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

51–60 of 175 posts

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

#51

Post by delta_p_delta_x »

tcldr wrote: post #21

Q: Why do everyone’s logo fonts look the same? A: Because they need to be legible on a mobile device. It’s no coincidence this trend started in the 2010s with the arrival of the smartphone. Brands need a consistent look that work across mediums. With over 50% of e-commerce sales happening on mobile, and the dominance of social media in the marketing of, for example, high fashion, a brand mark must excel in these kind…

Funnily enough, many phone displays have much higher pixel densities than notebook, desktop, and TV displays, and thus would have little problems rendering the serifs, ligatures, and other fancy bits of digital serif typefaces compared to the old 72/96 DPI displays from the late '90s and early 2000s.

Semi-unrelated rant: why do many entirely digital web typefaces have ink traps? They look terrible. On paper, they were meant to be filled in by overflowing ink and thus render the glyphs as intended, but they just look weird and bad on a high-resolution digital display.

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

#52

Post by fireflash38 »

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…

In a way, it reminds me of flag designs. You can be creative with minimal color choice and patterns (Arizona), or you can be a riot of pattern and color (Maryland). Just don't be the same as everyone else (seal on blue field).

Reason I bring this up is the Southwest flag livery - which the MD one in particular really stands out.

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

#53

Post by atoav »

ilumanty wrote: post #25
tcldr wrote: post #21

Q: Why do everyone’s logo fonts look the same? A: Because they need to be legible on a mobile device. It’s no coincidence this trend started in the 2010s with the arrival of the smartphone. Brands need a consistent look that work across mediums. With over 50% of e-commerce sales happening on mobile, and the dominance of social media in the marketing of, for example, high fashion, a brand mark must excel in these kind…

Serifs improve legibility of small prints. With modern HiDPI screens, there is no reason not to use serif fonts across all media.

But your corp very likely wants to look young and fresh and not like a very serious, but ultimately boring lawyer agency.

Serif fonts are still existant, with newspapers, lawyers, notaries and aimilar professions. Most modern corporations just don't want to go that direction, because this isn't how they want to be perceived.

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

#54

Post by WD40ForRust2 »

mglz wrote: post #11
dustedcodes wrote: post #5

I've noticed this loss of creativity and personality before. It's very noticeably in building architecture. Now it's taken over web architecture. All websites and logos starting to look the same-ish.

> It's very noticeably in building architecture. My bad take: Modern architecture ugliness comes from architects using CAD with insufficient proficiency to create complex designs. Result: Mossty cubes and grids, with some advanced users adding fillets.

[dead]

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

#55

Post by 23B1 »

I'll tell you exactly why: because graphic design, which used to be about concept and humanity and risk-taking, has been transformed into a darkpattern-loving exploitative commodity in which no truly creative person wants to live.

The most ironic thing of all is that the author of this article has built a platform – one of many – that has sucked all deliberation and concept and creativity out of the branding process.

The Fiverrification of identity creation.

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

#56

Post by jillesvangurp »

Design is a bit of a fashion industry. Lots of people imitating each other. I'm not a designer but I know a few good ones and appreciate good design.

What I appreciate in good design is not only looking good but standing out from the crowd. The problem with imitating others is that you end up looking like everything else. It's not offensive. But also not remarkable or memorable. A lot of web design suffers from being bland and generic.

A few years ago we had an app and our designer came up with an intense shade of red that was slightly pinkish. He then proceeded to use that for our app icon. Net result: it jumped out from all the other icons on the phones apps drawer. The whole app looked fantastic but that icon was awesome. You could not not notice it. Everybody else was using fashionable blues and greens that literally everybody uses.

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

#58

Post by astrolx »

pzmarzly wrote: post #40
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...

Yeah, very recently. I am still very confused trying to find the Deezer tab on my browser with the new logo as favicon!
Post reply on HN