Designers decide that they need to change the logo and come up with 50 variations, from bland to wild. Then a committee decides on "the best" one. With each, someone on the committee finds something they don't like, until there's nothing to take away, just bare, sans serif, black letters.
Same 'committee' effect happens with pop music, each song has many writers and goes through many layers of the music label before it is a released, that the song ends up very generic but also listenable to a lot of people.
These logos give the impression that designers and marketers are less necessary, not more. Anyone could make logos like these: just buy a sans serif font, type out the brand name in Word, and adjust the kerning and tracking as necessary.
That’s exactly what I did for my own company as I cannot afford a professional designer. I didn’t even pay a serif font actually. I just picked a free/libre one.
My favorite example of this is what I can only assume is (if real) a document made after the “new” Pepsi logo came out, to justify it with some verbose design-speak nonsense.
I read somewhere, can't remember, that there is an "anti-branding" trend going on because something shows flashy or distinct brands are no longer a sign of trust. When companies can buy and sell parts or entireties of other companies, and "cancel culture" can potentially destory a brand at a moment's notice, maybe there is little to no point in pushing or mantaining a brand more than the minimum.
> flashy or distinct brands are no longer a sign of trust
That part I would agree with. In the early 2000s tech companies in particular were allowed to be wacky, weird and attention-grabbing. Now they're trying to be under-stated, high-quality and serious as they become established.
Maybe color digital ink has become too expensive during these austere times...
Kidding aside, even if that represents a biased selection, there are some for which I cannot imagine why they went from an identifiable brand-typeface to non-descript type face that is detached from previous branding.
Because it’s not about recognition, people can recognize the text. It’s about telling a story about what the brand stands for. They want to say their company is solid, minimalist, no frills, clean, fresh.
Some of that would apply to homely brands like Amazon and Walmart, but how can that apply to brands mostly about flaunting consumption and status as well as being the opposite of cookie cutter mass appeal uniformity?
It's called "going with the times" or "following trends". The logos are still sufficiently distinct, but the old ones all looked outdated.
My favorite example for logo updates are car makers because they're all so conservative with them. In the last 20 years they all had 3D-shaded logos because that was hip and cool (I guess), but nowadays it looks outdated and cheap (like the old tech logos), which are usually not associations you want for your products.
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[ 108 ms ] story [ 1047 ms ] threadhttps://www.wired.com/listening_post/2008/05/survey-produced...
And the opposite:
https://www.wired.com/2008/04/a-scientific-at/
https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell...
Maybe it’s made up, or maybe it really represents the concept behind the logo change. Either way it’s amusingly ridiculous.
That part I would agree with. In the early 2000s tech companies in particular were allowed to be wacky, weird and attention-grabbing. Now they're trying to be under-stated, high-quality and serious as they become established.
Kidding aside, even if that represents a biased selection, there are some for which I cannot imagine why they went from an identifiable brand-typeface to non-descript type face that is detached from previous branding.
- The app logo is the lowercase f
- the top left corner of the app display “facebook” in lowercase. So does Facebook.com
Are there other logos in the article that are wrong? Facebook doesn’t use an uppercase font for their logo.
This page has the uppercase logo in two places, on the fixed header, and on the footer.
I think this uppercase FACEBOOK is the logo for the company, not the website. https://en.facebookbrand.com/facebookcompany/
My favorite example for logo updates are car makers because they're all so conservative with them. In the last 20 years they all had 3D-shaded logos because that was hip and cool (I guess), but nowadays it looks outdated and cheap (like the old tech logos), which are usually not associations you want for your products.