Yahoo’s new logo and the 30-day punchline

What happens when a CEO and an intern turn designers? About what you'd expect.

Read the whole story

 

[ChrisSD]

maccatalan[/url]":1fz5ujtd]Indeed, the site redesign has not yet reached all international variants of the Yahoo! portal. Example: http://fr.yahoo.com

Has it reached any, other than the US? I've been trying random country codes and they all have the old site.

 

[Yuhong bao]

dfavro[/url]":1gwgapuw]In Yahoo's case, it's probably a bit of both. Unfortunately, this attitude is a really good way to alienate your top talent---and for Yahoo, who already has a lot of problems attracting people, this is deadly.

I think Marissa did similar things when she was at Google.

 

[nitespark]

They should have just used comic sans.

 

[drfisheye]

On the other end of the scale, in my company they worked on a new logo for about 9 months! And then the parent company decided to just put their own logo on it instead. Dough!

 

[potato_hawk]

Limabean[/url]":3nrjuubp]They! Should! Have! Used! This! Opportunity! To! Drop! The! Exclamation! Mark!

I know. I know. It's hard to let go.

I honestly think that as long as your company is called "Yahoo!" you pretty much need the exclamation point. Without it, the name sounds sarcastic, or like it's intended to be the actual definition of the word yahoo. On second thought, the actual definition might just sum up this company over the last decade or so.

 

[Wheels Of Confusion]

drfisheye[/url]":1vjs76y0]On the other end of the scale, in my company they worked on a new logo for about 9 months! And then the parent company decided to just put their own logo on it instead. D'oh!

T,FTFY

 

[s0fa]

wow. there are no words to explain how appalled I am after reading this. this should offend every designer that has any respect for themselves and seriously this is a wake up call to big corps out there who treat design like its some kind of macaroni craft session at a summer camp for kids. to shame. thanks for writing this Aurich, good for you to point out the major flaw in this logo rebrand

 

[microfridge]

Well who would've thought--a CEO with a celebrity mentality also has a HiPPO mentality.

Is there a true meritocracy anywhere in the corporate world where the highest paid person's opinion doesn't always trump the specialized expert opinion? I'd imagine it to be a designer's dream company.

 

[Burstaholic]

I . . . I thought the animation comment was a joke. I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

 

[FunkTron]

I think you guys need to stop picking on people low on experience. There are interns in this world who come up with ideas and implement them better than any "Creative Director" has in his life.

It's lowbrow as hell the way Aurich went about attacking this choice by Yahoo, and I'm surprised by it. I thought he was above weak arguments that are dismissive without really explaining why beyond "didn't take months, used some kid off the street".

 

[MarkKB]

I guess "What happens when a CEO, an intern and a couple of actual designers turn designers?" wouldn't have been an insulting enough lede.

Geez, the new logo looks nice enough (sure, it's not exciting, but I wouldn't call a great number of brands exciting) and the 30-day logo thing got quite a few articles talking about it, which is exactly what Yahoo wanted.

I mean, I guess I wouldn't be as annoyed with the article if, instead of employing cherrypicking and ad-hominem to imply there was no effort put into it, it it summed up the details behind the planning/design of the logo (as enumerated in the linked article), and then listed what he found wrong with those reasonings, or with the logo itself. I love Aurich's work and everything, but right now it just seems like a rant.

 

[Trekoid]

Paul Rodgers[/url]":167007ly]With everyone going to flat logos I'm kinda surprised Yahoo went and made theirs 3D.

Agreed. I thought they nailed it with the Day 1 logo (http://www.yahoo.com/dailylogo). It's flat bold font face would render well on screen in various sized. I liked how the collapsed kerning and font size increase in the "hoo" part harkened back to the classic yodeling commercials.

I can't even see the shading on my computer screen of the new logo in the corner on the homepage because it is too small to render.

 

[LeaderlessByChoice]

Quite simply this is exactly why Yahoo! is not just dying, it's dead. When the suits upstairs decide they know better than all the creatives they are paying for in the company, working outside of their experience and training AND decide that what they ground out in a weekend is viable with NO feedback whatsoever. You are bound for the dead zone.

 

[xlynx]

I think it's salvageable if they just flatten it. The bevel reminds me of decades past.

