Are Oversimplified Logos That Bad? 

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I don’t have that much of a problem with Discord’s new logo as I do with the *font.* I have no idea how a font could look so bad but they did it.

The biggest crime with the oversimplified logos/icons trend is making every icon so simplified and similar to each other you can't find anything on the app list on your phone.

As a graphic designer, I could not have said it better. This is absolutely what we were thinking

I like how some of the reasoning behind Discord changes was for colorblind people, meanwhile MasterCard just went completely opposite direction and shat on colorblind people with their redesign

Answer: It's complicated. In terms of printing, it's much better. Vector graphics (AKA almost all simplified logos) are scalable without quality loss. In terms of design: They don't fricken suck, but they aren't amazing. In terms of computer exclusive icons/graphics: They really fricken suck. Edit: I swear to God if another unnecessary space appears between my 4 other lines.

It’s like the artist behind the adobe icons had a completely self-centred mindset with the idea of all the icons being blue because blue is their favourite colour and the cat that Photoshop and Lightroom are different shades because that’s what they use the most - complete disregard for whoever else needs to use the suite.

I never found a way to properly articulate my thoughts on the whole “simple company logos” thing. This is exactly how I have felt about it, to the tee.

I am a very visual-minded person and if a logo is sucky it kinda turns me off. If something is so minimalistic I can't tell what it's supposed to be, I can't be bothered to buy it.

*Mr. Logo:* _"I DON'T FEEL SO GOOD..."_ (oversimplify intensifies) *Company:* _"UPGRADES PEOPLE. UPGRADES."_

Remember when everyone freaked out about oversimplification and then forgot about it after 3 weeks

I'm over here manually editing files to add the old icons of Adobe and Firefox, mainly because I go by the shape of stuff than colors, Adobe made it hard to tell what one is what

Fun fact if your first language is Hebrew the original discord logo looks like it says 'piscorp'

discord's new icon specifically looks pretty good it's the font that's absolute dumpy they could just use the old font and the new icon and it'd look

7:40 I love how the kid is on the wrong side of the escalator and their parents just don’t care.

Don’t know why they did my boy the Pringle Man like that. As a graphic designer, that hurt my heart.

I know it's only tangentially related to the vid, but Redesign Your Logo by Lemon Demon keeps playing in my head watching this video

The Firefox was always wrapped around the world. Changing the orb purple looks like it turned our atmosphere to poison.

The new pringles guy reminds me of something. Red space, white circle with black inside of it... Nah can't place it Seriously when you put it on screen I went "oh, we Germans had that as well"

"makes things that look GOOD, not RIGHT NOW" is actually good advice on doing anything at all

The Discord logo was smiling but now it's just passive agressive

*Marshal* : You just need to polish it up *Every major brand* : Right, okay! [Proceeds to sand away all detail & character]

Y’know, I actually like some of these simple logos. They’re easy on the eyes. The Firefox one looks just fine. I didn’t even notice the discord change until someone pointed it out to me. Kinda like that minimalist Uno thing. I love how that looks. Except for the new Google icons those suck actual ass.

I feel like the best choice if you had a mascot in your logo and were a company thats known to just remove the font if you'd wanna simplify it, starbucks did that for example but as we can see with pringles or firefox they did the opposite n now no one likes it. Personally i don't mind the font ones like dunkin or subway and I actually like the new mastercard look (they also inspired themselves by their logo from the 60s and 70s) but don't go on their website its horrendous. All in all don't kill your mascots!!!

There should be a hard legal floor for how much a company can simplify an established logo, and if they try to surpass that limit, they should be legally required to undo that change.

It's mostly because they fear stockholders think that the brands aren't keeping with time if they don't change it every five seconds

Companies and people in general have to understand that if you want to add a new feeling to something, just add new stuff, but don't change or remove previously existing things.

EA’s Human vibe is “Evil”. Thanks for making me lose my voice and waking my sister up.

I can get where people are coming from sometimes, but the new fire fox logo is so good, it's my favorite logo

Some of these logos look alright to me. Honestly, it feels like a fashion trend: those that can pull it off make it look very good, but those who can't pull it off make it look silly.

Fun fact: here in the UK, they still have the old Pringles logo.

I don't mind the Google logo that much, mostly because the lifeless text matches the company's image. The recent Firefox change didn't make sense to me. It was ALREADY simple enough, yet lifelike. They didn't need to change anything. (And as much as I like some of the very old ones, I understand the need for some simplicity.)

