by cschmidt on 9/5/13, 4:15 AM
It is a better shade of purple. The bevel is kind of gross, and I'm just left a bit disappointed. A missed opportunity to do something great.
by crazygringo on 9/5/13, 6:19 AM
Forgetting about the ridiculous bevels, they're using what looks to be a variation of the Optima font, which screams 70's/80's. Unlike other fonts (e.g. Helvetica), it has not aged well -- it was once a standard corporate font, now nobody touches it.
Seeing it used in the logo of modern company is, quite frankly, bizarre -- especially a company trying to be "fun", because it is not a "fun" font. It was corporate/educational.
by anologwintermut on 9/5/13, 5:28 AM
At least it actually reflects what most users think: that they are stuck in the early 2000's era of bad 3d bevels. It seems so out of place without IE6's UI adjacent to it.
This is really sad. Yahoo has produced some wonderful looking stuff lately. Their Android weather app that pulls flickr pictures looks amazing.
Someone blew an opportunity to actually signal that the company had changed and blew it badly
by balloot on 9/5/13, 4:57 AM
You have to give Yahoo's marketing team credit. If they had just made this change with no greater context, people would have said "meh" and moved on.
But through some clever marketing techniques the entire internet is abuzz (and has been for a month) about a minor change in font. Seriously - the change itself is utterly uninteresting and uninspired. So nice job, Yahoo marketers!
by mwfunk on 9/5/13, 4:36 AM
I guess I'm insane but I actually think it's a big improvement. If changing their branding goes along with improving their content and actually coming back from the brink, then people might remember it more fondly than they're reacting to it now. If there are no other meaningful changes and Yahoo goes down, then it'll be remembered poorly.
by untog on 9/5/13, 4:11 AM
Get rid of the 3D depth effect they've put on the letters, and it looks fine.
by richardjordan on 9/5/13, 4:16 AM
Anticlimax. The down side about a strategy like this is that it's very unlikely that you'll produce anything OTHER THAN an anticlimactic sense of meh.
by BenoitEssiambre on 9/5/13, 4:27 AM
Use random primary colors for the letters and you are not far from the Google logo.
EDIT: I gnu image manipulated it: http://imgur.com/XajyMr7
by cperciva on 9/5/13, 4:15 AM
by ffk on 9/5/13, 4:18 AM
For comparison, Google's logo also has a bevel and the first letter englarged extending below the baseline.
by 40 on 9/5/13, 5:48 AM
My first reaction is I don't like it.
It looks dated. The bevel looks like Word Art or something I would have thought was cool when I first started playing around with Photoshop.
Its too complex. I was expecting them to embrace the current trend of flatness, and simplicity is a timeless aesthetic. The cutaways from the tops of the lines add to the complexity along with the many different angles, letter heights, and "O" bowl-size.
It is similar to the Google logo with the bevel, rather than say Apple or Microsoft. Considering Marissa's work on the Google homepage, the familiarity with the Google logo might have made her more confident in this variation.
Losing that distinctive "Y"
I prefer the old logo.
I can see it growing on me though. I would remove the bevel and the caps on the "YAH" letters.
If it were me I probably would have tweaked the original logo and made the font look more mature and symmetrical.
by Zaheer on 9/5/13, 4:14 AM
The bevel only makes it look even more antiquated. At a moment like this you would think they would go for a 'fresher' look.
by plainOldText on 9/5/13, 4:09 AM
No offense, but it looks like shit!
The letters are too thin and don't have beautiful proportions.
by redler on 9/5/13, 4:38 AM
It's easy to be reductive and pick apart other people's work. Time may prove this to be an iconic choice. But it does look a bit like the logos designed in the early 2000s using the Optima font and a Fireworks bevel filter, high video production values notwithstanding. It's not made that way, of course, but Googling for logos using Optima yields vast fields of results with a strong family resemblance.
Tangentially, it's amusing that businesses named "Optima" often choose that eponymous font. Even American Express did this with the Optima line of credit cards.
by sirmarksalot on 9/5/13, 8:28 AM
It makes me want to go look at something else. It screams, "You are not interested in me! I am not going to entertain you in any way!"
It reminds me of being in a mall, and looking for that one interesting store that I want to go to. I pore over a directory, scanning over a whole bunch of logos, for brands whose names I can't even remember. Eventually I find the one I want, and in that moment, if you asked me what else was on that directory I could not tell you. The new logo is on that directory somewhere, attracting no attention.
by georgebonnr on 9/5/13, 4:26 AM
by tomflack on 9/5/13, 6:54 AM
How long until their regional affiliates update their design? For example:
http://au.yahoo.com (Yahoo! 7)
http://www.yahoo.co.jp/ (Yahoo Japan)
I really feel that while these spinoffs seemed like a good idea at the time (and in the case of Yahoo Japan were very successful spinoffs) having separate businesses with different branding will come back and hurt Yahoo! soon.
by ssivark on 9/5/13, 8:24 AM
For me, the Yahoo logo was all about differently-sized characters, the fat Y with one of the arms sticking out and the big fat exclamation mark. All of those cues have vanished.