 

[gwguy]

It's interesting how our perception of the person and the company colours the results. I think if Steve jobs rolled up his sleeves on weekend we would be spending today talking about his revolutionary new design.

If it was ballmer Leno would be leading with his logo as his opening joke.

 

[taswyn]

Trekoid[/url]":1grau03q]

Paul Rodgers[/url]":1grau03q]With everyone going to flat logos I'm kinda surprised Yahoo went and made theirs 3D.

Agreed. I thought they nailed it with the Day 1 logo (http://www.yahoo.com/dailylogo). It's flat bold font face would render well on screen in various sized. I liked how the collapsed kerning and font size increase in the "hoo" part harkened back to the classic yodeling commercials.

I can't even see the shading on my computer screen of the new logo in the corner on the homepage because it is too small to render.

Number 10 had some promise too before they randomly threw out the baseline (yes, I know, they may have been going for a bit of a pinch/warp effect, but the letters don't actually hit along two mirrored chords as would be appropriate for that, and the H is just plain off weirdly in terms of letter height/baseline). The Y was interesting (evocative of a person raising one arm higher than the other in celebration/punching the air, even), though, and some more work on that design overall might have ended up with something fairly neat. And I do agree about liking the collapsed kerning in 1.

Scrolling through all 30, the entire project just really lacks refinement. It's perfectly fine brainstorming, it's a great start, but it's ridiculous that it was called done on the final they chose. And Marissa's reasoning behind the elements in the final design just sophomorically reeks of someone who is a pretentious outsider trying to place meaning behind arbitrary decisions. Those elements are FAR too insignificant and small for the supposed symbolism and import she was trying to attach. And, once again (see my first post), I freely admit I'm no graphic artist (certainly not by trade). But even *I* can tell that much. The beveling reeks of someone simply saying "let's try it beveled" followed by "wow we can say we did it because _____." For all of the meaning Marissa tried to attach after the fact, it reeks of a design that just has no real forethought in it, particularly no unifying purpose that existed at the conception of the design and was then followed through. It's not even as if someone saw something in a brainstorm trial, and then expanded that into the theme of a design. This is, at best, the brainstorm that might have inspired a design.

The end resulting graphic is letters with some effects applied, and the arranging and sizing was played with (in some cases poorly). It's trite and insipid, and that's honestly sad in the mark for what presumes to still be a major company. Any "strength" that might have been imparted by evoking a sense of Gothic influences with the beveling is completely lost and the effect just falls entirely flat. It's a design that doesn't know what it wants to be, so it just is. It exists only to try to fill a place, with no sense of purpose or message in doing so. And as such I suppose it does make a perfectly fine statement for Yahoo as a company.

 

[pnsm]

I'm bookmarking this article to my favorites so that when China finally takes over the world I can read it again and understand why. We were too busy arguing about how bad our logos looked.

 

[geologician]

grimlog[/url]":g0fgmgqy]

geologician[/url]":g0fgmgqy]The new Yahoo logo doesn't work because it sends conflicting messages:

The initial and last letters are larger than the others but they are not the same height.
The exclamation mark is the same height as the initial letter but falls over, italic style, while the other letters are regular upright.
The top of the exclamation mark is unchiselled, unlike the other letters, so it obviously belongs to a different font family.
The feigned spot illumination of individual letters, whether extruded to embossed, is coming from all over the place.
The bases of the YA & H are chiselled for no apparent reason.
The space between the Y & A are neither properly kerned nor glyphed and is in conflict with the spaces between the other letters.
There seems to have been some attempt to produce a 'Cinemascope' illusion but the type baseline and top line fail to curve appropriately for the complete word.

What conflicting messages is any of those sending?

Don't know whether it's a matter of putting lipstick on a pig or or spreading pearls amongst swine.

 

[dialacina]

Yeah the logo isn't a serious triumph, but damn...

How about we stop pretending that designers are magical fucking unicorns who are keepers of a secret art requiring decades of study and a vast unknowable intellect, and realize Cavemen were capable designers too?

And it wasn't just Marissa and an intern. Nor was it just because she messed around with Illustrator over the weekend (which isn't actually what she says if you read her quote). It was her, HER DESIGNERS and a DESIGN intern.

