Logo Redesigns of 2010 – The Good and Not-So-Good Ones! |
Categories: Corporate Logos, Famous logo design, Redesigned logos
Written By: Nora Reed
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As a logo designer, it is always fascinating to see how corporate logos are revamped and redesigned over time. It isn’t easy to renovate a logo design that has established its presence in the market over many years. Good logo redesigns are meant to strengthen a company’s image, but bad redesigns can backfire for a corporate entity. We witnessed a number of logo redesigns in 2009, and this year was no exception. As anticipated, it turned out to be a roller coaster ride for corporate logo redesigns. There have been numerous logo redesigns in 2010, some were good, some not-so-good, while some had its share of controversial moments. There was the BP logo redesign saga, MySpace getting a revamped look and who can forget the Gap logo blunder that took place just weeks ago. To mark the close of 2010, I have amassed all the redesigned logos that have taken place this year. On my personal assessment, I have further classified them into five categories…‘Good ones’, ‘not-so-good ones’, ‘Drastic ones’, ‘Unnoticeable ones’ and ‘Controversial ones’. You can judge yourselves after witnessing all the logo redesigns: |
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• The Good Ones: |
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CNN |
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DELL |
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iTunes |
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Skittles |
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Symantec |
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• The ‘Not-so-Good’ Ones: |
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MS Office |
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Nasa |
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OWN |
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Sears |
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United Airlines |
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YMCA |
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• The Unnoticeable Ones: |
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Cartoon Network |
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Gmail |
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WikiPedia |
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• The Drastic Ones: |
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Airtel |
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Democrats |
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Hotmail |
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MySpace |
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• The Controversial One: |
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GAP |
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December 14th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
Hotmail’s logo redesign wasn’t a bad one!
December 14th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
I don’t know how you could put iTunes under good redesigns. That logo went from bad to just plain awful. Also, wasn’t the Nasa one a complete fake done by someone for a homework assignment or something like that?
December 14th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
DELL – not so good (why that fence?)
NASA – (very) good (simple and meaningful)
UNITED – good (modern font)
December 15th, 2010 at 5:47 am
Nice Post i really appreciate your work well done and thanks for sharing keep sharing such post to us
December 16th, 2010 at 5:38 am
Thanks for posting. I was expecting to see Pepsi, but yeah that was awhile back. Just still can’t get used to it!
Anyway, I think that an institution that is futuristic as NASA should have a logo that is very contemporary, a little mysterious, and certainly clever. It shows what it does. I think the old logo is horrendously ancient looking, although it does bring back fond memories of the old Tomorrowland.
And the new OWN? How atrocious is that? Looks like it was devised by some committee at the California DMV (which is another horrendous logo) from leftover plastic sign letters..
December 16th, 2010 at 8:38 am
So where’s the not-so-good ones then?
December 16th, 2010 at 8:54 am
Surprised to see that the Democrats one wasn’t in the “Bad Changes”…
December 16th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
iTunes redesign, a good one ? Are you serious ?
December 16th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
I just had a look on the NASA site and the logo is still the same? Don’t like the new one as much.
December 16th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
OMG. I’m in love with the skittles one. that is so rad.
Logos are always an interesting element. Good choices to put up there. That CNN in espanol is pretty witty too. i dig it.
Thanks!
December 16th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
Great article… my only question is about the NASA logo. Their website still shows the “before” version. Where’s the new logo?
December 16th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
Just wanted to point out that I think you have the Democrats reversed. I believe “Before” is their new and current logo.
December 16th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
I hate the new iTunes logo…
December 16th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
[...] Acesso ao post original, aqui. [...]
December 16th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
That Google one is so funny. They spent so much time changing the masthead during the year for whatever event was happening that the real logo change completely passed me by!
Not sure why you think Dell is great though. Lighten the blue and put a circle round it. If that’s all logo design requires I’ll do yours and collect my 100 grand fee now, please!
December 16th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
Don’t forget about RES Software!
December 16th, 2010 at 6:28 pm
I don’t think the new NASA logo belongs in the not so good list. It shows what NASA is about by putting a horizon in front of the name and the letters still seem readable all the way. It looks great to me.
December 16th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
I don’t think i tunes logo was a good call, i think the first one looks much better, cleaner and easy to understand, i even say it is funny to look at. About the another ones i agree with your
selection.
December 16th, 2010 at 6:55 pm
What a surprise, the iTunes logo is ‘good’ , but the Ms Office logo isn’t.. I assume you’re using an Apple product for all your epic designs?
