Downvote me to hell but I can't stand the new logo. It's the little things, the designer is on the right track, simplification is the right direction but...
The new 2013 logo is unbalanced & dull.
1) First it's extremely unbalanced, all the eye popping color, depth, & detail is in the tail with nearly no highlights on the left side of the logo.
2) The fur on the end of the tail is 3D, slightly wrapping itself around the globe. Why? Why simplify the whole logo and leave the tail with the same awful complexities as the previous 09-13 logo? The tails in the 04-05 and 05-09 are near perfection and more simple. The newer tails add unnecessary detail yet they were kept.
3) It's inconsistently flat. Usually flat coincides with simple, but the logo's complex outlines have actually been exaggerated while the coloring has been flattened and simplified. The fox's head and torso on the other hand were nicely simplified (aside from the little hairs added all over).
4) It's dull. What was once planet earth is now a dull blue ball with coffee stains.
5) The gradient of orange to yellow is too hard. The entire fox is orange then sharply turns to yellow after the tail starts. The gradient change in the 04-05 version is perfect. The new logo's gradient is harsh and too distracting.
6) Micro-details were added. Why? I thought this was about simplifying? Look at the fox's fur on it's back. There's little tiny hairs that have been added that weren't there in the 04-05 and 05-09 version. There's no reason for those to be there. When the logo is shrunk and viewed at it's normal size they won't even be visible, why not just remove them altogether. In fact the ears have added hairs as well.
It's easily salvageable and the designer was on the right track:
Just bright up planet earth, contrast the continents from the ocean more, remove the 3D-ness of the fox's tail, further simplify or remove the tail's inner fur spikes, and soften the gradient of orange to yellow that runs across the fox's body and get rid of those annoying hairs that one can only see when zoomed in 400%.
Interesting - at that scale, the gloss on the globe in the 2009-2013 version looks unnecessarily distracting to me. The latest one "reads" best to me at that scale.
I was thinking the same thing. But by and large, 2004-2005 was remarkably a case of "if it ain't broke...". The fox was just the right shade, the globe was there, but not overwhelming.
Considering this was right before the rise of Web 2.0, we can see the gloss was appropriate at the time, but it suddenly follows the flashy trend downhill.
It looks like someone bleached an orange fox's tail and rapped it around an old beach ball. However, you are correct, it's not a big deal to the average person. To me it's annoying. Then again, another designer will come by in 2 years and re-design it into something else.
"Then again, another designer will come by in 2 years and re-design it into something else."
yep. it must be hard to hear for designers but sometimes i wonder if they're "necessary because we need to change because people like change" or if they're utterly useless and trying to justify their existence by changing everything every year, no matter what the change is ;-)
That's actually an excellent point. In this context, "flattening" the logo seems like a very bad idea... The "old" logo uses strong color to make the pieces visible, while "new" logo depends on outlines and borders to show detail, which naturally blur when you shrink the logo.
Honestly, the "flat" design starts looking a lot more like a blue-and-orange-smudge at that scale.
Normal users never command-tab? Normal users will never get Retina monitors? What proportion of users need to see graphics at high resolution for them to count? Isn’t even 10% of Firefox’s user base a huge number of daily views?
"When the logo is shrunk and viewed at it's normal size they won't even be visible"
That's by design.
You missed the key part of the article where the author mentions why the micro-details were added: "but purposely added more detail where needed to accommodate today’s high resolution screens".
That is an extremely important piece. If you don't go completely geometric and flat (which they didn't), and you don't add in those kinds of tiny details at large sizes the form will feel empty.
Instead, the designer chose to add details that wouldn't distract from the icon at small sizes, but would still make the form feel "full" at large sizes. To do that, the details themselves had to be made much more subtle. Add too much contrast and you run into the 2009-13 design's failures where distracting detail makes the icon hard to read at small sizes.
Personally, I feel like these are fairly minor issues. To reiterate my point below, wouldn't you say that the new logo (http://i.imgur.com/fKCH7Zx.png) looks better in the taskbar than the old logo (http://i.imgur.com/9QFgDVi.png)? (Caveat: this is a Photoshop mockup, so they might add outlines or do other stuff to it when it ships.)
Sorry if off-topic, but I wonder whether a negative (albeit well written and argumented) has more chance of being on top in HN's comment section that a positive one.
And please don't get me wrong, I love when after a sensationalist article/title, a well written informative comment puts the article in its place, but the pattern seems to repeat itself in every kind of post.
