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Go's New Brand

blog.golang.org

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Re: Go's New Brand

#271

Post by adamweston »

21 wrote: post #86

Reading the comments here makes it clear why most programmers should stay away from design. I've programmed for 20 years now, but that stupid gopher and the way it was everywhere was a serious put off for me on giving Go a look. Nerdy AF. Good riddance. I wonder if there was a huge internal battle between the brand savvy people which realized how terrible the gopher was, and the Go creators. Guys, don't be so stereot…

1. Predicting downvotes is a great way to get downvotes. 2. Insulting the people you're talking to is a terrible way to convince them of anything. 3. Apple has silly logos everywhere - consider SquirrelFish Extreme and Darwin. 4. It's paramount that, above all, a brand plays to its crowd. Regardless of whatever notions of "good design" you possess, you can't deny that the Go logo designers failed to understand their audience, as evidenced by the reaction on HN and elsewhere.

Re: Go's New Brand

#273

Post by adamweston »

goatlover wrote: post #267
sacado2 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes you want to show your consumer what technologies you used in the product you're selling. The gopher looks very bad on "made with" slides. In a presentation, I had a slide with tons of logos presenting the technologies we used. In the middle of the javascript, html, css and maybe ruby (don't remember), the gopher looked childish and immature. Sometimes it can be ok (if your customer is a young, cool, laid-ba…

Does the customer really care that a product was made with Go instead of C++, Rust, etc? Ruby has a gem and Rust has a rusted R. I guess those are less childish? Java with it's mocha brand is supposed to be professional looking? The customer sees a cup of coffee and thinks to themselves, "Wow, this product is definitely made with professional grade industry standards!".

Unfortunately people do care that much about branding. On the bright side, the gopher isn't going away, it's only being relegated to a mascot role, like the Rust Crab.

Re: Go's New Brand

#274

Post by vram22 »

zokier wrote: post #34

This makes me incredibly (to me) sad. The identity is so completely soulless, and the logo is the opposite of timeless, trying to grasp currently oh so hip and pop retro aesthetic. Nevermind that the retro logo and super sleek modern visual identity seems to clash with each other, both are abandoning the playfulness that was so prevalent before, most clearly evident in the various Go gopher illustrations. And its not…

Gopher mascot and no logo was fine. I do see - I cannot call it a trend, but multiple individual instances - of companies going from a better logo / brand image to a sometimes worse one (this is purely subjective opinion on my part, of course, not based on any objective criteria at all).

Another example is Google's current logo of the company name. I don't find it attractive - flat and sort of dull. But the one they had earlier for a long time, was attractive, the colors sort of seemed to gleam or sparkle, and the overall effect was pleasing, even though the colors were the sort of primary colors you find in the kindergarten.

Note: All this said just as a guy who has no UI design expertise at all, just speaking as a layman to that field.

Re: Go's New Brand

#275

Post by vram22 »

jknoepfler wrote: post #153
zokier wrote: post #34

This makes me incredibly (to me) sad. The identity is so completely soulless, and the logo is the opposite of timeless, trying to grasp currently oh so hip and pop retro aesthetic. Nevermind that the retro logo and super sleek modern visual identity seems to clash with each other, both are abandoning the playfulness that was so prevalent before, most clearly evident in the various Go gopher illustrations. And its not…

The logo is awful. - it ham-fistedly plays on the name Go (look, the logo is "going"...) - it is not opinionated (it conforms seamlessly to contemporary corporate logo design, it looks like stock art) - it does not repay sustained attention Go is a brutalist language. Clean lines, no frills, lots of power, close enough to the metal. I want monotype, exposed beams and concrete, RTFM, no ugly movement lines. I would ac…

Ha ha, I tend to agree.

In fact, a font that looked like steel or concrete might be good. Wonder if there is one. If so, they could have made the logo to be just the word Go (as I spelled it as regards to case) in that font. Silvery steel font on a gray or black background, or some similar combination.

Even a font / image / logo signifying a rugged wood (mahogany or some hardwood?) in some way might have been a good one. Signifying the Go philosophy - a no-frills, just-get-the-work done-kind of language.

