Not sure about all of these, but some of the logos are actually incomplete: the Microsoft logo is only ever used together with the 4 "ex-Windows" colored squares, the Spotify logo always contains the "spotify icon"; in others, like the Google or the ebay logo, the letters themselves are usually colored. So it looks like it took quite a bit of manipulation to get to the point where all logos look the same. You could add other "logos" to the list, e.g. Lufthansa (https://www.lufthansa.com/de/en/homepage) - which is however also incomplete without the crane symbol.
The author is not showing logos. They are showing the text of the company's branding, in monochrome, without the full elements attached. Take Microsoft for example. Yes, the OLD logo was literally just Microsoft, but the new logo is Microsoft with the 4 colored squares next to it. Omitting that means you're not showing the logo. Same with Pinterest. It USED to be Pinterest, but now it's Pinterest + a stylistic P right next to
Ebay's logo is entirely in color so showing it in monochrome is a useless comparison. Spotify as well. Not to mention they also omitted the spotify icon which came from the old o in Spotify and is now it's own icon displayed next to the logo.
These comparisons are frustrating at best and useless at worst. Instead of doing a monochrome comparison where we omit the logos and only include the wordmarks (which skews toward older brands since newer brands tend to use more imagery displayed along their wordmarks), why don't we have it the other way? Let's compare the logomarks; all of the old brands would be blank lines and then the new brands would have exciting and attractive logomarks. I'll even make my own comparison to demonstrate [1].
Yeah, dang, the submitted URL is just blog spam, can we get a change to this source? As another commenter mentioned, earlier discussion with tons of comments:
It's interesting that OP's article isn't that much shorter than the original source, yet it contains way less information. The author just consumed the original source and regurgitated some bits and pieces onto his blog and called it an article
Needs a (2022), especially since this article is basically a copy/paste summary of previous work such as [1] and [2] (previously discussed here at [3] and especially [4]).
People look at this as a problem, but it's just fashion.
Today, one of the primary ways we interact with brands is through 40px tall logos. It's simply too hard to read many old-school logos, so everything looks "the same" right now as we all react to the new requirements.
But soon, logo designers will find new ways to differentiate as they need to. We went through this special time in the past 25 years when everything could have a logo much more cheaply. But we're reaching a saturation point so now "nothing has a logo" with much distinction.
The current season is lovely news for me, since I'm an awful logo designer but look like a genius setting everything in Jakarta. No kidding I have created 10 logos in the past year, all using Jakarta Bold, and they all look "great" – for now.
I think many creative industries are in a rut. Brand design is no exception. I'm not sure why or what it will take to get them back out, but it's pretty grim to look around and see nothing but homogeneous "content".
Everyone in media seems to be in this boring, "play it safe" mode. Risks are expensive and non-optimal. Nobody Was Ever Fired For Making Another Superhero movie. Same as Nobody Was Ever Fired For Using Helvetica.
The inaccuracies of this article aside, we’ve slowly been seeing a homogenization of car design as well. Surprisingly, the most innovative designs seem to be coming from the companies that used to bathe in vanilla forgettable design, Kia and Hyundai.
I know some of it is because of regulatory issues, but I don’t believe it’s that restrictive.
My pet theory is that as brands become bigger (or traditional brands come online), more and more people are involved in the signoff on branding decisions. This creates a pressure to pick the least objectionable option, and so anything with any connotations that aren’t just strictly professional gets stripped.
Most of these (like spotify) aren't the companies' logo, just their name. Spotify has a green logo. Facebook an F in a blue square. Pinterest the styled P from their 'old' logo. Microsoft uses the stylized windows flag.
Sure, it makes sense that the word you put next to your logo doesn't distract attention too much.
The fashion brands seem to be the exception. But then, this overview leaves out the theme of fashion brands that DO have a separate logo (often a monogram), and who blast it all over their designs like a pattern, like LV, Gucci and D&G.
> He examines the "sans serif invasion", which he argues is creating a "sea of sameness" in tech and fashion logos. He thinks that since around 2017, brands have started to see "being unique as a handicap" and have decided it was better to be like everyone else.
Ha, I remember seeing exactly the same article when the font of choice was a bouncy, rounded sans-serif in the mid 2000s. Including the graphic roundup of all old logos becoming rounded. I'm certain this has been rehashed as long as we've had graphic design.
Most companies probably just need a simple wordmark—the name of your company in nicely chosen and purposefully set type—to act as their logo. Much cheaper and just as effective.
There are approximately 10^25 companies on the internet, and they all want logos that look like the ones on Dribbble, or ones made by Saul Bass in the 60s. Saul Bass is sui generis, and 90% of the logos on Dribbble are "fake". That is, they are not real client work, just ideas the designer had for a logo they wish they would be asked to make. Notice how most of them are nouns; nouns are easy to illustrate. But most company names aren't nouns, because those have all been taken. In reality, most graphic designers (speaking from experience) are illustrating some variation of a vaguely symmetrical abstract shape symbolizing "trustworthy, stable... but fun!" for a company called Klooble or Zorbnik or the South Muncie Property Alliance.