And remember, she was pretty much the arbiter of design at Google.

Stop being so precious.

 

[DriverGuru]

pnsm[/url]":5j5xo8pp]I'm bookmarking this article to my favorites so that when China finally takes over the world I can read it again and understand why. We were too busy arguing about how bad our logos looked.

It could be worse. Nobody is complaining that the new logo doesn't counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor.

At least, not yet.

dialacina[/url]":5j5xo8pp]Yeah the logo isn't a serious triumph, but damn...
[...]
Stop being so precious.

Hear, hear!

 

[clem75]

dialacina[/url]":bky09l26]How about we stop pretending that designers are magical fucking unicorns who are keepers of a secret art requiring decades of study and a vast unknowable intellect, and realize Cavemen were capable designers too?

What job are you in? Are you a magical unicorn who required decades of study or could anyone off the street do your job just as well as you? Maybe your studies actually helped you get a better understanding of your craft??

The irony of it all is that if you did get some cavemen to design your logo – as yahoo basically did – you'd probably end up with a picture of a magical unicorn.

 

[Bad Monkey!]

What gets me is the gleeful way Team CEO/Intern spent a weekend on this project and then called it done. The message my designer side cringes at is "anyone can do this, so why waste more than a weekend of fun on it?"

As long as you're happy getting out what little you put into it...

Or you could give the job to a high priced design firm, and they'll spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, six months of billable time, and go through countless iterations in front of countless brain-dead focus groups in order to still give you something inoffensive and bland.

 

[x76]

LeaderlessByChoice[/url]":28znf9gi]Quite simply this is exactly why Yahoo! is not just dying, it's dead. When the suits upstairs decide they know better than all the creatives they are paying for in the company, working outside of their experience and training AND decide that what they ground out in a weekend is viable with NO feedback whatsoever. You are bound for the dead zone.

Here's a bull's-eye.

 

[x76]

DriverGuru[/url]":58jqzen3]

pnsm[/url]":58jqzen3]I'm bookmarking this article to my favorites so that when China finally takes over the world I can read it again and understand why. We were too busy arguing about how bad our logos looked.

It could be worse. Nobody is complaining that the new logo doesn't counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor.

At least, not yet.

dialacina[/url]":58jqzen3]Yeah the logo isn't a serious triumph, but damn...
[...]
Stop being so precious.

Hear, hear!

Too stupid to bother composing a serious reply to.

 

[FunkTron]

gwguy[/url]":n77yv06l]It's interesting how our perception of the person and the company colours the results. I think if Steve jobs rolled up his sleeves on weekend we would be spending today talking about his revolutionary new design.

If it was ballmer Leno would be leading with his logo as his opening joke.

Now *this* is a bull's eye.

 

[fongandrew]

HerrKaputt[/url]":u3yqpu7o]I read somewhere (maybe here on Ars) that Marissa is obsessed about data-backed changes -- using stuff like A/B tests to support changes in website design etc (which is an awesome idea, by the way). As long as she doesn't skip that stage just because "she dabbles in Illustrator", this logo change won't hurt, because it'll only get put into place if it works.

I'm surprised Marissa didn't mention any A/B testing in her post. It you're going to have 30 days of logos, you might as well use that to collect some data about which logs consumers liked the best. For instance, see http://survata.com/blog/yahoo-showed-us ... iked-best/.

 

[nathand496]

dialacina[/url]":12jjicpk]Yeah the logo isn't a serious triumph, but damn...

How about we stop pretending that designers are magical fucking unicorns who are keepers of a secret art requiring decades of study and a vast unknowable intellect, and realize Cavemen were capable designers too?

And it wasn't just Marissa and an intern. Nor was it just because she messed around with Illustrator over the weekend (which isn't actually what she says if you read her quote). It was her, HER DESIGNERS and a DESIGN intern.

And remember, she was pretty much the arbiter of design at Google.

Stop being so precious.

You think some caveman, having never painted anything before, just wandered into Lascaux and started painting? That he had some sort of innate design knowledge, rather than him being a keeper of some secret art gained through study and practice?