So-called "negative" comments are usually far more useful than "positive" ones.
"Positive" comments only serve to make people feel good, or even just neutral. This really doesn't bring a wider or prolonged benefit of any sort.
"Negative" comments, on the other hand, often make flaws and problems more obvious. This is the first step in actually getting them addressed, which is a truly beneficial thing.
I would hope that useful comments, which often are seen as "negative", do get more attention here, just because they are more useful. This is especially true if the people here can in fact make a difference in some way by helping to resolve some of the problems.
The comment is at top because it has constructive criticism, which is quite a bit different than just a "negative" comment. Constructive criticism can just as well be delivered with a positive tone and I've seen those rise to the top as well. Likewise, there are plenty of negative comments that sink below if they're devoid of useful, entertaining or otherwise noteworthy content.
"Positive" comments only serve to make people feel good
Even if this were true, positive feelings are a powerful motivator.
But it's only true of vaguely kind/affirmative comments, and not all positive feedback can be categorized that way -- it's less common than it should be, but I've observed constructive positive feedback where the purpose is to describe specific positive effects and mechanics.
"Negative" comments, on the other hand, often make flaws and problems more obvious.
Depends on what you mean by negative.
If it's really pretty much about statements of fact making explicit the negative connection between some attribute / process and a goal under discussion, then sure.
But just as positive comments can be vaguely affirmative and only serve to make people feel good, negative comments can be vague and only serve to make people feel bad rather than illuminating a problem.
You could argue that making people feel bad is a powerful motivator, too, I suppose, and I suspect that if you do feel that's an important tool, people would appreciate knowing that up front.
Seems like it on most links posted. After reading the post and before viewing the comments I always say to myself in my head: "Ok, let's see why I should hate this."
That's an awful lot of hate, considering I wasn't even sure which one was the new one when the page first loaded. I guess it doesn't matter how small the changes, people will treat them the same.
It's not hate, it's constructive criticism. Just because it's not delivered in a compliment sandwich doesn't mean it's hateful. ChrisNorstrom is even supporting the developer's general direction.
The comment in question has been edited. It originally started with something like "Downvote me to hell but I couldn't hate this more." Of course, you only have my word for that.
Brightening up the earth would negate one of the main points of the redesign, which is to fix the lack of contrast by removing the distractive specular highlight.
Although I'm less passionate about it, I tend to agree with ChrisNorstrom's comments that the change doesn't seem change enough to warrant neither this level of attention nor such a "detailed" analysis of the changes. Sure, "good design doesn't mean flat" in this post-iOS 7 world, but at the same time, dropping a few details is hardly a revolution.
It's a but amusing how this coincides with the iOS7 unveiling but the new logo has been in the works for quite a while. The original motivation was for how it would look on a smaller scale for FFOS devices.
I was there for the presentation and at first I really didn't like it but more cleanup work has happened since then and I am really happy with the result. I think it's pretty irrelevant how it looks in larger sizes considering most people will only ever encounter it as an icon.
Here's a counterpoint, as I vastly prefer the work put on the new version to every iteration.
04-09 versions feel too layered, the fox really floats atop the globe, giving a disjointed feel. While the 3D tail on the third iteration aims to remedy this, it was still too popping (due to brightness, gloss and drop shadows) and increasingly so as one moves farther away from the tail. In the new version, the subtler earth ('dull') combats this. The fox actually feels less menacing.
A lighter blue makes the earth feel milky/foggy. Adding contrast to the continents just makes more details come up front and feels messy. Even with the toned down land masses, the sphericality of the new continents is actually much better felt in the new version.
The brightness and the details of the thinner tail makes it weight evenly with the wider and more uniform head and body. Ironically you argue for more details in the body while asking to remove the subtle hairs. Anyway I feel there's enough details in the form of volume lines and self-shadows.
Comments
Downvote me to hell but I can't stand the new logo. It's the little things, the designer is on the right track, simplification is the right direction but...
The new 2013 logo is unbalanced & dull.
1) First it's extremely unbalanced, all the eye popping color, depth, & detail is in the tail with nearly no highlights on the left side of the logo.
2) The fur on the end of the tail is 3D, slightly wrapping itself around the globe. Why? Why simplify the whole logo and leave the tail with the same awful complexities as the previous 09-13 logo? The tails in the 04-05 and 05-09 are near perfection and more simple. The newer tails add unnecessary detail yet they were kept.
