Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why do everyone's logo fonts look the same? (2020)

justcreative.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 175 posts

Re: Why do everyone's logo fonts look the same? (2020)

#31

Post by woodruffw »

taneq wrote: post #19
woodruffw wrote: post #12

The design cycle is especially obvious in the case of Airbnb et al.: they all went from having cursive logo fonts to sans-serif. In other words: the only thing that’s new with the current cycle is that it’s a minimal cycle, making a lot of designs converge. I’m sure we’ll see a larger variety of designs with the next cycle, underlying design philosophy permitting.

I wonder if it's to do with fixed-width serif fonts looking "old" due to their association with old text printers? Now sans-serif looks 'new' by comparison. Couple that with the 'clean sleek minimalist' look that all the modern tech companies have popularized and everything's re-converged on another round of samey looks. We're ripe for another new wave any year now. What'll it be this time? Comic sans? sARcAsTiC?

That might be some of it, but I think there are even more quotidian answers: large companies often have fixed design budgets (by virtue of having a design staff sitting around, waiting for things to do) and are generally under pressure from investors, etc. to demonstrate market fit and relevance.

In other words: "what are you paying all these designers for, if you aren't going to have them match the latest trends?"

Re: Why do everyone's logo fonts look the same? (2020)

#33

Post by Cockbrand »

NotGMan wrote: post #29

Might be a combination of attention span and readbility. Many logos use cursive or letters which one must "focus" in order to read. But if you use a "simple font" you asap read it without even knowing. If you want to get the most out of your ads you need the people to actually register the ad message instantly.

Playing devil’s advocate here: the message itself could be written in an easily legible font (plus an image, potentially), and the company logo could still be cursive or whatever, making it much more distinct. Once the logo shape is learned, it should be easy to recognize.

Re: Why do everyone's logo fonts look the same? (2020)

#35

Post by ungamedplayer »

passwordoops wrote: post #23
dun44 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully AI will make those uncreative designers redundant, freeing them to do something more aligned with their talents.

That's way too hopeful. AI is not creative, it's a tool that gives you what it calculates to be the best solution which is taken from the space of all pre-existing solutions. So if anything it will double down on the lack of creativity and keep showing whatever worked before referring us down a cycle of dull, but very machine-predictable mediocrity. AI is not the solution for making things more creative.

I think that was what op was saying. They will make the boring samish logos.

Re: Why do everyone's logo fonts look the same? (2020)

#36

Post by nottorp »

benj111 wrote: post #20

I just don't get why companies change their branding every 5 minutes. What do you gain? Did everyone suddenly start thinking Google was new and fresh after they spent however many millions on their rebrand? And then there's the inherent contradiction. Is a logo important, if not why are you changing it, if it is, why are you throwing out the current valuable logo, or are you implicitly accepting you somehow failed an…

Easy. They have a chief marketing officer or even a specialized chief branding officer. Those need the fat bonuses for succesful... something too.

Re: Why do everyone's logo fonts look the same? (2020)

#38

Post by belugacat »

passwordoops wrote: post #13

There's been much virtual ink and video play time discussing the phenomenon. Just do a search "why are designs so boring?" My personal slant pins it on the cult of minimalism. I realized we were effed when Lufthansa went with their incredibly dull and depressing livery. Most people in the planespotting world disliked it (1), while designers were falling over themselves gushing about the elegance, clarity and simplici…

commercial design needs to hit a set of 2 contradictory goals:

1) be as boring as possible so people can make sense of it quickly and efficiently in a world where there are countless other things competing for your time and attention

2) standout as much as possible to gain your attention in the aforementioned busy world

IME this explains a lot the nature of trends that design experiences.

Re: Why do everyone's logo fonts look the same? (2020)

#39

Post by Xenoamorphous »

passwordoops wrote: post #13

There's been much virtual ink and video play time discussing the phenomenon. Just do a search "why are designs so boring?" My personal slant pins it on the cult of minimalism. I realized we were effed when Lufthansa went with their incredibly dull and depressing livery. Most people in the planespotting world disliked it (1), while designers were falling over themselves gushing about the elegance, clarity and simplici…

> Also, designers, like most people, are inherently uncreative

99% of the time the designer has to do what the client instructs them to do. And in most cases, they will simply point to some recent change by the competition.

Also everybody will have an opinion about a design.

Re: Why do everyone's logo fonts look the same? (2020)

#40

Post by pzmarzly »

quirino wrote: post #6

There's this great blog for Logo changes: https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/ You have to subscribe to read the articles now, but just looking at the thumbnails is fun enough

Wow, thanks for that. I had no idea that e.g. Deezer got rid of their iconic logo https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_log...
Post reply on HN