Many in the business and design community have been watching Yahoo’s countdown to the arrival of their new logo which was announced last night. I think Yahoo’s video illustrating the concept phase leading up to the new logo was far more energetic than the Logo itself. Yahoo seems to be following suit with many other tech companies this year re-branding their logos and corporate images and I’m not sure that it’s all for the best. I realize brands and images need to be updated to remain current and stay fresh with their communities, but if a company is going to change its Logo or brand image then it needs to be for the better. Unfortunately, I don’t think either Youtube or Yahoo got it right with their recent rebrands.
Youtube is a good example of an easily identifiable brand icon going south with a rebrand. The icon many of us had grown accustom to seeing changed so radically my 2 and a half year old son started crying because he couldn’t find his “Princess and the Pop Star” video on YouTube. When he brought the ipad to me saying, “daddy where did princess and pop star go — Can’t find her anywhere?” I took the ipad to see what he’d done and to my surprise, I couldn’t find the YouTube app. Granted it was early and I hadn’t had any coffee yet, but it took me several minutes of flipping through screens before I figured out the red box with the white arrow was now YouTube. It simply can’t be a great brand refresh, when it confuses the tired and makes young children cry.
See for yourself with the clearly marked YouTube icon we had grown to recognize and the new (not so clearly brand recognizable icon).
I commend Yahoo for their new brand of leadership and business decisions of late, but I’m just not on board with the rebranded logo design, at least not yet. Maybe it will grow on me, but in their move to marry up their strategic business plans with an innovative new Logo refresh; the effort has fallen a little flat. Believe me when I say, I want big things for Yahoo and I would personally love to see them go head to head with Google, but their new logo seems to me much less “Yahooie” than it should be.
You can watch Yahoo’s video about the design of their new logo below.
What are your thoughts? Is it Yahooie enough?
Author: Chris London is the art director for Pixel Productions Inc., a strategic graphic and web design company where his focus is to continually find creative and innovative strategies to implement with businesses who need brand design and marketing with impact.