The new logo seems almost devoid of flavor. The rest of their homepage has a nice UI without gradients, and this newly adopted logo seems like a extremely odd misfit, almost out of place. There's absolutely no sense of belonging.
by kjjj333asf on 9/5/13, 4:26 AM
Not sure why people are so bitter, but personally I think it looks good. In fact, I even like the bevel... adds a touch of nostalgia to the 1990's.
by avenger123 on 9/5/13, 4:54 AM
It's nice. It kind of grows on you. Feels more modern (which if that was the goal, mission accomplished).
Seems to work even better as animated gif (like on the main home page).
I'm glad the logo didn't get completely butchered into something unrecognizable. That would have been a big loss of brand equity.
I feel the old logo just needed some modern tones and these new logo has it.
by TheZenPsycho on 9/5/13, 4:47 AM
It says "My parents named me something stupid, but please take me seriously now. I'm a businessman. Look at my suit."
by keypusher on 9/5/13, 4:14 AM
I think it looks pretty bad, but this was the first time I visited a Yahoo site in years so I guess their plan is working.
by brickmort on 9/5/13, 4:19 AM
you know what? i like it. for the past month or so i kept thinking "this is such a bad idea on yahoo's part..." but now that the new logo's here, i realized that it is, in fact, a good move. it's sleek, modern yet it still looks 'familiar'. kudos to the yahoo design/marketing team.
by uptown on 9/5/13, 4:34 AM
For a few days some people will say it sucks, and some people will say they like it better - then nobody say much of anything about their logo ... new or old.
Ultimately, they'll still be facing the same challenges they faced 31 days ago ... just like every company they call their competition.
by pekru on 9/5/13, 11:40 AM
by georgebonnr on 9/5/13, 4:24 AM
If you watch the video the logo looks fantastic from 0:25 to about 0:33. And then everything goes to shit.
by null_ptr on 9/5/13, 4:26 AM
Well good for them for making the logo changing process fun to follow. A logo is after all only a small part of a company's success (compared to the actual value of its products), might as well have a light-hearted attitude about it.
by themodelplumber on 9/5/13, 4:56 AM
That "blueprint" in the video is pulled right out of thin air. Sort of the pinnacle of the "we live in a scientific world and I don't know science so I'm making this up as an excuse for my intuition" thing.
by eksith on 9/5/13, 4:36 AM
I feel like there's a hint of Google in there. Could just be my imagination, but with the exception of the much sharper center gradient divide, it's a close 3D effect. The only other difference is the uneven font size.
by wpeterson on 9/5/13, 4:20 AM
by kaplejon on 9/5/13, 4:21 AM
This logo looks great in the "white on background" flavor, but I have to shake my head at its "purple with bevel" iteration. A win and a loss, in the same small reveal.
by brennenHN on 9/5/13, 5:38 AM
I'm not sure Yahoo's brand was ready to be logo-ified. They're currently in such a radical state of change that it feels like an impossible task.
by kristiandupont on 9/5/13, 7:27 AM
I wonder if the bevel on Google's logo inspired them to do it as well because they feel that it signals "search engine" or something.
by Nomlab on 9/5/13, 4:29 AM
Wow, can't believe they took such a big step backwards. Purple w/ black shadow and bevel ... this must have been a decision by committee.
by nej on 9/5/13, 5:45 AM
by georgebonnr on 9/5/13, 4:20 AM
I would think they would need more than anybody right now to broadcast a fresh and youthful design. This doesn't seem to be either. Odd...
by mrslx on 9/5/13, 4:12 AM
Wow, they are really trying very hard to come up with silly gimmicks to stay top-of-mind, only way to sell ads these days.
by smurph on 9/5/13, 12:52 PM
The bevel is pointless. You won't be able to notice it in on smaller versions of the logo, which it most of them.
by chatman on 9/5/13, 4:15 AM
Yahoo's red logo back in 90s was their best ever. All this purple doesn't look good.
by joshdotsmith on 9/5/13, 4:39 AM
Can someone please do a 99designs project to see if they get a better logo from that?
by joemaller1 on 9/5/13, 5:44 AM
All I keep seeing is the negative space between the Y and the A. Not in a good way.
by abdophoto on 9/5/13, 4:21 AM
The bevel looks pretty bad. I really liked what they day 10 and day 1.
by blackysky on 9/5/13, 4:32 AM
the logo is bad and I'm not even hating, the 3D effect is horrible on a large screen with a high resolution. Drop that weird word art effect...
by psteinweber on 9/5/13, 4:33 AM
Feels to early for a tribute to the 00s.
by SCdF on 9/5/13, 5:25 AM
Still with the ! eh. Surprising.
by enraged_camel on 9/5/13, 4:24 AM
Did Yahoo! need a new logo, or is this some kind of "look at us, we're re-inventing ourselves!" theater?
by gojomo on 9/5/13, 4:31 AM
Animated logos are the future - including on storefronts, the tops of monumental buildings, and vehicles.
by undoware on 9/5/13, 4:27 AM
Terrible. This is so embarrassing. We're losing you, Marissa.
by thecooluser on 9/5/13, 4:10 AM
Bleh.