> Ha, I remember seeing exactly the same article when the font of choice was a bouncy, rounded sans-serif in the mid 2000s.
Every 7-10 years, there is a meta-trend in logo design. The last four or so:
* Drop shadow all the things (looked good on CRTs)
* Shiny/glassy look (looked good on LCDs and CRTs)
* Bouncy, rounded sans serif (looked good on LCD)
* Flat sans serif (Looks good on HPDI screens, especially on product placements)
I used to think there was a lot to it, but now I'm pretty sure it's just changes in tech + new features in design software. Drop shadows and glassy look were mostly design software features, and the bouncy rounded and flat sans serif are driven by changes in display tech.
There are absolutely fashion trends in design and, for logos specifically, the simplification trend does tend to align with works well at a variety of scales. (Somewhat ironically other design fashions like lots of whitespace, small fonts, etc. often don't work well on smaller displays.)
Ehhh incomplete wordmarks in a vacuum do look very same-y because they’re all coming to the same conclusion that single colour sans-serif type is very readable, flexible, as well as separately very useful as a “worst case scenario” brand mark for things like printing on very small tags. For fashion brands, it’s also bonus that it’s… in fashion currently.
All of these wordmarks are paired with other branding materials when not in a completely branded context. Things like other brand marks (Microsoft squares, YSL monogram), colours (Spotify green, eBay rainbow), or physical materials/products (Balenciaga will use their basic sans serif logo everywhere on their own site along with a lot of subtly branded clothing, but Nordstrom will feature products with Balenciaga plastered over them.)
Well, yeah, given that most "refreshes" have actually been "Change the font to some boring choice in Illustrator and be done with it"
I kinda agree with these theories:
> One person responded: "This is what happens when the creative dept is overrun by the marketing dept. Being data driven is the death of art."
> Another person replied, "Brands are scared to stand out and they don’t want to pay for the time and skill it takes to create a unique logo. Blending in is easier."
Except they're probably paying a lot for it
I was going to blame this on tech bros but the fashion brands should have known better. A lot better. I mean, who is "Saint Laurent"?! Everybody knows YSL, "Saint Laurent" just sounds like a generic copy
A random sample of logos would probably show that this effect, if it exists at all, is less striking than it appears. But even if it was a total fabrication, why is it resonating with people now?
I think it's because making disappointing products and then just rebranding every two years or so so that you have a clean reputation-slate is, unfortunately for the consumer, a viable strategy. And it's on the rise.
I wouldn't be surprised if companies that do this are affecting logo trends such that even companies who intend to maintain their brand long term are ending up with logos that feel disposable.
I think it's just a fashion cycle, things will change again in time and we'll be asking the same question, but for a different design choice in 10 years.
I think there's a much simpler way of looking at the issue: When you type a word, it's almost 99.9999999% of the time, in a public space, in sans-serif. Changing your font to look most similar to the way its written makes it more 'iconic' and normalized (remembered) when seen in the wild.
Facebook, Microsoft, Google, all those brands are written in a way that _every_ typeface will render their logo, by default.
Perhaps once nearly everyone who is going to have heard of you already has it is better to be readable than quirky.
Or it is like how all the fast food restaurants of the past have gotten more utilitarian in their designs because the userbase has aged along with the companies. Google is no longer cool with the younger kids and Gen Y (Millennials) are now in their 30s and 40s.
Isn't that just the common denominator and the desire for something familiar? The brands are casting the broadest net possible to catch all sorts of fish and we the cattle want stuff we know. Also, Microsoft's logo is still the four-colored-windowy-thing and Spotify's logo is still the green-square-with-stripes
Maybe it’s like music all becoming the same — because a form of AI had been used to predict what people would like — and unsurprisingly, it is more of the same from what worked!
Music played on the radio used to be a lot more varied and take chances.
Music is more varied than it ever has been, you just have to look outside of legacy media (ie, radio).
> Music played on the radio used to be a lot more varied and take chances.
Music played on the radio is owned by a handful of conglomerates who own nearly all 'local' music stations across the country (assuming US). This is all due to deregulation starting in 1996. Before 1996, a company was prohibited from owning more than 40 stations, and from owning more than two AM and two FM stations in one market. [1]
In an effort to paint a picture of the landscape of radio media, the United States was reported to have 15,445 commercial radio stations in the year 2020. With broadcasting corporations factored in, the statistics look something like this:
- iHeartMedia, Inc. owns 858 total stations
- Cumulus Media, Inc. owns 429 stations
- Townsquare Media owns 321 stations
- Entercom owns 235 stations
Similarly, in the UK, it was found that 60% of national commercial radio stations were owned by two companies, Global, and Bauer. To take it even further, these same companies were reported to own 70% of all local broadcasting channels. [2]
Logos have always had trends. Remember the millenium swoosh logo of the dotcom area, where almost every logo had this ridiculous crescent?
Certain ideas become popular at different times and the logos start to converge until people start asking this question and another trend takes its place.
