Notice fast food restaurant are doing that with there buildings Notice before you could spot a burger King mcdonald's of taco bell from a mile away because of the roof color and building shape now they are all brown boxes with minimal differences
Personally, I prefer the more complicated and visually interesting logos. I like logos with personality. At least those old school lively logos didn't scream "soulless corporate crap" on the box. I mean, you're getting soulless corporate crap either way, but I just liked the early 00s logos.
Don't you worry.. those will make a come back in the future. All it needs is evolving technology, changing consumer preferences and a stiff competition where the company in question is facing mounting investor pressure while struggling to breach the top 3.
whatever the reasoning, you have to admit the way megacorporations have a death grip on the economy and thus every product you see has a monochrome sans serif logo feels dystopian as hell
There's something to be said for consistency rather than always rushing after trends. I've spent my entire graphic design career being consistent in communicating the message in the most effective way possible, not caring about trends.
I remember the day when on cola cans they shifted the logo upwards so a quarter of it was tilted on the ridge. Don’t know why they did that, it’s so ugly
They still simplified their current logo.. old or not it's a simpler design then what they had and big business doesn't just on a whim change their logo
Same with Pringles, which had a very similar logo prior to the late 90s or early aughts. Pepsi is another recent example of this, swapping one minimalist logo for another simple one they previously used in the 70s and 80s. (Fortunately, the classic Pepsi Cola script is still on the label by the nutrition and ingredients panels.)
"If we go back half a century, logos were predominately simple." "Simplicity was a necessity dictated by the limitations of hand drawing." First, half a century is just the mid-1970s. Second, what limitations? Have you seen some of the packages from the early 19th century? Or even Apple's first logo?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the script really sounds like it was written by ChatGPT, so I'm not surprised by the inaccuracies (e.g. 8:55 "This genre-specific branding enhances the audience's experience by creating a cohesive and immersive visual identity that resonates with the context they are consuming.").
@@Miaumiau3333 Kinda~Sorta, but it reminded me more of a corporate PR consultant fluent in 7 different varieties of bullsh¡†, giving a powerpoint demonstration to a boardroom full of executives.
"If We go back half a century" Last time I check a century is 100 Years So half a century is 50 years 50 years from 2024 is 1974 So yes talking about the mid 1970s and calling it half a century ago is correct
but they do have a range of packaging and products which the new logo lends itself to very well. Printing could be easier, with simpler illustrations as well as mascot branding could be made simpler with a simpler illustration (think ads on social media for both mobile and desktop). I think in Asia Mr. Pringles marketing material shows him being animated and expressive in multiple ways.
@@jellyface401Instagram facebook twitter profile pictures are 16X16 pixel sizes when seen in the newsfeed unlike a persons picture these MNC wants there logos to be seen pretty clearly everywhere. That's why it's being simplified to be seen clearly even it's a small 16X16 circle
I’m sick of this minimalist era..they think it looks “modern” or “professional” but really it just looks drab, bland, soulless and just downright depressing. You can modernize without being so overly simplistic.
Pile of BS. Maybe not when it comes to logos. But mininalism is a good thing. It's much better than the clutter and consoomerism that is an utter cancer to the world. It's like people don't have a soul or identity outside of the cr@p they own.
this genuinely sounds like propaganda. no questions were answered, but the thing being questioned was made to sound positive, and for those of us who actually want an amswer, even *more* questions were raised by this video. one example is this: the video said that the minimalistic logos are perceived as "more elegant and give the impression of luxury and premium quality." but we want to know, as perceived by *who*?? who views it that way? because the whole reason we're questioning the minimalisation of logos in the first place is that we DON'T see the logos as more elegant or representative of luxury. so not only did the video fail to answer the initial question, it introduced *another* question and didn't provide an answer. i have no idea why anyone would want to make propaganda in support of minimalistic brand logos, but you did it.
You can't answer that question because at the end, the perception of luxury is subjective and cultural. I'm UX designer and all I can tell is that minimalistic logos are easier and faster to identify and that's what logos exist for. That's why the trend is not going to change anytime soon imo. If you rlly want to know the theory behind it, you have to reach for a cognitive science textbooks
It's because the new logos generate more money for the brand owners. Because people don't know what they want. They don't like the new logos, but they'll pay more money for products that have the new logos. Good post though.
@@LilacMonarch Hell no. It's a guess. But think about it... how many times have you bought a Snickers or something because it had a different design on the wrapper?