Says ad time: RU-vid: have an actual ad lol

I want you people to remember something. A trend we were angry about may not be discussed commonly, but that does NOT mean we forgive nor forget the people behind it. It just means we moved on to be angry about another stupid idea that pisses us off. We'll forgive when they fix it.

Yeah that's the exact problem with oversimplication: the logo eventually lose more personality through the change that it would have gained. Take for instead Burger King: the round previous logo had a swing to it, it's more interesting to look at than the previous "square burger". Then one day, an exec woke up like "Our company's doing great, but the new logo's been used for 20 years, let's revert the change". And thus, square burger returned, in HD.

In the new Pringles logo, if you remove the name, you get the same color scheme as the ideology that would approve the logo itself.

On the topic of logos that can last forever, the one that comes to mind is the CN Logo. "The Noodle" has been in use since 1960 without much change if any.

Logos that aren't bad/actually good in my opinion: The new Google icons, Edge and Firefox Firefox isn't too bad although I wish they stayed with the one before this one (where the fox is more visible) The Chromium Edge logo looks so good, because you still have the "e" but in a stylish and fresh way because there are more colors than just 0079D8-hexadecimal and you have this awesome looking gradient and I honestly like the new google icons: you still have the original shape/outlines, but they all have this united Google-typical Red-Yellow-Green-Blue Logos that are objectively bad: Discord, Pingles, Subway like, why did they think they should update their logo and then like that?!

I’m loving these video essays, they’re some of the best content you’ve ever made

1:25 I think it was because icons on phones are really small so they wanted to simplify it since the details weren’t visible much anyways

Aww, I didn't know about the Discord one. Can't refer to it as Pisscorp now :(

"unless I'm just totally late to this trend IDK..." Acknowledging it does not an arelier video make.

I use Discord daily & I really don't understand the vitriol over its logo change. The font sucks but the logo is fine.

your channel is criminally underrated

“but first, ad time” INSTANTLY GETS AN AD ABOUT CLEANING PRODUCTS

I don't mind the new Burger King logo, if only because it's literally identical to the logo that came out before the 2000s.

Im a Firefox user and honestly I like the new logo, it's simple and modern and it still does look like a fox. It gets off the meaning and it looks nice

These new logos scream that some amateur graphic designer made these with *zero* idea of what logos are meant to convey. Like hoe the original artist for the Pringles logo took notice in the fact that the eyes looked soulless without the glint but the newbie just took one look and was like “less shapes good”.

Let's appreciate the fact that he subtitles his videos. Thanks Marshall

E-Win sounds like one of those Knockoff Gaming chairs that you find on amazon for far too little money

I will say the burger king logos at least a bit of a throwback

IDK why but Marshal strikes me as someone who would make for an *epic* businessman...

4:29 I don't think us Aussie's have the new Pringles logo over here and I'm happy

Firefox' logo is not lifeless. If only, firefox' logo redesign is one of the most proper.

I think people are a bit overreacting over logos. There are some logos that are bit uninspiring and doesn’t have a personality. But if a logo gets changed. People will hate it because it’s new and they get used to it afterwards. Just like when Roblox got their new logo back in early 2017.

imagine if firefox's logo was a realistic fox with a huge drop shadow circling around a 8k picture of the earth, then scaling it down to 256 x 256

I think this video just explains the trend that big corporations are going down in general. Lifeless. Out of touch. So... inhuman almost. It makes dystopia feel a lot closer than it should.

Companies also change logos for publicity. They don't care if it looks good. Sometimes they want to to even look BAD so people start talking about it.

00:40 It looks like the E sneezed when they took the picture.

i love these kind of videos!! keeep them coming :)

Great video man, you brought in a completely new perspective to simplified logos. Love it!

tldw: Don't try to be with the times, cause in a year you'll do it again. Don't simplify by removing life, cause that's what gets associated with. ONLY change the logo to IMPROVE, not to be smooth and new.

ℍ𝕌ℍ?! Two minutes ago?! Sweet! 😎 And they changed the Pringles man like that to make him be older, like old-timey.

