Thursday, December 3, 2009

Aol


 “Aol. One logo, countless ways to reveal.”

  AOL has recently released a statement of a new brand identity. The logo itself is constant, while the backgrounds change constantly in countless ways to portray the breadth of AOL’s content. According to the logo designers, the constantly changing images were intended to elicit surprise. In addition, the period in the logo was added to portray confidence and completeness. The new brand identity will be fully unveiled on December 10.

I personally do not think that the new AOL logo was a necessary move. I grew up seeing the old logo, so I am used to the iconic running man. The new logo itself is really simple and bold in a white, sans serif font. It changed the O and the L into lowercase letters. However, I think capital letters were more effective and bold because it makes the name stand out more. It seems as though they added the colorful background images to complement the simple logo (Aol.). Although I understand that AOL was going for a new dynamic approach, I do not think it was not executed well. Some of the background images seem really odd and strange (i.e. goldfish). It does not seem like a real logo. I definitely think that they should keep the iconic running man. I am definitely looking forward to seeing people’s reactions when the new logo is fully unveiled. 

From Logo Design Love

5 comments:

  1. my reaction to the new logo is ... wtf!??!?!

    I like the running little yellow guy and the blue triangle logo was fine...

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  2. I have no problem with their changing the logo and some of the examples you have work quite well I think. However, I agree completely that some of them are really odd and definitely do not work. I do not like the concept of the logo constantly changing because I think this would be confusing and bad for brand identity and recognition. I do like the addition of color though, the hand being my favorite of the ones portrayed.

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  3. I don't particularly like the re-design. The images used are not very noteworthy and AOL's name gets lost within them because of the white color. Though updating an image can be helpful, it sometimes does not work.

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  4. I really appreciated it when web companies like AOL try to be innovative, but this may be going a little bit too far from where they intended. The iconic "yellow running man" has made his mark since I first started using AIM..and though the designs are cool and abstract...I feel like the fish and rock star hand motion just feels out of place.

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  5. I don't think it was a good idea for AOL to change its logo. Like you mentioned, the yellow running man is iconic; and upon looking at it, people immediately recognize that it is AOL. I understand that the new logo can be used very flexibly, but I don't think it has any personality. Even if AOL thought it was time to change their logo, they went about it the wrong way.

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