I took a design class in college and was told that logos should look great in black and white as well as in color. If it can not be printed in black and white, then it's a "broken logo". I see the logic behind this but businesses should have different more complex logos for signage and in situations where they can afford to make the logo more visually appealing. Keeping the same simplistic logo in every situation is not helping business but that seems to be the trend lately with large corporations. They no longer care what their customers think.
Better than what I was taught. In marketing they literally taught us they appealed to customers and clientele of a higher iq and social status, who were more likely to drop more money
@@brantisonfire No, Google Chrome is now the basis for Edge, as well as Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, Arc and Spotify for some reason. Firefox & Safari are the only remaning browsers that have nothing to do with Google.
"Logos back then were simple because of the limitation of a pen, so in reality modern logo simply regress back to it's older design" He speak at least 7 different BULLSHITS in this video, have you seen actual brand logos from Victorian era? Or the original Apple logo? It diffinitely was NOT simple, people can do amazing things with a pen, you don't need to use computer D:
It's really just the bandwagon effect where many companies want to be on the same page. Then, a successful company will come in and overcomplicate designs and then all companies will follow suit. It's just an ebb and flow of trends. The only thing that's certain is that change will happen again. This is a pretty good video, though. That's interesting that young companies are more likely to be more complex and colorful. Thanks.
ah yes. pringles. the super serios high quality premeim can of chips that you defenitly cant buy at your local supermarket, needs a rebrand of removing charicter for symolizing maturity.
The decision to simplify the logos I feel is a move away from the joy of living life I felt as a kid to the superficial, soulless, shallow, need to look cool and fit in that I'm now experiencing as an adult.
You forgot the biggest reason of all. Color costs money. It costs more to print it on the product. It costs more to print it in a paper ad. It takes additional time/resources to employee computer graphics artist to make sure the appropriate color design is reflected across different platforms. Especially important if you have a name brand color. Companies will pay these additional costs IF they increase profit margins significantly, BUT if they can keep the same amount of sales with a less expensive version then that's what they're going to do.
It's not even really minimalist honestly. If you put logos in a pile and were asked to organize between simpler and more complex ones, the current Firefox logo would probably go in the complex pile.
It actually has pictures and colors. Every logo that is a word can’t be read by children or people with difficulties reading. Pictures also seem fun and enjoyable.
2:12-2:15 - _"branding elements can become cumbersome and ineffective. Detailed logos intricate typography and complex color schemes may not translate well to mobile screens"_ meanwhile icons in menu in mobile phone 2000s: Detailed and varied. somewhere we took a wrong turn 🤔
@@CnaDoCna That's because that's not his argument. His argument is that detailed and varied logos were the standard, and were completely readable then. It is only now, when companies are actively pushing hypersimplified logos, are they saying that flare and shape are somehow bad design.
@@galvanizeddreamer2051 well, standards changed and now we know that we can have something more readable for wider range of sizes, conditions, mediums and people
@@CnaDoCna I fundementally disagree. We now have hypersimplified shapes that fail to adhere to artistic concepts of readability, and sacrifice artistic value for the sake of universal cohesion when it isn't needed. Lighting, color, general implication of shape beyond just a solid color shillouette all play into readability, yet they have all be wholly rejected. Look up how pixelart does it, how they hint at edges and specific shapes when working with abstractions, tricking your brain into seeing details that aren't truly represented. All of that is gone in favor of a single color blob with the same fillet radius on all the corners. Material as well. Metallics, mattes, woodgrain, noise. These all play into the feel of a logo, adding to how it is percieved emotionally. Why do you think games and films use color filters, vignetting, and other tricks? It is to reflect the emotion those tricks represent, whether it be nostalgia for the past, awe for the future, or even just the feeling of heat itself. Your "standards" killed art, and I'm kinda tired of being told that it was for the better.
So basically, all that bevel, emboss, drop shadow, gradient and other random digital editing effects we were taught in the 00s have gone the way of WordArt & bubble text now and the new standard is to simplify to stay optimized for all platforms.
It's awful and lazy. Worse is that someone gets paid the big bucks for this oversimplified trash that a literal gradeshooler can whip up is 3 minites in paint.
Your video says "brands must be agile and responsive to changing customer demands" yet you also say the companies intentionally change their branding to communicate a new identity. So what comes first, customer demand or company enforcement of its goals on the customer?
I don't agree about the maturity and trust part and also the fact that a compagny like WB has to fit the logo in many franchise, they can still do it with their old logo and don't with new logo which is more ugly
No real person agrees with the maturity and trust part. It's the companies that "think" that though, of themselves and for the sharholders, so in some ethereal realm
2:17 In 2000s during the frutiger aero era mobile phones had detailed skeumorphic logos, and nobody had problems with them! 4:46 Also, never use these corporate memphis style images, they look ugly as hell!
