[The Final Dakar]

Stop the train I want to get off.



I thought I was a fan of minimalism but it must be the skinny fonts or something because I have not enjoyed this latest trend. I see merit because it does make some of the old stuff look absurdly cluttered and busy, but this new stuff seems soulless in comparison.

[osiris]

It's the new black.

edit: I agree, the new thin font look is soulless. Like much of the world these days. Oh, did I say that?

[pooka]

I thought being a brand-whore was more along the lines of "soulless" but different stroke and all that. I don't think this is the new logo per se, but I personally don't have a problem with the more utilitarian/minimal approach. Have you tried integrating the previous identity into an app?

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by pooka 

I thought being a brand-whore was more along the lines of "soulless" but different stroke and all that.

Huh?

[pooka]

Sorry. That wasn't an attack directed at you. It's common to hear complaints about a shitty logo along the lines of "the old one is shitty, but the shitty character/charm has more equity than this new direction". My knee-jerk is typically along the lines of "****-off, charm-whore. I much prefer the mark that, you know, works."

Carry on.

[The Final Dakar]

Well, my intention was to talk about this new direction in design. The brand is irrelevant to the larger discussion at hand. I'm not finding the appeal of this new direction, and I usually like minimalism. But it feels like its crossed a line where everything looks indistinguishable. I blame the fonts.

Edit: I mean, I like OS X, but I think we'd all have a heart attack today if we were shown the Aqua interface.

[pooka]

I get you. The font is shit and has been criticized by type-geeks all over. It's part of their push to whatever the hell it's called Google-wide. That said, I myself prefer the new direction over the old simply because it feels more at home and less goofy in context (home screens, 3rd party sites, app launchers, etc). Also keep in mind that there are global sensibilities being taken into account more and more. Design is subjective (to a degree - aqua is universally viewed as crap). I mean, this aint got nothing on the icons in iOS7. That poop is weak-sauce.

[shifuimam]

It's gotten the point where logos are barely indistinguishable from each other. Everything uses the same few colors, the same design..it's kind of ridiculous.

I like the days of custom designed lettering for logos. I'd like to see someone come up with something like the Coca-Cola logo, which is timeless. Not even Pepsi could keep up...they switched to a Metro-style font awhile back.

[andi*pandi]

Those thin fonts get very hard to read at smaller sizes, say, for sharing icons.





Get off my lawn.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by andi*pandi 

Those thin fonts get very hard to read at smaller sizes, say, for sharing icons.





Get off my lawn.

Screw that, you're probably the most qualified person on the forum to weigh in (and I was hoping you would).

I majored in graphic design in college but I've done very little of it post.

[shifuimam]

It's gotten the point where logos are barely indistinguishable from each other. Everything uses the same few colors, the same design..it's kind of ridiculous.

I like the days of custom designed lettering for logos. I'd like to see someone come up with something like the Coca-Cola logo, which is timeless. Not even Pepsi could keep up...they switched to a Metro-style font awhile back.

[The Final Dakar]

Double post an hour apart? Incredible.

[zro]

Typeface.

Not a fan myself. I can see for the YouTube logo, sure fine, whatever. But using it in the interface (à la the Yahoo! weather app) only obscures the information. Typography is fun and all, but let's not put the cart (form) before the horse (function).

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Double post an hour apart? Incredible.

I'm amazing like that.

[andi*pandi]

Add ShareThis to the trend:



(forums won't do png? it is transparent. hmm. )

This particular example makes me feel claustrophobic, it is cramped and the kerning is all over the place. I can live with the brighter green.... they are jumping on the bright bandwagon.

None of this seems necessary. If your brand is good you don't need to redefine it every two years. You don't need to change the logo just because you changed your website design.

[The Final Dakar]

That thing is a monument to complexity compared to the thread title.

At the very least, the font isn't skinny enough.

[andi*pandi]

ok... but can we agree it's crap?

the new website design I like.

[shifuimam]

I used to work for a company that decided out of nowhere to spend tens of millions of dollars rebranding worldwide just to change the damn corporate color from blue to red. Red is apparently "more powerful".

It's also a really shitty color to work with when making internal websites. Blue has lots of options on the spectrum. With red you pretty much have red and dark red. Anything lighter is pink.

[The Final Dakar]

"If Yahoo! want bevels and shading, we don't!"



The flat Google logo redesign appears legit: It’s spreading across Google | Ars Technica

Feels a little dry, but at least they didn't jump on the thin font bullshit.

[ort888]

Looks like Sergey locked himself in a room with a few designers for a weekend.

[The Final Dakar]

A lot of rebranding going on....

[Jawbone54]

I love minimalism. I've watched every documentary and scoured the Internet looking for minimalist blogs to add my Feedly.

But I'm in near-complete agreement with Dakar, and I think shifuimam nailed my main concern:

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

It's gotten the point where logos are barely indistinguishable from each other. Everything uses the same few colors, the same design..it's kind of ridiculous.

I like the days of custom designed lettering for logos. I'd like to see someone come up with something like the Coca-Cola logo, which is timeless. Not even Pepsi could keep up...they switched to a Metro-style font awhile back.

Minimalism is only effective if there is some sort of soul underneath the cleanliness. The new Bing logo is garbage. The typeface seems okay, but the "b" logo doesn't illicit any sort of a response similar to FedEx's famous arrow.

A side note: I'm actually really fond of Polygon's design, especially their logo:

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

A lot of rebranding going on....

Looks like Bing graphic designers locked themselves in a room with the Google Drive logo for a weekend.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by Jawbone54 

I love minimalism.

I do too, but as I pointed out, this is terrible.

Originally Posted by Jawbone54 

A side note: I'm actually really fond of Polygon's design, especially their logo:

So do I, shame they're a bit of shitshow.

[Jawbone54]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

I do too, but as I pointed out, this is terrible.

I think what these designers are failing to understand is that proper minimalism is actually a lot harder than they realize.

I'm also convinced some of it can't be trained.

[andi*pandi]

My icloud webmail has just been iOSified.

blerg.

[ort888]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

I do too, but as I pointed out, this is terrible.



So do I, shame they're a bit of shitshow.

What makes them a shitshow? Just curious.

I've been looking for a good source of general gaming news that doesn't feel like it's geared toward 15 year olds. Recommendations?

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by ort888 

What makes them a shitshow? Just curious.

I couldn't do it justice but think about the worst aspects of gaming journalism, amplified. Which makes sense, considering they're made of an "all-star" team of gaming journos.

Originally Posted by ort888 

I've been looking for a good source of general gaming news that doesn't feel like it's geared toward 15 year olds. Recommendations?

I just check the Gaming section NeoGAF daily. They pull from pretty much every site possible there.