With the way-too-obvious-gradient and the silver metal-looking border around the iTunes logo, I’d say it was designed 10 years ago and it looks cheap. And on the other hand, the Ms logo looks way more clean than it previously did, just one main color, slightly visible gradient and more rounded corners.
I am not a very experienced epic designer, but I just hate the fact that Apple seems to be doing everything right in the eyes of a lot ‘designers’ , while Microsoft never can. Don’t start bitching about my comment, think about it first.
December 16th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
Did you really put the iTunes redesign in the “good” category!?
December 17th, 2010 at 6:33 am
cool redesigns i never seen these many designs
thanks!!!
…..
December 19th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
That NASA logo was just a concept by Base design agency and is not in use.
http://blog.thisisbase.com/2010/05/24/a-proposal-to-go-where-no-nasa-logo-has-gone-before/
I would have also filed the itunes logo under controversial. I think it needed an update but I’m not sure if that was the right choice.
December 19th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
I’m not really sure what you mean by ‘The Unnoticeable Ones’ – Google and CN have very big differences.
I’d say the new Hotmail logo makes more sense. At least it has a relation to email now.
The MySpace logo just bemuses me. What were they thinking?
December 19th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
I love new Twitter logo. And new colors from Google. They are more soothing. Hotmail, again, did a good job about they’re logo.
Thanks for thins post!
December 19th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
I agree with you, but i don’t really like the change of symantec’s logo. I would put that in the “not-so-good” Ones.
Very interesting post.
December 19th, 2010 at 1:58 pm
The democrats logos seems swapped. Unless I have got something wrong.
December 19th, 2010 at 7:56 pm
Symantec is spelled wrong.
Good post.
December 20th, 2010 at 1:59 am
Was the Seattle’s best coffee redesign in 2010? I think it’s a pretty controversial & drastic one.
December 20th, 2010 at 2:29 am
i’d like to share my opinion in some of them,
::airtel is really really fantastic i like it so much,,and democratic as well its really drastic but fantastic.
::my space is really funny and deviced i like it so much.
::NASA, own & YMCA are so good i think and not as u mentioned in the “not so good group”especially YMCA its awesome.
::twitter is fine but i see that before it was more simple & unique but after this dark rectangle behind its somehow “not-so-good” i think it would be better if u just add the bird to the one before.
sincerely,
miro artmania
hope u accept my opinion share
::iTunes, CNN are great after the redesign really good
December 20th, 2010 at 3:21 am
FWIW, the DNC before and afters in your post are flip-flopped. (no pun intended)
December 20th, 2010 at 4:14 am
I find the Oprah Winfrey Network logo transformation is the most tragic. Even if the current trend is to move away from lowercase initials, THAT new logo is just gawd-awful. It’s like they were given five comps, and because they couldn’t decide on one design—or one color!—used them all.
December 20th, 2010 at 5:44 am
I really like the Google redesign and the Gmail redesign. I can’t see why you don’t like the new Google logo compared to the old one, but the old Gmail did have a nicer envelope.
December 20th, 2010 at 6:07 am
Great! Covered most of them all
Who got a face lift
December 20th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
The NASA logo was spec work, not an official redesign.
December 20th, 2010 at 4:10 pm
Stopped reading as soon as I saw the new iTunes logo under “good ones”.
December 20th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
I’m SO glad that Google finally got rid of that awful drop shadow. Their new design was one of my favorites, even with how ‘unnoticeable’ of a change it was.
December 20th, 2010 at 8:34 pm
The Oprah Winfrey logo looks so clownish. I’ve heard the explanation of why it looks the way it does and, the reasoning is fine. The execution is horrible.
Reminds me of the State Fair food area…..
December 21st, 2010 at 2:39 am
the CNN doesn’t work. it just doesn’t read right in spanish. while to english speakers the Ñ is just an N with a bonus stroke, in spanish the Ñ is a completely different letter than the N. so a logo that says CÑÑ or CÑN or CNÑ (really, which letter is the Ñ on that logo anyway?) would give as much pause as if the logo suddenly read CZZ or CMM or any other letter with a similar look but head of its own and distinct section of the dictionary.
December 21st, 2010 at 1:05 pm
Well I was going to say I actually think the Sears Logo is a major improvement. Everything else I agree with (: And my gap logo was involved with the redesign as well.
