As others have pointed out, this is not really an experiment for Yahoo to figure out which logo works best. It is just an attempt to shake things up, trying to appeal to the modern internet users. You can perhaps see this more in the line of kinda-Google-doodle-but-not-really
Survata Tests Yahoo’s 30 Logos
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Re: Survata Tests Yahoo’s 30 Logos
#12I am thoroughly convinced that Yahoo! is purposefully putting out 30 crappy logos so that the stunning one they've spent considerable time and money on and that they're releasing tomorrow will just seem that much better.
Re: Survata Tests Yahoo’s 30 Logos
#13This "church of design" approach to criticism is intense. The idea that you can't violate the sanctity of a logo by playing with it is refuted every day by Google and their doodles.
Google and their doodles are part of their identity. The fact that it changes, and the way it changes affects people's perception of who google is, and their fundamental philosophy and approach to things. This idea of a changing logo was pioneered by Frank Olinsky and his MTV identity work. The change is part of the logo, not a search for a new/better one. On the other hand, "not violating the sanctity of a logo" say…
Right, but if Google had played with their logo for 30 days, and then stopped, would it really be any different from if they'd never played with their logo ever?
Re: Survata Tests Yahoo’s 30 Logos
#14Put the logo dispute aside, any great products from Yahoo delivered recently?
All I see is good & old ones get closed.
Heck, Yahoo China simply decided to close all together.
Re: Survata Tests Yahoo’s 30 Logos
#15Companies redesign logos all the time and it's highly doubtful all of them have endless angst over representing the gestalt of their company values to their customers with it. This piece reeks of self-important design student.
Re: Survata Tests Yahoo’s 30 Logos
#16Not a logo. A logotype.
Logotype is a subset of Logo.
Re: Survata Tests Yahoo’s 30 Logos
#17> "A logo is really a visual manifestation of all the complex ideas, values and people that fuel a company" You lost me here. A logo is a marketing tool. What part of the yellow and red double arches says "hamburgers"? What part of a weird green mermaid-thing says "coffee"? What part of staggered striped blue lines say... actually nevermind, that one actually does say "IBM", literally. A logo is more frequently abstr…
"What part of the yellow and red double arches says "hamburgers"? What part of a weird green mermaid-thing says "coffee"? What part of staggered striped blue lines say... actually nevermind, that one actually does say "IBM", literally."
There is, though, a reason why the IBM logo is blue and blocky, not yellow and arch-y - same as there's a reason the mermaid-thing isn't a geometric-thing and is green-on-brown not red-on-yellow.
There's a language that images and colors speak - not in specific terms like "hamburger", "coffee", or "computer" - but in impressions and feelings like "dependable" or "fun" or "earthy". I don't know enough about that language to speak it fluently, but I do usually "get the gist of what they're saying" in a well designed logo(/logo-type/website/landing-page/ … ), and I've worked with great designers who can explain exactly what the message they're sending with their design is - and follow along and agree with their choices. I suspect your "next to no role" in evoking feelings and emotions is significantly undervaluing the power of good graphic designers. It's by no means a replacement for "shrewd, persistent, on-message marketing", it's certainly something that can both help and hinder those efforts.
If you let the public "choose" your logo, you're choosing to accept your logo will send whatever message _they_ want it to send. That's quite likely not going to be the best fit with your business plan or the roadmap for your company and products moving into the future.
Re: Survata Tests Yahoo’s 30 Logos
#18Companies redesign logos all the time and it's highly doubtful all of them have endless angst over representing the gestalt of their company values to their customers with it. This piece reeks of self-important design student.
If there's nothing approaching "angst" over a redesign - why aren't they just sticking with the old design?
Re: Survata Tests Yahoo’s 30 Logos
#19I don't know why design snobbery grates on me so much but it does. Take for example Coca Cola. They have been around for 100+ years and their logo has evolved over that time [1]. Did anyone care? NO. Did they care when they changed the actual product (New Coke). YES. [2]
First off, this is Yahoo! and I'm sure most rockstar designers are too cool to work at/for them anyway.
Second, plenty of established brands change their logos slightly. Big deal. All these non-candidates were still purple, still a wordmark (or whatever you designers insist a "logo of letters" be called).
Third, if they want to show off a bunch of candidates or non-candidates–again–big deal. In what way could such a move possibly hurt their actual usage/bottom line (seriously, I want to know).
It's funny how much we talk about disruption in the entrepreneurial space–yet, when it comes to design the process and tenets are too sacred and established to question. As if logo design has been around for millennia.
[1] http://www.coca-cola.co.uk/125/history-of-coca-cola-logo.htm...
Re: Survata Tests Yahoo’s 30 Logos
#20> This “face-off chart” in particular has all the charm of pulling out a spreadsheet on a date. What's wrong with data? The author doesn't actually explain how it's certain that there are no metrics which could act as a reasonable proxy for the quality of a logo's "visual manifestation of all the complex ideas, values and people that fuel a company".
Instead of a logo imagine it was a word or phrase that encapsulated the complex ideas and values of Yahoo. Does data drive or validate the meaning? Can it? Design has its own inherent semantics and semiotics in much the same way language does.
You can take measurements with respect to particular objectives. For example, does product description A or product description B lead to higher sales? I agree you can't measure something as vague as "complex ideas and values", but you can certainly find more concrete things that are quantifiable that are decent proxies.