 

[Chuckstar]

StealthFocus[/url]":6qdo656w]When Herman Miller designed the new Aeron chair and did a focus group study on it, everyone blasted the idea, design and price as ridiculous. The company correctly deduced that these people are idiots and manufactured the chair anyways. The chair went on to be one of their most successful products launched and got a permanent exhibit spot at the modern museum in NYC I believe.

The most successful office furniture product ever, by anyone, by far. They made a fortune on the thing.

But it is possible to overstate the point. If Herman Miller had two similar Aeron prototypes, and asked people which one was more comfortable, then that result would probably be reliable.

 

[dialacina]

nathand496[/url]":2zag04ej]

dialacina[/url]":2zag04ej]Yeah the logo isn't a serious triumph, but damn...

How about we stop pretending that designers are magical fucking unicorns who are keepers of a secret art requiring decades of study and a vast unknowable intellect, and realize Cavemen were capable designers too?

And it wasn't just Marissa and an intern. Nor was it just because she messed around with Illustrator over the weekend (which isn't actually what she says if you read her quote). It was her, HER DESIGNERS and a DESIGN intern.

And remember, she was pretty much the arbiter of design at Google.

Stop being so precious.

You think some caveman, having never painted anything before, just wandered into Lascaux and started painting? That he had some sort of innate design knowledge, rather than him being a keeper of some secret art gained through study and practice?

Maybe not at Lascaux (though who knows for sure) but yes, someone had to just commit to doing something first.

See also: Art Brut.

*drops the mic*

 

[NicoTheUnicorn]

I bet the animation on the logo introduction page took longer to design and execute than the actual logo.

 

[gwguy]

Oh and for those dismissing Yahoo! as another has been dotcom may I point to: http://vator.tv/news/2013-08-22-yahoo-t ... es-in-july

 

[ounkeo]

It is important, and this isn't the makeover that the name needed. But the last few years have seen companies spend money on rebranding by the truckload only to come up with bland concepts that looked like they were done in a weekend

how a logo eventually looks is decided on the values they want to impart and project. it can be a clear sign of a direction a company wants to take. For all things design, it isnt about making something look good. We spend a lot of time refining on execution and that's where the aesthetic comes from - not specifically that our intent is beauty for its sake. design is communication first and foremost. a logo will reflect that or not. its beauty is peripheral or even happenstance or consequential as a result of the process of communication.

when i look at the new logo, i see a company attempting to show they are modern and relevant but also confused and unclear of their direction, unclear of who they are or even who they want to be.

the animation, while not offensive, is a clear throwback to the 90's. the simplified (relative) is an attempt to modernise. that eye watering chisel effect just spells complete confusion. put them together and you basicalky have:

1990's era dotcom trying to modernize but is confused up the wazoo.

clearly this is why ppl need to leave these things to designers and brand professionals. owning a camera does not make one a photographer anymore than knowing PhotoShop makes one a designer.

 

[ounkeo]

reading through the comments i think some ppl seem to be confused over the difference between creating a logo/naming a new brand for a new product/business with rebranding an existing company identity.

when a product or company is new, you can call it anything you want. the logo can be anything, even the shape of a dick. it matters only if it somewhat reflects what you are doing, and even then not entirely necessary. the reason you want to spend time considering it at the start is for clearer communications and frankly, it will save you a hell of a lot of money and time later down the road.

then there's rebranding an existing identity or product. to keep it short, what would happen if Apple changed iPad to Big Giant Phone (tm). rebranding an existing property cant be anywhere as arbitrary as when you first brand it because you are no longer starting from a blank slate. the potential to destroy what you have built up is huge.

look at google.com. at one time that would be fine but now it looks dated, feels like a relic associated with a dot com that hasnt moved with the times. now imagine its new branding is changed to Big Search (tm) with some arbitrary logo.

it's more costly to work on an existing brand than a new brand for a reason.

 

[Snickers2.4]

Happysin[/url]":285z6p6v]I'm not a fan. The hard elements look weird at different resolutions, unlike the rounder Google logo which seems to scale cleanly. It also feels rather dated. Kind-of like they want a solid feeling of a blue-chip company, which is weird for a company that is all-digital.

Some of the 30 days actually were rather pleasant attempts. Nothing really daring, but nice. I would have preferred to see them take some other risks, like dropping the bang from the end of the name.

