Design Critique - Change Isn’t Always good.
‘Analysis of the old Medium Logo’
I’ve been a medium blogger for the past month. If there’s anything that did capture my attention was the Bold, Serif ‘M’ painted with black. Nowadays, with the excessive use of sans- serif fonts in logos I thought it was quite a striking logo.
The logo was like a stamp, which creates a visual impact and identity. It also denoted sharing what one writes. Which I presume medium’s core ideology is. Medium was established itself to encourage writing of more than 140 characters.
There goes an old saying — ‘Keep it simple, stupid!’
I as a graphic designer have always believed in simplicity to describe complex matters and I thought the old medium logo was perfect in that aspect.
‘Analysis of the New Medium Logo’
I refrained from reading comments, judgements and opinions from anywhere regarding the logo. Wanted to understand and have an unbiased opinion for the same.
The new logo for me is complex. Complex for me is not a positive feedback.
By first glance I feel the four planes are trying to denote ‘Flow’, which I understand as flow of words in this context. In a span of few seconds I’m already seeing the cons of the logo. Clearly something isn’t right. The logo has lost the trademark it had with the older one. Maybe I’m the one who doesn’t like too much of change. If I had to criticize the logo beyond the complexity it would be the colour chosen.
Black /white gives a formal look than the green. After reading the entire article I wanted to see if my opinions were similar to the comment section or not. And there it was…
Someone rightly said on the comments section of the blog.
“Medium’s new green logo looks like an amoeba on my screen!” Couldn’t have agreed more.
I really do appreciate the manner in which the design process was undertaken. I’ve learnt that how from one process leads to another, and the final result. Majority of the elements are retained for the entire process. How to make designing fun is also a parameter I would like to apply in my own design process.
Review of the Design By Others.
I’ve gone through many blogs on medium and have noticed that majority are against the new logo. Just like me they all have had strong opinions denouncing the new logo. Few designers made better options of the medium logo, indicates a lot. This clearly indicates users will take time in accepting the new logo.
There are articles on medium with headlines ‘Medium your new logo sucks’ clearly showcases the user discontent with the new logo. I’ve tried to pick up the pros but I hardly can see anyone associate with the logo as yet. Perhaps time will change our perceptions. Re-Branding is done to engage and create a new identity for a company. Many times brands lose their core value in the process. I have to mention that the medium logo is not as strong or impactful as the old one and thus misses the mark.
What I Inferred from this article
Designing a logo is a process of learning, breaking down, reformulating and ending with a result that simplifies the above process. To make or change an existing logo, one needs to understand the company/ brand ideology. Need a way to sum-up into a simpler structure. An Amazing design process doesn’t mean the output will be amazing.
From Personal experience logos have always been a headache for me because of the amount of time, changes and the client never ever being happy . As a designer with every Design article I feel my misconceptions are fading away. I don’t mind working on logos now because I’ve understood the importance of ‘process’ in Designing.