Ruining the Holidays had a fine enough logo

One thing to add is that most graphic designers believe that the main reason for the changes, is so that logos and such can be more visible on phones, or tiny screens. Your new logo looks nice, but I did notice that when looking at the logo in the circular profile pic, that the “Marshall Does” part was so tiny that it looked like a mess of pixels to the point where the glasses and the word “stuff” were most visible, so in a way the redesign is an example of why big companies simplify. I wouldn’t have an issue with the logo redesigns if they were using them for professional spaces, like websites and apps, as the bland fonts do make things more easily readable on tiny screens, but there’s no reason for it to represent their ENTIRE company. It’s fine for Dunkin’ Donuts to simplify to Dunkin’, on a tiny computer screen, because it takes up less space, but the general public who are going to be walking to their restaurants know them as Dunkin’ Donuts, so I think it would be a little bit jarring to just see Dunkin’. It’s placing simplification where it simply isn’t needed.

The Burger King logo IS NOT oversimplified. It is a throwback to the 1969-1994 and 1994-1999 logos. With the form of the 1994 logo and the letters more resembling the 1969 logo. It’s their history.

I really miss 2000s logos...

I think Burger King and Subway* (kinda) had probably one of the best rebrands, because they aren’t strictly rebrands, They’re just reverting to an older logo, Burger King especially, and I have to give them props, it’s nice to see them return to a more timeless design

"Some even improve on the original" - Shows the Musescore logo THE JANKMAN COMETH

The Discord change is just FLAT OUT BETTER (Aside from the colors, the OG colors are better)

Loved the bo reference at the end

The best example of a timeless simple logo is CN, they’ve had the exact same logo since 1962 and it still looks modern

i cried when discord turned blurple :(

AFTER ADOBE BOUGHT SUBSTANCE OMG THEY TOOK ALL THE PERSONALITY OUT OF IT but changing all the logos to their dumb two letter thing and made it more expensive and just ugghh.

The Burger King one has been in Australia for over a decade, name has just been Hungry Jack's

what i don't understand is why every new logo redesign needs to have eye-straining colors. The logos already popped up with the bevels without burning my eyes.

7:39 The random person going up the escalator on the left

The problem is not simplification, it's bad logos and refusal to change them back. Simplification can be good, just look what they did with the Google or Netflix logos.

7:55 I actually called that they were going to revert like 3 months before that actually did

You know i think i actually prefer Firefox new logos, it feels more soft and warm, i always felt like the blue was way to strong, but the purple juts fits perfectly

7:40 the girl walking up the wrong escalator made me laugh

9:59 I- I thought that was a creative choice using irony….

Marshall:But first...Ad Time. (ad plays)

I loved the cringetopia cover BECAUSE it looked like "graphic design is my passion" I thought it was ironic.

Ironically American car companies have the best logos, Ford had the same logo since 2003, and that was based on a logo from 1927, which Chevy's bowtie changes colors a lot, it's still a bowtie, Dodge's logo have changed a lot, going from a star of David to just DODGE, to tringles, and then back to DODGE into today, sure the Chrysler pentagon was there from 1980-93, and then the Ram logo, but DODGE was still there, Cadillac pretty much had the same she'd for over 100 years, just more simplified, though it was gone in 1914 and only in 1914

I feel like I'm the only person who actually really likes the simplified logo look and likes pretty much all the new logos in this video. Besides the Pringles, Google apps, and Adobe programs logos, the latter two being because they're hard to distinguish from each other.

TL;DR Keeping the personality and polishing is the best idea. If you need a 100% redesign, keep the core idea.

Shout out to Nat Geo's logo. Still iconic.

They killed the pringles man. They killed him. He’s dead.

Looks like Jack let you out of the basement, congrats!

Im just happy to see a new video on this channel

“that’s enough *SLICING* ” 😂

man im glad youre still making videos. it can be hard to reevaluate what you’re doing and make big changes, but you seem to have ben able to do that no problem. awesome and keep it up

I really love your new videos, been watching when you still make reddit videos. still informative and keeping the same comedy! keep it up!

Firefox is an example of a company improving then continuing to improve then they lost it and now we have this

.....okay but I still ask why Mastercard doesn't just have "Mastercard" centered in the Venn diagram as negative space.

Internet is really "New stuff bad, I hate it" bc every logo is good, maybe not better but still good, only except animal planet and adobe stuff. Like, I don't get all the hate for Discord logo for example. It's just millenials are boomers now

The new (old) burger king logo is really good, a whole lot better than the last one.

8:31 “That worked in my case…” Showing reason why the design didn’t work in his case.

1:38 OMFG A RISE OF KINGDOMS ( a mobile game) AD APPEARED WTF BROOO