BMW’s new flat logo is everything that’s wrong with modern logo design • Hacker News Board

Re: BMW’s new flat logo is everything that’s wrong with modern logo design

#81

Post by sharkmerry » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

allovernow wrote: post #63

Change for the sake of change is how good apps and brands are ruined. >Jens Thiemer, senior vice president of customer and brand, says it was designed to “radiate more openness and clarity" Clearly a decision made by a non-technical person thinking with his heart and not his brain. How these people get away with such buzzword bullshit at huge multinational corporations is beyond me. I wonder how much he makes. Remind…

>> Reminds me of that infamous Pepsi PDF

Holy shit, you weren't kidding, That was really something special https://jimedwardsnrx.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/pepsi_grav...

Re: BMW’s new flat logo is everything that’s wrong with modern logo design

#82

Post by wdb » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

This new logo design gives me the same boring vibe as the redesigns of a bunch of fashion brands like Burberry and Céline. It’s monochrome, all looking too similar

Re: BMW’s new flat logo is everything that’s wrong with modern logo design

#83

Post by amdavidson » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

mastre_ wrote: post #72

turbinerneiter wrote: post #8

BMW 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.

> They pride themselves in craftsmanship. Used to. These days, not so much. And they're misfiring quite a bit. For example, the new X3 xDrive30e gets a measly 18 miles of electric range (EPA; real-world likely less). All of that added complexity and weight for very little benefit (in 2020 -- 10 years ago it would have been alright). No 3er manuals in the US anymore. Have you seen the rear of the new 3er which looks l…

You are conflating design decisions with craftsmanship.

I would argue that they still pride themselves in the execution of the designs, even if you (and I) disagree with some of the design direction.

Re: BMW’s new flat logo is everything that’s wrong with modern logo design

#84

Post by remmargorp64 » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

Reminds me of BMW's nonsensical cup holders

Re: BMW’s new flat logo is everything that’s wrong with modern logo design

#85

Post by SilasX » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

jiofih wrote: post #68

SilasX wrote: post #37

This reminds me of when Instagram moved to their new logo and everyone mocked it for the same reasons. Someone made a parody video implying that some kid hacked it together in a few seconds in Photoshop, but I can't find that video anymore, all the links that point to it are dead and won't come up on web.archive.org. They used this kid though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz3PbpPR6DY Edit: Here's something close,…

And the Instagram logo is still bland and unmemorable, hard to apply and a target of mockery. It’s just not in the news anymore.

Oh right, I didn't mean to suggest that the criticisms became less valid over time.

Re: BMW’s new flat logo is everything that’s wrong with modern logo design

#86

Post by elsewhen » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

jaxx75 wrote: post #34

spectramax wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's the main problem. They got rid of black color ring surrounding the blue rotating propellers. That killed the logo.

It's actually a stylized Bavarian flag, the propeller story is a myth

“Then, in 1942, BMW itself linked the propeller to its company symbol” [0]

[0] https://www.bmw.com/en/automotive-life/bmw-logo-meaning-hist...

Re: BMW’s new flat logo is everything that’s wrong with modern logo design

#87

Post by bitL » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 5:43 PM UTC

Typical Germany, copy US fads 5 years later...

Re: BMW’s new flat logo is everything that’s wrong with modern logo design

#88

Post by libria » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 5:44 PM UTC

atoav wrote: post #24

turbinerneiter wrote: post #8

BMW 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.

Additionally it isn't well composed. I learned graphics design from a guy who actually learned it by using his hands to pit down the letters. He had us move one black square around on a white page for 3 hours and explain why we put it where we did. Then we were allowed two squares of arbitrary size, later colors etc. If you are learning it from that basic level you cannot unsee badly unbalanced design. You cannot jus…

> This thing looks like it has been made by the CEOs daugther in Powerpoint.

Off topic and nit-picky: Let's say "CEOs kid" to keep it gender neutral since it's a negative example. I know it was a random choice, but managing other's perceptions is part of sensitivity.

Re: BMW’s new flat logo is everything that’s wrong with modern logo design

#89

Post by komali2 » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

I don't understand why people spend a bajillion dollars on a logo re-do. My first company did it and it was generic, shitty, and did us no good (Electric Imp). We had a wonderful little imp, we called him the imp dude or similar:

https://cdn.instructables.com/F31/9EZA/HJKC29JK/F319EZAHJKC2...

Captured the brand, such as it was, perfectly. A small hacker company started by a man that had hacking coded into his DNA. The founder had started out phreaking at somewhere around age 8. He made a cool bit of money as a teen by custom-programming firmware for lasertag guns and upgrading guns around his hometown. The company was started because he was annoyed at how hard it was to simply get an IFFT style IOT light set up in his bathroom, securely. And so the logo: a cocky little imp creature, imo agendered, with a plug pitchfork and a goofy (optional, not always displayed) tail. Our costume-crazed QA guy even threw together a cardboard and paper-mache version of it for a halloween party once. Possible, because it was a character. It could be anthropomorphized. It represented the company identity.

Then we paid, I don't even know how much, but it didn't matter in the end anyway, for this:

https://3psnnz1ja4lg3qllb62xd6yg-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-...

It was supposed to be simple, I guess, and the little line was supposed to represent I guess a single connection on a silicone board? But what is that? What does it mean, what does it represent? How can we form an identity around that, how could it have represented us? We got rid of Imp Dude for no reason. Stupid.

Re: BMW’s new flat logo is everything that’s wrong with modern logo design

#90

Post by jspash » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

acomjean wrote: post #64

I thought the logo was a airplane propeller. Its actually just the bavarvian flag.. (B standing for "Bavaria" a region of Germany, "MW" Motor Werk. It has evlovlved slightly over the years, but its kinda still the same. If it looks bad with a transparent background they'll fill it in. Some "historical" BMW logos. https://www.motor1.com/news/365668/bmw-logo-isnt-propeller/ Ad with the (not) BMW "Propeller Logo" https:…

Because the text now seems to disappear on the now invisible background, in this photo of their concept car https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/m0Mq-L5MSCvGTGjp6huvqX8iVCw=... the logo look like one of those symbols on the heads of crash test dummies to calculate angles and velocities and such. Not something you really want to see in the middle of the steering wheels!