3 things the general public usually don’t understand about rebranding; 1. it makes a ton of money, through the market shift as mentioned in the video, cost savings and/or attention; 2. it’s not expensive for large companies to do this compared to other options; 3. individuals personal taste doesn’t matter.
I’m not so sure about “not expensive” , a big company has to reprint everything when they rebrand…all stationary, merch, and ads… I doubt that’s inexpensive, but I could be wrong
@@ramoloiitrue however, this can be done over a period of time, Where tools may have been replaced anyway. With Pringles as an example, one way the new logo saves them money is the old logo required maybe 20 colours (to reproduce the gradient on the moustache requires lots of colours), the new one requires only two, and maybe in some cases only one colour. After 6 to 18 months, that saving in reproduction my actually pay for the logo change on its own.
1 thing the general public doesn't understand: capitalism doesn't actually care about your opinion. Consume product and then consume more product. Find happiness in consuming products!
@@RextheRebel 100%. there can often be a large discrepancy between what people say and what people actually do too. so very vocal unhappy people when design is the focus usually don’t translate to a larger group of people and often doesn’t even represent that persons real world behaviour. turns out angry people’s money is still money :)
@@onemorechris the color count would mean something if it didn't need to also print a picture that takes full range offset printing on the label anyway. In the end they are changing less ink per square millimeter of several tones (that they're already applying on the chips picture anyway) to a single dense black area. Can't really tell which one is any cheaper.
I'm not as peeved by "minimal" logos as most, but I will say its certainly "funny" that companies will change their logos and overall aesthetic instead of looking at nore fundamental problems such as overworked employees and overpriced products.
MBA speak for "we, the middle management, need to justify our existence so wasteful projects like this allow us to appear busy and delay noticing we are not doing anything worthwhile for a few more quarters".
If you ask me it's plain laziness. Modern companies just don't want to invest the time and creativity in their branding anymore-all they want is the recognition and the attention. For those of us that only use their phones to make calls with [yes, you can actually make calls on your phone] the whole 'minimalist optimization' for devices is just a cop-out. It's laziness, it has nothing to do with maturity. As for the WB redesign, their OLD logo was highly versatile and could be used in many different settings. These people need to keep their jobs and need to stay relevant, so they 'fix' things that aren't broken [Anyone from Google reading this?]
Even those of us who use phones for a lot of things agree the old logos were perfectly fine. Hell, actual smartphone app icons in the early days all had that glossy aesthetic and there wasn't a problem
That's precisely what I think. Why pay someone to come up with different versions of a logo when it's cheaper to take the one simple logo and scale it up? Besides, most corporations stopped caring what their customers think.
No, the logos are still minimalistic and unaesthetic,and doesn't denote at all in any case "maturity" and "professionalism" it denote laziness and lack of ideas and lack of good leaders and innovations.
No, the reason is people became less and less creative and art no longer plays a big role. Look at example at the old buildings of the 18th century. So much more elegance and art. People shouldn't be proud of the simplification from nowadays things in my opinion
no, people did not become less creative, and your opinions on buildings or whatever are subjective (and buildings don't represent our collective artistic abilities)
You know, before there’s steel framed concrete, building can’t be built tall and require more sophisticated techniques such as stone arc or flying buttress to keep it together.
In my perspective, there’s no such thing as company’s maturity. There’s only the change of staffs. And for better or worse, the new staff may keep the brand their predecessors had built, improve upon, or ruin it.
There is an exception.. Mahindra and Mahindra which is a very famous car manufacturer company in India has gone from minimalistic to full 3D. Just go through their logo once
You don't have to understand anything. Both the Volkswagen and Warner Bros logos were redesigned to be very similar to logos they used a long time ago. The current Warner Bros logo is similar to the versions they used throughout 1930 and 1960s and 1970. Similar case with volkswagen. Just Google "volkswagen logo history" and you'll see.
@@slapshotjack9806I don’t believe you actually have that opinion about the old VW logo, you’re definitely complimenting the new logo only to cause people to rage and be mad
The gap between the V and the W confuses me more. I could swear that back in the 90s and early 2000s there was no gap. But their logo history claims there was always a gap.