Just thinking aloud ... :)

Re: Go's New Brand

#276

Post by [deleted] »

juliangoldsmith wrote: post #107
zokier wrote: post #34

This makes me incredibly (to me) sad. The identity is so completely soulless, and the logo is the opposite of timeless, trying to grasp currently oh so hip and pop retro aesthetic. Nevermind that the retro logo and super sleek modern visual identity seems to clash with each other, both are abandoning the playfulness that was so prevalent before, most clearly evident in the various Go gopher illustrations. And its not…

I'd agree here. It's like they tried to make the new branding as generic as they possibly could. I liked the simple, basic site that Go has always used. It seems inevitable that they'll redo the site, to include megabytes of JavaScript for features that nobody wants, like hijacked scrolling. (The site[0] for the design agency they talk about loads about 3 MB. Almost none of it is images. The site loads all that to di…

[deleted]

Re: Go's New Brand

#277

Post by vram22 »

Zyst wrote: post #143
zokier wrote: post #34

This makes me incredibly (to me) sad. The identity is so completely soulless, and the logo is the opposite of timeless, trying to grasp currently oh so hip and pop retro aesthetic. Nevermind that the retro logo and super sleek modern visual identity seems to clash with each other, both are abandoning the playfulness that was so prevalent before, most clearly evident in the various Go gopher illustrations. And its not…

I didn't even know Go had a logo, so long as they aren't touching the Gopher I honestly don't care.

Ya, same here. To me, the gopher was the logo - I didn't even know if they had a separate logo or not, and never bothered. I mean, when you have one like the gopher, why do you need anything else?

Re: Go's New Brand

#278

Post by ocdtrekkie »

vram22 wrote: post #275
jknoepfler wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The logo is awful. - it ham-fistedly plays on the name Go (look, the logo is "going"...) - it is not opinionated (it conforms seamlessly to contemporary corporate logo design, it looks like stock art) - it does not repay sustained attention Go is a brutalist language. Clean lines, no frills, lots of power, close enough to the metal. I want monotype, exposed beams and concrete, RTFM, no ugly movement lines. I would ac…

Ha ha, I tend to agree. In fact, a font that looked like steel or concrete might be good. Wonder if there is one. If so, they could have made the logo to be just the word Go (as I spelled it as regards to case) in that font. Silvery steel font on a gray or black background, or some similar combination. Even a font / image / logo signifying a rugged wood (mahogany or some hardwood?) in some way might have been a good…

Perhaps something like the Google Authenticator logo? https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=google+authenticator+lo...

Re: Go's New Brand

#279

Post by vram22 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #278
vram22 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha ha, I tend to agree. In fact, a font that looked like steel or concrete might be good. Wonder if there is one. If so, they could have made the logo to be just the word Go (as I spelled it as regards to case) in that font. Silvery steel font on a gray or black background, or some similar combination. Even a font / image / logo signifying a rugged wood (mahogany or some hardwood?) in some way might have been a good…

Perhaps something like the Google Authenticator logo? https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=google+authenticator+lo...

Ha, yes, though it is not exactly the same as what I was visualizing (my idea was minus the rivets), it does look good.

Nice, thanks.

Re: Go's New Brand

#280

Post by vram22 »

carapace wrote: post #178
matt4077 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For screen reading, sans is often preferred. It's possible that this is somewhat outdated advice with the advent of High-DPI displays, but it certainly still holds true if you're targetting a diverse set of devices, including older screens. And, since you went there first: "lieu".

D'oh! I mispelled "lieu" but corrected it within the edit window. Heh. That's classic: I'm scolding the other fellow for not looking where he's going and I walk into a pole myself. Heh. but... I'm a rando posting in anger. They're a brand company that just released a thing for Google with a typo in the "Brand Guide". (It's in the PDF, is it in the hardcopy? I'd be mortified if this was my project.) I don't really hav…

>That's classic: I'm scolding the other fellow for not looking where he's going and I walk into a pole myself. Heh.

Muphry's Law :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law

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