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

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

#61

Post by shakow »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #51
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 wer…

> why do many entirely digital web typefaces have ink traps?

Add it to the many things that made it from the necessary to the aesthetic.

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

#62

Post by Kwpolska »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #51
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 wer…

The pixel density might have increased, but phone screens fit less information than desktop screens, so the logo can't take up as much space. The goal isn't good reproduction, but rather improving legibility and recognisability at small physical sizes.

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

#63

Post by captainmuon »

They write "Logo fonts are indeed beginning to converge" but I think the minimal sans-serif has been the style for some time.

I wonder if you could get ahead of the curve and use fonts like Garamond in the old Apple ads. Maybe that would be considered avantgarde soon?

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

#64

Post by dimmke »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #51
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 wer…

I have written two blog posts that sort touch on this subject. The increase in screen pixel density has had a much larger impact on web design as a discipline than is commonly acknowledged.

https://daniel.do/article/making-noisy-svgs/ (I link to the second post in the first paragraph)

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

#65

Post by 127361 »

dun44 wrote: post #18
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…

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

Some of the AI art I've been browsing is far better than many human artists could create, it totally lacks the blandness and dumb trend-following of human creators.

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

#66

Post by lagt_t »

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.

The very few actual studies revealed there is no difference in legibility between typefaces that differ only in the presence or absence of serifs.

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

#67

Post by mikhailfranco »

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…

I was employee No.3 in a start-up a long time ago. When the founders & senior management started spending time redesigning the (perfectly fine) logo, I knew it was the beginning of the end. I began to look for an escape route to another role.

It took 3 months for the logo to launch. I was ready. I left. They cashed out my Angel options at the Series B price. It crashed and burned about 1 year later. I still believe I was the only person to make money from that startup

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

#70

Post by 1over137 »

zo1 wrote: post #24
bad_username wrote: post #17

Also colors and shapes seem to converge. I find it increasingly hard to find programs by icon in my taskbar, they look the same.

Icons inside programs too. Just this morning I got confused trying to un-mute myself inside Discord. Like at some point these braindead designers need to realize that an important part of "UX" is that users should easily be able to find what they're looking for and differentiate it from the next ugly white-on-grey icon that looks the same.

Ages ago, the Apple HI group had a saying: a word is worth a thousand pictures. Alas those people are all gone.
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