I'm gonna say it's because pretty much all companies are owned, if not by majority then in part, by a handful of venture capital firms. Execs like the hyper simplistic artstyle, and are wholly disconnected from their actual audiance. My phone has a screen resolution greater than my PC monitor, and can display literally almost 17 million colors, and I got it free with my plan. I don't mean to be mean, but half of these new logos are _less_ readable due to their excessive simplicity, due to the complete lack of highlighting and other techniques, which is used to improve the visibility of the shillouette by hinting and implying shapes. Pixelart uses this to great effect, and is _incredibly_ detailed, and is explicitly focused around low-resolution pieces. "Maturity" is a terrible excuse as well. Your (not you literally, but any reader) rejection of what you deem "immature" is merely projection of insecurity. You yourself become obsessed with being seen as mature, that you do things that make you look mature, even to your active detriment. It serves no purpose than complying with a supposed societal norm, that quite obviously the general public does not agree with, if the very open disdain for these logo changes is anything to go by. One thing specifically with KIA, is their new logo is very easy to misread (as you cover), so I will provide my own anecdote. First time I saw it at a dealership, I thought it was KN, with the N backwards, and assumed it was some new Chinese import (which, I assure you, is not what you want to be seen as). Only later did someone tell me it was KIA, but what if they didn't? What if someone gets that one first impression, and it stays that way, affirming itself into the subconscious? Congratulations, by making your logo vague, you have just lost a customer entirely due to an avoidable misunderstanding. The myth of "agility" is also baseless. Look at Yamaha, they use the tuning fork logo for both their instruments and their motocycles. The one they use for their motorcycles isn't the "debranded" version that their keyboards use. While the aesthetic and UX isn't unified, anyone can tell they are the same logo, and the same company. And if you are a multi-billion dollar company, "ease of adaptability" also means nothing. You are already paying tens of thousands of dollars for the simplified logo, merely because you are being gouged by your artist. Just get the to edit the more complex one, and nothing really changes. Even your WB example falls flat, because it consistenly looks out of place in realistic scenes, due to its more cartoony and rounded style, and broad sections of whitespace. Meanwhile the original logo would have fit perfectly, even in the more cartoonish scenes, not just for the subconscious association with cartoons going back almost a hundred years, but because the logo itself can be simplified without altering the overall structure. You speak as if these older logos can't be editied to fit the aesthetic of a scene, which could not be further from the truth. It's been done for years, by multiple companies, with much more complex logos than the likes of WB. CYMK is soon becoming a widely viable in open source programs like Inkscape, and has been an option for industry standard software for years, so printing isn't an excuse either. Not to mention how many packages have _photographs_ of the product on the packaging as well, which I assure you are significantly more intensive to print than the most complex of any company logo.
Yeah, sure. It was fitting well on ANY KIND of merch and branded products, such as pens, t-shirts, mugs. For decades. Now it doesn't fit the iphone retina screen which probably has 10-100x more resolution and color variety than printing tech they used to print that old, overcomplicated logo on some merch pens or badges till it's very last day. Bunch of bull and buzzword nonsense.
Is everyone is debranding, nobody is debranding. When all the big brands are "getting professional", no one will stand out like a professional brand...
designers never get free reign to do whatever they want. it’s slightly misleading to claim that the invention of photoshop sparked a wave of designers adding effects just because they could. Big rebranding is almost always created in a highly strategic way with many people involved
I must be old fashion.... I hated ALL the changes ... The New and Improved Logo lack... everything. They're BLAH... I understand and respect the change... but as an Artist... I do not like it.
I love how they waste all this money in unnecessarily changing logos (will cost $ to pay artists, have stuff printed and designed, e.g. books, receiptes & what have you) but hike up prices to recoup costs 😂 Beavis & Butthead will do better in managing thier assets😂
The reality is - they just don’t want to spend time and money. Any other explanations come second. They don’t care what the consumers want, customer must want what they give them. It’s pure laziness and savings and shouldn’t be excused under any circumstances
I'm surprised you didn't mention General Motors recent rebranding. The classic "GM" was replaced with "gm". Now it looks marginalized. They might as well have put an asterisk after it because now it looks like an endnote.😕
8:45 or they could have kept the old logo and it would have been fine for any scenario. That new logo looks like when a PS2 game was loading and the logo would spin on the bottom corner while you waited
I hate when companies do this. I Still don't like with Disney.For example , they got rid of walt name Now whenever you go to watch a disney movie it'll show disney Instead of saying Walt Disney Pictures. Which makes the logo look very empty.