In all, I thought day 25 was the most interesting. Not good for a corporate logo as it stood, but definitely potential to refine it into something forward-looking.

Daily logo list: http://www.yahoo.com/dailylogo

Day 13 was my personal favorite. I had just happened to check my email that day and noticed they had changed their logo. I was like well then, this is new.

This just feels awful to me though.

 

[Snickers2.4]

dialacina[/url]":1g5j95ef]

nathand496[/url]":1g5j95ef]

dialacina[/url]":1g5j95ef]Yeah the logo isn't a serious triumph, but damn...

How about we stop pretending that designers are magical fucking unicorns who are keepers of a secret art requiring decades of study and a vast unknowable intellect, and realize Cavemen were capable designers too?

And it wasn't just Marissa and an intern. Nor was it just because she messed around with Illustrator over the weekend (which isn't actually what she says if you read her quote). It was her, HER DESIGNERS and a DESIGN intern.

And remember, she was pretty much the arbiter of design at Google.

Stop being so precious.

You think some caveman, having never painted anything before, just wandered into Lascaux and started painting? That he had some sort of innate design knowledge, rather than him being a keeper of some secret art gained through study and practice?

Maybe not at Lascaux (though who knows for sure) but yes, someone had to just commit to doing something first.

See also: Art Brut.

*drops the mic*

You should read Universal Principles of Design. It'll show you that at the end of the day, designers who get a great design across because they understand the inner workings of humans and their emotions are exactly magical unicorns.

 

[utopia2]

Sorry Aurich, but the emperor really does have no clothes. You guys are actually worse than the fashion industry. Did you see the bullshit groupthink madness behind pepsi's new logo:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162- ... -for-this/

A million dollars to rotate the old logo and stretch it a few degrees.

This sick crap puts human frailty on full display in all it's glory, and people like you are the poster child for it.

 

[well is it.]

This is just a designers nightmare, having the boss muscle-in on the process because they know how to use the pen tool and gradient tool. I've had clients try and pull this shit before but when you're a freelancer, you feel less awkward about putting them down - albeit gently.

As an in-house designer, you can just say "no, leave it to us please, that's why were here" in a way that wont offend/piss the boss off. Its perfectly reasonable. However, being the CEO, she can basically do what the f*** she wants regardless of what the designers vocalise.

 

[well is it.]

utopia2[/url]":1nbxv20v]Sorry Aurich, but the emperor really does have no clothes. You guys are actually worse than the fashion industry. Did you see the bullshit groupthink madness behind pepsi's new logo:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162- ... -for-this/

A million dollars to rotate the old logo and stretch it a few degrees.

This sick crap puts human frailty on full display in all it's glory, and people like you are the poster child for it.

lul wut.

 

[Deleted member 14629]

utopia2[/url]":39kxgnt9]Sorry Aurich, but the emperor really does have no clothes. You guys are actually worse than the fashion industry. Did you see the bullshit groupthink madness behind pepsi's new logo:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162- ... -for-this/

A million dollars to rotate the old logo and stretch it a few degrees.

This sick crap puts human frailty on full display in all it's glory, and people like you are the poster child for it.

$1m is a drop in the bucket for the company the size of Pepsi. That logo is possibly the single-most important part of Pepsi's marketing and advertising, which is a lot more then $1m. That document is almost certainly designed just to make the execs pulling the trigger feel better about the logo, because a one-pager saying "It looks better and more dynamic" kinda makes it hard to feel good about dropping $1m on an icon.

I don't see anything really wrong about what you posted, especially since the new Pepsi logo has been used to really good effect. Including little things like making the white stripe fatter or skinnier for the Max and Diet lines.

 

[nicolette]

DriverGuru[/url]":37i3n4a1]

Smeghead[/url]":37i3n4a1]

Yahoo had a great opportunity to advance the conversation about brand and design...

It's early and I didn't get much sleep last night, so my sarcasm detector isn't so much broken as completely missing.

Please tell me you're taking the piss...

It's always amusing to see these little storms of indignation from designers whenever a major company changes its logo. As if it actually mattered. In a week or two it will just be the Yahoo logo.

"Advance the conversation about brand and design"??? What the hell does that even mean?

It means "make some artsy logo designers love but users hate, and gets reverted in a week", if history tells us anything.