Best of the Blog 2012: Do You Hate The New eBay Logo?
So eBay has a new logo design from Lippincott, which has raised the ire of designer and non-designer folks alike. Is the problem that it’s boring or that there’s too much tension in that super tight kerning?
The always astute Armin Vit hates it.
Of all the potential logos that could be done for eBay this is the absolute most boring and risk-averse logo that could have been both presented and selected. There is a lot of “could”s here and that’s what I find the most disappointing with this redesign: there was an opportunity to create a logo as memorable — ideally for better reasons — as the old one. Instead we got a typeface out of the box with super tight tracking and kerning. Somebody call the Fun Police, they are all fired because we clearly don’t need them anymore.
The comments on Mashable mostly focus on how the new logo is a reflection of how bad eBay has become as a company over the years, but the most design-centric comment agrees with the notion that this was a major missed opportunity.
Perhaps it’s bland enough to last another 17 years but my feeling is that the original logo had been around just about long enough to have built up status, even the higgledy piggledy, overlapped letters seem like they could have been thrown a life-raft and put to excellent use. Ultimately it feels like it speaks to mediocrity—which is probably fine, and as mentioned before there seems to be no real expansion into a deeper brand experience, which for me is a lost opportunity; I wonder if this just the nature of companies with engineers and tech people at their very core, there seems to be an overwhelmingly flawed attitude amongst tech folk that if the product (the website) is good enough, the brand experience is superfluous fluff.
The commenters on Logo Design Love seriously hate it.
I think anyone who says this new ebay Logo is exciting, colorful or ground breaking is talking rubbish or works at ebay. This plasticky one dimensional logo looks jaded and tired and cheap. Ebays stocks and shares aren’t going to rise on the strength of this tacky effort.
And pop-culture site Buzzfeed dedicated a post to bad kerning but produced an interesting alternative in the comments.
What do you think? Is the new eBay logo good enough to move the brand forward or a boring dumbing down of a logo that had built some equity over the years?
HOW Brand
@HOWbrand
*shrugs* It’s not bad, Just dull. There’s a difference. Okay, the kerning could be better and that “y” just looks weird, but it’s not GAP redesign bad. The old logo screamed 1998. This one just kind of sits there quietly.
It certainly isn’t groundbreaking or that memorable, but it doesn’t suck. It won’t be out dated any time soon.
I wouldn’t catalogue this as a bad logo, because it just works fot its objective. It’s like saying that Jeep or JCPenney don’t scream their brand with their logos. This is a new logo that improves what there was before and will need an extended campaign to note this change, this is where they’ll need to work it out so it connects with their market.
Personally, I would say something like egads! But that’s not very professional. I would say that the mark initially does not stand well on its own (they’re not going to be selling T-shirts anytime soon).
Perhaps when placed into the right context it could take on a tad more personality, but right now its Mr. Vanilla (or, if you’re hip to the 90′s, Del tha Funkee Homosapien’s “Mr. Bob Dobalina”). Me thinks they spent their marketing monies on their iPad UI, rather than a mark. Which, isn’t a bad thing, as their app effectively rocks.
New font, tight kerning, letters all in a row, not a problem for me. This logo is accessible, memorable (not nostalgic but genuinely memorable and easy to describe) and a ghost of it’s old self remains. Not bad. Ebay knows what it likes- if it aint broke… just tweak it ever so slightly.
The slow and steady path to perfection.
Yes, I hate the new eBay logo. The tight kerning creates awkward and unsightly negative space around the letterforms and just seems like bad practice in general. The saying is “tight but NOT touching” after all. I prefer the overlapping characters of the former logo, but I’m personally big on anything with an overprint look.
I HATE the new Ebay logo. It is soo plain, drab and un-original :(
Looking at the poll taken by eBay users themselves it appears that a clear 98% prefer the original logo.
A basic business mistake is altering something familiar to your consumer base without asking the consumer/user what they like and want FIRST!
Companies spend huge amounts on promoting brand consciousness and loyalty. Part of this is any symbol or presentation that the consumer recognizes and positively relates to.
Even above aesthetics is the humility to consult your consumers.
Are they going to be pig headed and fail Business and Marketing 101 or ask their consumers/users what they like and want?
Was definitely surprised when Ebay gave their old logo up for “this”. It’s bland, boring – just meh..There seems to be a trend going around for bad re-branding or something…I mean, Jack in the Box looks like a start-up tech company now. *sigh*
Kateryna
Studiopacity Graphic Design
It looks ok. I guess Ebay wants to re-brand itself to attract more users and customers. But I feel like they’d change it again really soon.
I would have gotten an “F” in Graphic Design Basics if I would have submitted a logo like that. Not appealing at all, and very irritating to look at.