3) It's inconsistently flat. Usually flat coincides with simple, but the logo's complex outlines have actually been exaggerated while the coloring has been flattened and simplified. The fox's head and torso on the other hand were nicely simplified (aside from the little hairs added all over).
4) It's dull. What was once planet earth is now a dull blue ball with coffee stains.
5) The gradient of orange to yellow is too hard. The entire fox is orange then sharply turns to yellow after the tail starts. The gradient change in the 04-05 version is perfect. The new logo's gradient is harsh and too distracting.
6) Micro-details were added. Why? I thought this was about simplifying? Look at the fox's fur on it's back. There's little tiny hairs that have been added that weren't there in the 04-05 and 05-09 version. There's no reason for those to be there. When the logo is shrunk and viewed at it's normal size they won't even be visible, why not just remove them altogether. In fact the ears have added hairs as well.
It's easily salvageable and the designer was on the right track:
Just bright up planet earth, contrast the continents from the ocean more, remove the 3D-ness of the fox's tail, further simplify or remove the tail's inner fur spikes, and soften the gradient of orange to yellow that runs across the fox's body and get rid of those annoying hairs that one can only see when zoomed in 400%.
Perspective: This is how the normal person will see what you are hating http://rkuykendall.com/uploads/fx-logos-small.png
Interesting - at that scale, the gloss on the globe in the 2009-2013 version looks unnecessarily distracting to me. The latest one "reads" best to me at that scale.
I was thinking the same thing. But by and large, 2004-2005 was remarkably a case of "if it ain't broke...". The fox was just the right shade, the globe was there, but not overwhelming.
Considering this was right before the rise of Web 2.0, we can see the gloss was appropriate at the time, but it suddenly follows the flashy trend downhill.
It looks like someone bleached an orange fox's tail and rapped it around an old beach ball. However, you are correct, it's not a big deal to the average person. To me it's annoying. Then again, another designer will come by in 2 years and re-design it into something else.
"Then again, another designer will come by in 2 years and re-design it into something else."
yep. it must be hard to hear for designers but sometimes i wonder if they're "necessary because we need to change because people like change" or if they're utterly useless and trying to justify their existence by changing everything every year, no matter what the change is ;-)
I often think this is more of a case of "we think people like change" and not that people actually like it.
that's true. i think its more of a "if we change we can get more people onboard" maybe
That's actually an excellent point. In this context, "flattening" the logo seems like a very bad idea... The "old" logo uses strong color to make the pieces visible, while "new" logo depends on outlines and borders to show detail, which naturally blur when you shrink the logo.
Honestly, the "flat" design starts looking a lot more like a blue-and-orange-smudge at that scale.
Normal users never command-tab? Normal users will never get Retina monitors? What proportion of users need to see graphics at high resolution for them to count? Isn’t even 10% of Firefox’s user base a huge number of daily views?
If anything, I feel like this highlights some of the problems mentioned above more clearly. Not that most normal persons will care though.
i'd rather see it on a w7/w8 taskbar and an osx task switch to get a "real feel"
http://i.imgur.com/MI2GdZX.png
thanks - that looks pretty good in that one. as in inline with the chrome icon and others.
np. I photoshopped it in, FWIW.. so any weird artifacts are probably my fault.
"When the logo is shrunk and viewed at it's normal size they won't even be visible"
That's by design.
You missed the key part of the article where the author mentions why the micro-details were added: "but purposely added more detail where needed to accommodate today’s high resolution screens".
That is an extremely important piece. If you don't go completely geometric and flat (which they didn't), and you don't add in those kinds of tiny details at large sizes the form will feel empty.
Instead, the designer chose to add details that wouldn't distract from the icon at small sizes, but would still make the form feel "full" at large sizes. To do that, the details themselves had to be made much more subtle. Add too much contrast and you run into the 2009-13 design's failures where distracting detail makes the icon hard to read at small sizes.
Personally, I feel like these are fairly minor issues. To reiterate my point below, wouldn't you say that the new logo (http://i.imgur.com/fKCH7Zx.png) looks better in the taskbar than the old logo (http://i.imgur.com/9QFgDVi.png)? (Caveat: this is a Photoshop mockup, so they might add outlines or do other stuff to it when it ships.)
i actually prefer the older logo, but my windows taskbar has square tasks. i think the simplified logo might look nicer in the square tasks ;-)
Sorry if off-topic, but I wonder whether a negative (albeit well written and argumented) has more chance of being on top in HN's comment section that a positive one.