December 21st, 2010 at 3:20 pm
I love the CNN in spanish -> completely clear (looks like inspired by the logo of a Spanish program on TVE, called Spain LIVE España Directo), The Microsoft Office went to a simpler form, I think that it could be even simpler, but it’s OK for now.
I like the HUGE change in the Gmail by Google
December 21st, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Not sure if anyone has already posted this but I think the Nasa logo was only a prospective one. I don’t think it was an actual redesign.
I love the Airtel one, and thank god the Democrats changed theirs to SOMETHING different because their old logo was atrocious…
~J
December 22nd, 2010 at 6:08 pm
I would like to hop on the bandwagon that bashed the Apple one. How the hell can you say that it is a good logo design? The first one sucked. The second one ‘might’ suck less but it is still terrible! It looks like an Illustrator tutorial on how to make buttons!
Yet, as the other poster says, you bash MS. The MS ones made significant improvements. But they can do no right and Apple can do no wrong.
Have some respect for yourself and judge the logos based on the logos not on some preconceived notion that you have with the associated company.
December 30th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
To respond to the iTunes/Microsoft Office debate, I do agree with the author that the new MS logo is not so good as it used to convey the combination of parts (Excel, Word, PPT, etc.) into a cohesive whole, and now it just looks like an inverted snowflake. However the new iTunes logo is still ugly. The YMCA had a great concept of adding movement, but poor execution.
December 31st, 2010 at 5:03 am
[...] was a flutter about “Nasa’s new logo”. The pretend design even made it into some 2010 new logo wrap-ups, announced breathlessly as “Nasa’s new logo”. Old schoolers can relax. It [...]
January 2nd, 2011 at 9:37 am
NASA are definitely not using it on their website.
January 2nd, 2011 at 8:16 pm
The new My Space logo is pretty horrid, but it’s not the only aweful logo there…a lot more could probably go in the controvertial area! There are some good improvements among these logo design though, great post!
January 4th, 2011 at 6:14 pm
New logos are often a result of an attempt to provoke and just move the brand a little bit… in some direction.
I guess many companies believe this will be the panacea for the reducing sales. I like the steady Coca-Cola approach.
Good or bad – the same logos will change again after a few years
Logo facelifting…
January 6th, 2011 at 3:55 pm
[...] to check out some other rebranding that happened in 2010? We love this article over at Logoblog.org. // Tags: branding, logo, marketing « Previous [...]
January 11th, 2011 at 10:23 am
As a designer, it is always fascinating to see the good logos, in my opinion ms and airtel is the bestone
January 12th, 2011 at 2:22 am
[...] in the recent few years, several famous brands and corporations have opted crowd-sourcing for their logo redesigns. Among a few eminent are EU, LG and Philips. Crowd-sourcing renders geography irrelevant. So no [...]
January 13th, 2011 at 9:44 am
my [ space ] !!!
it’s extraordinary !
January 15th, 2011 at 9:22 pm
[...] Yo no los clasifique, ya que no estoy de acuerdo con la clasificación que se hizo en el blog, pero aun así, me pareció bastante importante. Quien guste ver la clasificación completa, pueda dar clic en el siguiente enlace http://www.logoblog.org/logo-redesigns-2010/ [...]
January 16th, 2011 at 10:36 pm
Personally I’m not a fan of the skittles redevelopment. I understand the importance of logo redevelopment, having shifted my business’ image recently and understand that if it is done the right way it can have a seismic shift in the way people perceive you.
January 17th, 2011 at 4:43 am
[...] http://www.logoblog.org/logo-redesigns-2010/comment-page-2/#comment-9448 [...]
March 25th, 2011 at 11:54 am
Personally, I like simple, iconic and ‘clever’ approaches in branding and identity – as the new Spanish CNN and MySpace logos demonstrate.
November 28th, 2011 at 11:35 am
Please verify your sources before posting,
The NASA logo is a ‘fake’ that we did for a Viewpoint magazine project.
“If you could redesign any brand, which would it be? This was the question asked us recently by Viewpoint, the bi-annual magazine about trends, brands, futures, and market strategies. Hmmm, we thought. What company or organization is doing super-cool, interesting, worthwhile things, and is completely undersold by its logo or brand? Within minutes we were in unanimous agreement on our subject for this project: NASA.”
http://www.basenow.net/2010/05/24/a-proposal-to-go-where-no-nasa-logo-has-gone-before/
http://www.basenow.net/2010/05/31/nasa-project-provides-humor-on-memorial-day/#more-4478