I do a little bit of everything, including design, and what appeals to me about ultra-minimalism is that it takes very little effort or talent. To do it well takes some real creativity, but if you're just jumping on the bandwagon it's very easy to imitate and half the work of a more detailed design. You get to be lazy while acting like you're trendy and cutting-edge.
BMW’s new flat logo is everything that’s wrong with modern logo design
51–60 of 193 posts
Re: BMW’s new flat logo is everything that’s wrong with modern logo design
#52BMW builds _cars_, not Apps. They pride themselves in craftsmanship. The Logo badge on the actual car is a three dimensional, physical thing. Instead of embracing that, they made it flat like an App icon. It will look shit on cars and it does not communicate that BMW builds _real machines_. Everybody is going crazy about going digital and they forget what they are good at and what the customer likes them for.
Fake shadows and fake light is not good craftsmanship. It makes sense for a logo on a flat piece of paper to look flat and look beveled and shadowed on a badge. This evolution of the logo is bad, but not because it's flat.
yeah, they could have easily made the existing design flat[ter] but left the rest intact. the new look looks very cheap, but i bet they paid $200k for the redesign.
Re: BMW’s new flat logo is everything that’s wrong with modern logo design
#53The old logo looks bold, solid and heavy - like a diesel engine, whereas the new one - light, skinny, instant, almost like an electric motor.
Not a big fan of it, but thats my impresion after a quick glance.
Re: BMW’s new flat logo is everything that’s wrong with modern logo design
#54I think the point of the design is to make logo harder to see and lose it to the background.
The current trend is to subdue logos or even remove them completely. Younger people in the upper class or upper middle class don't want to advertise products they use or wear. The stronger the brand, more subdued the logo can be.
I suspect that at the some point the design didn't have the letters but they were added in the same white as background as a compromise. In my opinion removing the outer circle and letters and keeping just tiny blue and white Bavarian color roundel would have been even better.
Re: BMW’s new flat logo is everything that’s wrong with modern logo design
#55I'm no designer.. but the new logo looks horrendous. From the few design principles I do know, it appears they took all of them and did the exact opposite. If they wanted to stick with flat design, they could have easily repurposed their existing logo without beveling/lighting to achieve what would likely be a much better result.
Their old old logo was literally their old one without the bad 3D effect. Everything old is new again. Except this weird monstrosity.
Re: BMW’s new flat logo is everything that’s wrong with modern logo design
#56> Sure, it looks nice on BMW’s bronze-hued electric i4 sedan concept, but what about on a white BMW? Or a letterhead? Or on a sign for a BMW dealership on a highway? Is the author really concerned that BMW's design team didn't think about how this logo would be used in such fundamental ways? I can guarantee you that they did. You can personally like or not like it, fine. But if you're going to write a judgey article…
Basic steps such as? There is not much available about it.
Also, you think too highly of corporations. Companies literally have an intern change their logo for no reason, i’ve been that intern. There are dozens of levels of people more worried about saving face than anything else.
Re: BMW’s new flat logo is everything that’s wrong with modern logo design
#57I've never made the association with a crash-test dummy locator marking before, but the abstracted rotor by itself is reminiscent of that for me.
Same here. First thought upon seeing that: crash test dummy.
Re: BMW’s new flat logo is everything that’s wrong with modern logo design
#58> Sure, it looks nice on BMW’s bronze-hued electric i4 sedan concept, but what about on a white BMW? Or a letterhead? Or on a sign for a BMW dealership on a highway? Is the author really concerned that BMW's design team didn't think about how this logo would be used in such fundamental ways? I can guarantee you that they did. You can personally like or not like it, fine. But if you're going to write a judgey article…
> Companies don't just have some intern change their logo up for no reason at all.
Companies redesign their brand (websites, logos, etc.) all the time and it often correlates with a new hire who wants a "fresh start" with the brand.
Jens Thiemer who is the SVP of Customer and Brand and spearheaded this effort has been at BMW a little over 1 year.
It's a way of staking your claim at a company and putting your literal mark on a project. Unfortunately, it's not always the best move.
I help VPs of Marketing redesign brands and more often than not, about 6-12 months into their new gig I get a call.
Re: BMW’s new flat logo is everything that’s wrong with modern logo design
#59Putting the "BMW" lettering on whatever color happens to be behind it creates a strenge dependency that didn't exist before. I'd say that part of the criticism is valid. But the rest of the logo adheres to BMW logo heritage, as the article admits. "Flattening" the central part of the logo, meant to evoke a whirling propeller, is an improvement. My bet is the logo does not make it past concept car use. It has to be te…
Yeah, they'd have to decide which colour of lettering to use with every paint colour. I think you're right that it won't make it to production, at least in its current form.
Re: BMW’s new flat logo is everything that’s wrong with modern logo design
#60New logo looks like shit. Being ironed is the least of its problems. What kind of potato-headed executive greenlit this BS?
Probably it's the same exec who decided BMW steering should become numb and lifeless, apparently to remind drivers that BMWs are luxury cars first and fun cars second.
And to anticipate the response, no, this wasn't inevitable as steering became more electrical. At the same time, several other carmakers produced far superior electric steering systems to BMW's (e.g. Audi, Porsche). About 2012 BMW made a design choice to dumb down the steering response of all their cars, IMO thereby dissing BMW's very identity as the ultimate driver's car. Now I'm not sure they'll ever be able to reclaim those 60+ years of proud history they so cluelessly dismissed.