And please don't get me wrong, I love when after a sensationalist article/title, a well written informative comment puts the article in its place, but the pattern seems to repeat itself in every kind of post.
So-called "negative" comments are usually far more useful than "positive" ones.
"Positive" comments only serve to make people feel good, or even just neutral. This really doesn't bring a wider or prolonged benefit of any sort.
"Negative" comments, on the other hand, often make flaws and problems more obvious. This is the first step in actually getting them addressed, which is a truly beneficial thing.
I would hope that useful comments, which often are seen as "negative", do get more attention here, just because they are more useful. This is especially true if the people here can in fact make a difference in some way by helping to resolve some of the problems.
The comment is at top because it has constructive criticism, which is quite a bit different than just a "negative" comment. Constructive criticism can just as well be delivered with a positive tone and I've seen those rise to the top as well. Likewise, there are plenty of negative comments that sink below if they're devoid of useful, entertaining or otherwise noteworthy content.
Even if this were true, positive feelings are a powerful motivator.
But it's only true of vaguely kind/affirmative comments, and not all positive feedback can be categorized that way -- it's less common than it should be, but I've observed constructive positive feedback where the purpose is to describe specific positive effects and mechanics.
Depends on what you mean by negative.
If it's really pretty much about statements of fact making explicit the negative connection between some attribute / process and a goal under discussion, then sure.
But just as positive comments can be vaguely affirmative and only serve to make people feel good, negative comments can be vague and only serve to make people feel bad rather than illuminating a problem.
You could argue that making people feel bad is a powerful motivator, too, I suppose, and I suspect that if you do feel that's an important tool, people would appreciate knowing that up front.
Seems like it on most links posted. After reading the post and before viewing the comments I always say to myself in my head: "Ok, let's see why I should hate this."
Hah I promise that's exactly what my internal voice says when I click on any HN comment thread lately.
That's an awful lot of hate, considering I wasn't even sure which one was the new one when the page first loaded. I guess it doesn't matter how small the changes, people will treat them the same.
It's not hate, it's constructive criticism. Just because it's not delivered in a compliment sandwich doesn't mean it's hateful. ChrisNorstrom is even supporting the developer's general direction.
The comment in question has been edited. It originally started with something like "Downvote me to hell but I couldn't hate this more." Of course, you only have my word for that.
The ears already had that detail: https://assets.mozillalabs.com/Brands-Logos/Firefox/logo-onl...
Brightening up the earth would negate one of the main points of the redesign, which is to fix the lack of contrast by removing the distractive specular highlight.
Although I'm less passionate about it, I tend to agree with ChrisNorstrom's comments that the change doesn't seem change enough to warrant neither this level of attention nor such a "detailed" analysis of the changes. Sure, "good design doesn't mean flat" in this post-iOS 7 world, but at the same time, dropping a few details is hardly a revolution.
True, but he never called it a "revolution," rather an "evolution" and "Not a logo redesign, but a simplification in form and function."
Also, any changes to a product that impacts ~ 20% of all desktop internet traffic [1] deserves some level of attention.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Su...
Fair, but this change will be lost on the vast majority of the users that got them to said market share.
It's a but amusing how this coincides with the iOS7 unveiling but the new logo has been in the works for quite a while. The original motivation was for how it would look on a smaller scale for FFOS devices.
I was there for the presentation and at first I really didn't like it but more cleanup work has happened since then and I am really happy with the result. I think it's pretty irrelevant how it looks in larger sizes considering most people will only ever encounter it as an icon.
Here's a counterpoint, as I vastly prefer the work put on the new version to every iteration.
04-09 versions feel too layered, the fox really floats atop the globe, giving a disjointed feel. While the 3D tail on the third iteration aims to remedy this, it was still too popping (due to brightness, gloss and drop shadows) and increasingly so as one moves farther away from the tail. In the new version, the subtler earth ('dull') combats this. The fox actually feels less menacing.
A lighter blue makes the earth feel milky/foggy. Adding contrast to the continents just makes more details come up front and feels messy. Even with the toned down land masses, the sphericality of the new continents is actually much better felt in the new version.
The brightness and the details of the thinner tail makes it weight evenly with the wider and more uniform head and body. Ironically you argue for more details in the body while asking to remove the subtle hairs. Anyway I feel there's enough details in the form of volume lines and self-shadows.
Because it communicates that the fox is wrapped around the globe and not lying on top of it, to make it more "nurturing".
Can't stand is a bit strong- its basically the same damn thing.