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Logo Design Surrey Opinion Piece: The Problem with Instagram’s New Logo
With years of online experience and a first class team of designers, developers and marketers, Thunderbolt Digital are able to offer an array of services to local clients including logo design surrey, web development, social media management and more. Considering we’ve lovers of good design, we like to keep up with the latest developments in the industry, including new looks and revamped logos, such as the one recently revealed by Instagram. We generally like to keep things positive here at Thunderbolt HQ, but some things just need to be criticised, and this logo’s one of them! Read on to find out exactly what Instagram have done wrong with their redesign.
There’s No Continuity
Instagram have stated that the old logo is supposed to live on in the new one’s use of colour, as the previous logo had a small rainbow stripe in the corner of the faux camera. However, this rainbow is nowhere to be seen in this new logo, and a sunset colour palette has been substituted instead. If you’re trying to blend elements of the old logo with the new one, then surely the colours should at least be right; the previous rainbow stripe featured red, yellow, green and blue, but this hodgepodge of colour on the new logo is just a mishmash of blue, purple, pink, orange, and yellow! In fact, it’s a little reminiscent of budding designers who first find the gradient and overlay tools in Photoshop, or perhaps someone playing around with Instagram’s filters for the first time and creating something rather garish. Speaking of which…
It’s Too Garish
Whilst many personally prefer the previous logo, there’s nothing overly wrong with the simplified camera glyph in itself. Indeed, the new logo appears much more tasteful on Instagram’s blog where it appears in monochrome, as a simple black symbol against the white background of the site. Of course, a monochrome logo would have little connection to the previous logo and brand identity, but there’s a simple solution to making the new icon more tasteful without falling into this issue. The new logos for partner apps Layout, Boomerang and Hyperlapse are much more aesthetically pleasing than the main Instagram redesign, and this is from a simple switch of colour and better use of white space. If instead of a coloured background and white symbol, Instagram reversed this, it would feel much less like an assault on the senses and would be far more preferable to what they’ve currently revealed.
It’s Lost its Character
Despite its bright colours, the new Instagram logo is not really going to stand out from many other app logos that can be seen these days. Simple, ‘abstract’ glyphs and flat designs are currently ‘on trend’ in the design world, but that means there’s something of an abundance of them; whilst the original, rendered design stood out because of its depth and charm, this redesign has thrown all that to the wind, and is now at risk of blending in with other designs, which is exactly what a visual platform like Instagram should not be doing!
What do you think about Instagram’s new logo? Do you agree with the above, or have a completely different opinion? Let us know over on our Facebook or Twitter!