I thought that it was some new Chinese KN brand that I never bothered with searching up since I could not care less. So that's why KIA cars kinda left the streets 😂
As a graphic designer these changes seem “fresh and new” and while there is some use for minimal designs most it’s just stupid it’s for easy readability as well but logos should also showcase the feeling of your products/ business so i personally will not be oversimplifying my logos I create
Let’s be honest. Corporations often overthink the impact of customer perception within their vague minutia. It’s more plausible that simplification of logos is a cost saving measure.
It almost definately is. I can understand why some apps simpliy their logos for screens, search engines like FireFox and Chrome come to mind, but how do Pringles fit into that? McDonalds already had a simple logo, but they decided to flatten it for what reason? Then theres the ones that didnt even change much like Samsung and Volkswagon, whats going on there? The answer to all of them... money probably.
With the Kia sales you have to take Covid into account, 2023 was the year that car prices had a recovery. Also their new logo is crap. Interesting video, thanks for making
I love watching content from business and economics channels because the info is so useful in my day-to-day. For example, today I learned that if I change my signature to make it illegible, my boss will increase my wage by 60% over the next 6 years, and book me for record shifts each year to boot! Also, we learned that the prices for necessities - such as transportation vehicles - do not increase out of necessity but, rather, due to the insatiable hunger for profit growth at the expense of the common man. Neat!
4:30 - Air Bed&Breakfast shortening their name to initials AirBnB over time hasn't been the only company to do that. IHOP was once spelled out International House of Pancakes on their signs and logos, and the same with KFC and Kentucky Fried Chicken. More people also spoke their names rather than their initials when verbally mentioning those places
In context of going from complex to simplified logo, you didn't mention the reverse: several media companies giving up their classic logos for ultra simplified ones - all of which were eventually replaced with their original (or slightly updated) ones: MGM, WB, Columbia, NBC...and I'm sure there are plenty more
Hate minimalism. It lets you know you're dealing with a Soulless Corporate entity. Doing Graphic Design myself, hate the simplicity approach, it's regressing.
I hate air bnb. I wish they never got to mature to the simple logo stage. I grew up and currently live in a tourist town where no one like me can find a place to rent anymore because of air bnb. Thankfully the province introduced regulation recently, I really hope it helps because things are really quite bad. People need places to live!
The term "Brand" actually comes from the cattle industry, where they would burn a mark onto their cattle, which could roam and get lost or stolen, and the mark would show whose cow it actually was. Such marks were called "brands" and made with "branding irons." The shapes and marks had to be simple enough for a blacksmith to make out of bent iron, so simplicity was paramount.
I'd even say it is because of the iOS 7 redesign. Since apple changed their own icons to be flat and minimalistic, other third party apps wanted to change their icons to match that style. Since the apps are so prevalent changing the logos to match the icon made sense, and things snowballed from there. Flat design was in and everything complicated and glossy started looking outdated. Now that we are tired of minimalistic designs I personally hope the trend swings the other way.
Let's be real that simplification of logos is a kind of brainwashing where customers are no longer expecting the same quality from old brand and they can go cheap on materials and charge more for being new. One more thing Kia changed his logo to distance itself from clients expectations of a cheap car and they succeeded because many new buyers buy KIA thinking KN is the premium version of Kia, just like Lexus, Acura and Audi.
A lot of these logo downgrades are bad, but I'll eventually get used to them. Pringles, on the other hand, is one of the worst and most careless logo changes ever and I will never accept the new one. What a massive misstep. The Pringles man is completely soulless looking. His mustache, now that it's lacking shading and detail, is just a big black void in the middle of his face. Even the previous can design, with a spotlight shining on an upright standing Pringle, was clever and simple. Nothing about it has improved. I can't imagine someone was paid money to ruin their logo.
"Ancient logo were simpler too"... Me : look at all ancient object I own, from 70 years old aluminium bicycle to 120 years old coffee grinder, and including old food boxes from the 19th century, and some 150 years old newspaper's logo... Me : Relief, shadow, intricate details, sometimes playing with materials... Either you haven't maid your research or simple logo were a thing only in the US and you haven't researched further. And for all the logo that were maid with simplification in mind, they all did the same thing : the main logo have a core element that can be used alone if space is a problem or if simplicity is a concern. As soon as there is more room, the full branding is used. It was also the case with color, with lot of logo working both with a complex and detailed layout of color, and a simpler 2 color one, without any gradient. Also, about Warner, maybe you should have looked at their old contents. They have been adapting their logo to the content for decades now, far before their rebranding. As a consequence, the rebranding cannot have been done to make its material adaptable, as the old one already suited that need. Same for most video-media producers around the world.
