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Designing the Facebook Company Brand

facebook.design

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Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#111

Post by ummonk »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #25
jawns wrote: post #7

Although a post about updated branding may seem benign, this is, I believe, a response to critics who believe the company should be broken up. For example: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/03/opinion/facebook-antitrus... https://www.wired.com/story/tim-wu-explains-why-facebook-bro... https://www.cnet.com/news/can-facebook-be-broken-up-what-you... Facebook is hoping that by differentiating its company brand from its fl…

Why is the government itching to break up tech companies? I feel like it's a bad idea for them to get involved at all.

It isn’t. Some political candidates are.

Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#112

Post by pvg »

oflannabhra wrote: post #107

I know it is easy to be cynical on these types of "announcements", but I am having a really, really hard time understanding how curved strokes (or any branding decision) can result in empathy or "open space for peoples stories". Empathy is a human characteristic. To think that a word mark can have (or even create ) it is patently ridiculous. In fact, I'd say it cheapens the meaning of the word to the point where true…

It's supposed to evoke these things, along with the the rest of the company's branding and messaging. Whether it does (or even can) is a different question but the idea behind this wooly-sounding stuff is not that the designs inherently have or create things like 'empathy'. It's a way to guide the design process and evaluate the designs. If a designer came up with an FB logo that uses the Doom font, the other people working on branding can look at it and ask 'Does this evoke empathy?'

Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#113

Post by CharlesColeman »

notatoad wrote: post #72
CharlesColeman wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "A" and the "K" are fascinating. Almost imperceptibly bent...The "B" also has a belly. What's interesting to me is why anyone would bother with tweaks like that. The logo looks like a generic san-serif block letter logo, and I only noticed those details after they were explicitly pointed out. Even after looking at it several times, the bent lines register as defects to me rather than as an aesthetic design choi…

Just because you don't think to yourself "oh, the A is bent and the B has a belly" doesn't mean you don't percieve it. The goal isn't to make you appreciate the typography, it's to make you think about the company in a certain way. I didn't notice the A being bent outward until it was pointed out either, but i did notice a sense of informality and friendliness in the mark, and that comes from details like the A being…

> I didn't notice the A being bent outward until it was pointed out either, but i did notice a sense of informality and friendliness in the mark, and that comes from details like the A being bent.

I don't doubt that a typeface as a whole can convey an emotion (through pre-existing associations with the font), but I'm highly skeptical that the tiny tweaks in a novel context on display here can actually do that.

For the record, I didn't pick up on any feelings of "informality or friendliness" when I saw their new logo, and I still don't.

But maybe this stuff is a private design language the graphic designers and typography fans share between themselves (e.g. bent lines == friendly), which they've convinced themselves is generally understood when it's not.

Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#115

Post by filoleg »

so_tobeclear wrote: post #87
Shivetya wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because politicians dislike it and scare their constituents and others into the same mode of thought. why can't we apply the same mindset to government because you have to be kidding yourself if you believe it is a democratic institution. Oh sure you may have the option to elect a few select people at different levels but the vast majority is not subject to your whims or even large groups of people. the reason is sim…

Nice try Facebook moderator

Just because someone disagrees with you while bringing up a pretty compelling point, they are definitely a shill.

Also, I believe your comment is in violation of the guidelines: "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken." and "Don't be snarky. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."[0]

0. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#116

Post by lm28469 »

bitL wrote: post #94
lm28469 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's interesting to me is why anyone would bother with tweaks like that. They probably spend millions in design per year and have to keep their designers team working. At that scale nothing is left to chance, they A/B tested their logos for months &. If it makes them looks .1% better and improve signups by the same amount they're golden. > I only noticed those details when they were explicitly pointed out. And th…

> they A/B tested their logos for months I doubt it; I could instantly spot jagged edges of their design, it looks more like a rush job.

A/B tests imply that people have different opinions.

Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#118

Post by trowawee »

legitster wrote: post #103
Roodgorf wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying that the reason FB is being targeted for anti-trust is that they are simply too successful feels like a vast oversimplification of the situation.

True, but I hear these conversations brought up against every tech company, regardless of what they are doing or why. Amputation may be a valid prescription for a patient, but if amputation is always the prescription, I may assume we are diagnosing wrongly.

No you don't. No one is pushing to break up Basecamp, or LinkedIn, or even companies that have actual documented histories of anticompetitive practices, like Oracle. I haven't even heard much chatter about breaking up Apple, altho that might ramp up as they move farther away from hardware into services and other areas. The conversation centers around FB, Google, and Amazon, for reasons that are unique to each of them.

Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#119

Post by notfromhere »

legitster wrote: post #97
notfromhere wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Breaking up trusts definitely helped - its the concentration of wealth and non-existent trust enforcement why there's so much consolidation and market concentration in a handful of firms.

Breaking up Microsoft didn't necessarily help any competitors, but it definitely made their products worse. Breaking up Bell turned one giant monopoly (with a well funded research division that drove innovation) into a bunch of regional monopolies that didn't necessarily drive better consumer outcomes. Trustbusting is a very blunt instrument and there's not much data that it actually drives the results it intends. It…

the nature of capitalist competition means that in the long-term markets will consolidate.

Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#120

Post by debaserab2 »

legitster wrote: post #97
notfromhere wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Breaking up trusts definitely helped - its the concentration of wealth and non-existent trust enforcement why there's so much consolidation and market concentration in a handful of firms.

Breaking up Microsoft didn't necessarily help any competitors, but it definitely made their products worse. Breaking up Bell turned one giant monopoly (with a well funded research division that drove innovation) into a bunch of regional monopolies that didn't necessarily drive better consumer outcomes. Trustbusting is a very blunt instrument and there's not much data that it actually drives the results it intends. It…

Breaking up Microsoft absolutely helped their competitors, but not in the PC software market. There was a time when Windows tightly integrated Internet Explorer throughout the operating system to the point that using a different browser was a hassle (and would never be done by their general audience). Microsoft subverted and contorted as many industry standards as they felt like it as they attempted to turn the internet into their own walled garden right from the start. The antitrust rulings that were made undid the clamped down version of the internet that Microsoft was trying to build. I highly doubt consumers would have somehow been better off the last two decades if this ruling wasn't made.
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