team's collection of colors and shapes, but the current ones have much less variety resulting in them all blending together. I wonder if this is a partially intentional dark pattern to get us to move away from the default avatars.
This to me is hands-down the worst part of the rebrand. Harder to distinguish (why is everyone in my company's default avatar just different colors of the same shapes?) and in many cases probably took away something that people had become attached to.
To me, it seems a bit useless though, but I don’t have any relevant knowledge about Marketing nor Corporate Design to provide useful feedback. There’s probably some value in a re-brand even though the company is not facing any criticism for their colors, logo, and slogan.
> It was also extremely easy to get wrong. It was 11 different colors—and if placed on any color other than white, or at the wrong angle (instead of the precisely prescribed 18° rotation), or with the colors tweaked wrong, it looked terrible.
I stand corrected, these are good reasons to justify the rebrand.
That being said, I felt a bit scared this morning when I opened Slack and found that the colors were slightly different to what they used to be, I freaked and thought someone had hacked my corporate account, then I went looking for answers and found this post, my heart was immediately at peace.
I hope this change brings them more opportunities to grow.
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EDIT: Interestingly, their “Release Notes” says version 3.3.6 [1] but 3.3.3 [2] in the download page.
The :slack: emoji is also showing the old logo. I wonder if they are going to change “slackbot” avatar as well.
> I freaked and thought someone had hacked my corporate account
I don't understand.
I had a coworker that had similar reactions to things. "My stuff is missing" = immediately wants to call the authorities, without asking the roommate. Which had moved the stuff due to some petty squabble.
Similarly, this. You had default avatars. Default avatars got changed. Why would someone go to such trouble and make them immediately known? It is more likely to be a change by Slack themselves. Because they provide the default avatars.
Now, if you got custom avatars, and they all got replaced with some activist banner? Ok, hacking gets higher probability.
Not trying to criticize, I just want to understand the line of thought that leads to this.
258 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 289 ms ] threadInterestingly, some Slack groups that I’m part of still have the old colors.
Reference: https://i.imgur.com/RtUXm6V.pngI hope they release new desktop and mobile apps soon
Large companies often do it. Microsoft has rebranded their visual assets a bunch of times. Doesn't seem like it was particularly ominous. Some companies in very competitive verticals are often built on their branding.
Some companies do waste a lot of money on debatable rebranding efforts (Uber / HP, etc.). It's a mixed bag.
Amazon.com, Apple, McDonald's, Walmart, Fedex, UPS, Nike, Coca Cola, 3M, Target, Visa, Square, PayPal, Facebook, Uber, Lyft, Twitter, YouTube, Netflix, Samsung, Sony, Intel, Cisco, Oracle, IBM, SAP, Starbucks, Lululemon, Under Armour, NY Times, American Express, GAP, Best Buy, Costco, Exxon
I was thought quite the opposite for logos (re: colors): fewer colors is better, and the logo should be instantly recognizable in monochrome. It being something a layperson could draw reasonably well is also a good thing.
Edit: Did I just miss the sarcasm train here? It's very possible.
https://www.pentagram.com/work/
https://pentagram-production.imgix.net/618d5092-a542-4dae-bd...
One is just colons added to the name and the wave emoji. The one beside it looks like it's from a 1997 tech company. The whole bottom row seems like it should be titled "We created these to show what not to do."
It's like they recycled left overs from the EFF logo job.
Pentagram is hit or miss depending on who leads the project. Michael Beirut is one of the better partners and designers at Pentagram.
This stuff bothers me. Like the day when they changed the legendary Vignelli's American Airlines logo : https://www.businessinsider.com/the-new-american-airlines-lo...
WHY change a logo which has served, embedded and part of the company's soul for over 40 years no less, especially if it was designed by someone like Vignelli.
It blows my mind.
Look at the new Library of Congress logo [1], and think if that could've been done with the older one.
[1] https://www.pentagram.com/work/library-of-congress#23433
They look "outdated" because everything else around it is following current trends. You cannot ever say the Coca Cola logo is outdated, nor can you ever say the LOC logo by C&G&H is outdated. If anything else, it is advantageous to be constant and "outdated" (there are exceptions such as Fashion brands).
Regarding flexibility - I agree. But, most companies understand the value of their decades old brand - see recent tweaks of the Lufthansa logo, American Express or MasterCard - they tweak them for future compatibility and digital media. They don't just throw it out the window without good reason. "Outdatedness" is not a good reason.
like...seriously? they really thought there was improvement to be made on the Library of Congress logo? Its a book...and its nice and iconic, recognizable. They said the new design gives a brand identity thats more "accessible"...what is not accessible about a book? I get that the library has more than books, but that doesn't really make the old logo any less relevant.
https://www.pentagram.com/work/slack/story
https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell...
In some ways I guess that makes it very loosely like a VC fund.
Still, I love these kinds of process breakdowns. Having been involved in writing a few of my own, I know there’s probably a lot of pretentious nonsense to fill in the blanks (i.e. designers mess around a lot when working) but still it’s a nice read, short as it is.
But Pentagram didn't let that stop them, did they. Guess that's why they get paid the big bucks
I'm sorry but I'm just being honest, made me think of a porn shoot.
https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-arrows-logo-designs-...
To me, it seems a bit useless though, but I don’t have any relevant knowledge about Marketing nor Corporate Design to provide useful feedback. There’s probably some value in a re-brand even though the company is not facing any criticism for their colors, logo, and slogan.
> It was also extremely easy to get wrong. It was 11 different colors—and if placed on any color other than white, or at the wrong angle (instead of the precisely prescribed 18° rotation), or with the colors tweaked wrong, it looked terrible.
I stand corrected, these are good reasons to justify the rebrand.
That being said, I felt a bit scared this morning when I opened Slack and found that the colors were slightly different to what they used to be, I freaked and thought someone had hacked my corporate account, then I went looking for answers and found this post, my heart was immediately at peace.
I hope this change brings them more opportunities to grow.
---
EDIT: Interestingly, their “Release Notes” says version 3.3.6 [1] but 3.3.3 [2] in the download page.
The :slack: emoji is also showing the old logo. I wonder if they are going to change “slackbot” avatar as well.
[1] https://slack.com/release-notes/osx
[2] https://slack.com/downloads/osx
I don't understand.
I had a coworker that had similar reactions to things. "My stuff is missing" = immediately wants to call the authorities, without asking the roommate. Which had moved the stuff due to some petty squabble.
Similarly, this. You had default avatars. Default avatars got changed. Why would someone go to such trouble and make them immediately known? It is more likely to be a change by Slack themselves. Because they provide the default avatars.
Now, if you got custom avatars, and they all got replaced with some activist banner? Ok, hacking gets higher probability.
Not trying to criticize, I just want to understand the line of thought that leads to this.