Logo design trends of 2018
logolounge.com
logolounge.com
Some comments below might make less sense outside the context of the qz.com article's polemic. But it's more substantive (not to mention fairer) to link to the original source.
No, serifs really do have legibility issues, but not for small screens; they cause problems at (very) small font sizes where glyphs are only a handful of pixels tall.
> You can render a serif letter in seven pixels
Yes, but that's pushing it and the legibility will depend on the quality of the font hinting, how the font rasterizer antialiases, and the way subpixels are utilized[1]. Legibility will even depend on the display technology: low resolution fonts on a CRT can be a lot harder to read compared to an LCD. (a shadow mask means phosphors do not align 1-to-1 with pixels[2])
Of course, legibility is in the eye of the beholder, and many people find serifed fonts to be easier to read, while others prefer sans-serif, and some people just don't care. For some people, anything smaller or more complicated than high-contrast 96pt simple sans-serif is unreadable.
> drops the serifs from its logo
A logo, however, is probably (much?) larger than the small font sizes where serifs often have legibility issues.
[1] http://www.antigrain.com/research/font_rasterization/index.h...
A good logo can be printed on a pen and still be readable and recognizable.
> Is this even an issue?
Yes, to some people on some devices. While less common than it was a decade ago, old hardware exists[1], poor quality displays exist, and broken hardware exists[2]. However,
> Who only has 7 pixels for their text?
Everybody that used an Apple II, Atari 400/800, Commodore 64? Most 8-bit computers in the era before framebuffers were common used low-resolution hardware fonts[3].
[1] The last time I bought any kind of computer hardware was ~2011; my CPU and LCD monitor are vintage 2008. Wile my LCD displays small fonts very clearly,
[2] I know multiple people that have been stuck using a broken LCD because they cannot afford to replace their old (PowerPC) macbook.
[3] https://damieng.com/blog/2011/02/20/typography-in-8-bits-sys...
I hope I’m not coming off as brusque with that attitude. I just think it’s practical. I’m intimately acquainted with using older hardware. I was lucky to have a computer and an internet connection at all as a child but I won’t pretend that it wasn’t a punch in the gut every time a website would take ages to load, crawl when it did load or a game wouldn’t run at all. It hurt when the line was drawn at broadband or faster CPUs/GPUs but I’m glad they didn’t wait for me to catch up.
There’s a tug between creators and consumers but the drive toward new technology is a good thing. Eventually it becomes more affordable or can be had for reasonable prices second hand.
That said, I don’t think that precludes reasonable accommodation. If your website isn’t an application it should be readable without JavaScript even if it’s ugly, screen readers should work, users should be able to adjust their font size even if it’s ugly, etc.
A more accurate title may be, "A few new logos use serif fonts".
I find this really interesting. Although it might just be a design fad in some cases, it does make me smile a bit to see an "Est. 20xx", because it reads as a desire that the brand (often a physical store) intends to stick around long enough for that declaration to mean something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfB7vF7nCdA (Explicit)
𝔓𝔩𝔲𝔰 𝔦𝔱 𝔴𝔞𝔰 𝔟𝔞𝔫𝔫𝔢𝔡 𝔟𝔶 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔑𝔞𝔷𝔦𝔰. 𝔜𝔬𝔲 𝔡𝔬𝔫’𝔱 𝔴𝔞𝔫𝔱 𝔶𝔬𝔲𝔯 𝔩𝔬𝔤𝔬 𝔦𝔫 𝔞 𝔣𝔬𝔫𝔱 𝔰𝔲𝔭𝔭𝔬𝔯𝔱𝔢𝔡 𝔟𝔶 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔑𝔞𝔷𝔦𝔰, 𝔡𝔬 𝔶𝔬𝔲?
Not that I would expect Varg to be that well-read on the vagaries of the wartime German military administration's printing office.
I'd argue it's the complete opposite of soulless. As the only message it conveys is how you feel about the company. If Verizon had a cool tiger logo, you might think, "man, Verizon is a shit company, but their logo is cool af." But with a simple logo, you just think, "Man, Verizon is a shit company."
Edit: Walking around Zurich gave me a weird sense that everything was so consistent as to be too refined and rich. Every woman had the same highly fashionable style, everything cleanly cut, everything sanitized. I'll admit it was a little creepy. Every person I spoke to was more or less a delight, but I felt as though speaking to people would be taboo. Much more so than Downtown Vancouver, though the vibe is often described similarly.
Exactly!
In other words, a low-level oscillation from an old generation of companies to a new generation who want to look different and nicer.
No doubt the author would change some things if she got the chance!
Or, you know, Sleek, Modern, Minimalist...
~ Khayri R.R. Woulfe
Can someone tell me if this is because designers like to copy whatever look is in season? Or is it mostly the clients / managers who are afraid to have their brand identity be too different?
I knew a designer who couldn't tell you what made text legible, or how a grid system worked. But they were good at copying certain styles that were popular. They would read those articles like "20 stunning sites with flat design," pick a few to copy, and then give the client a look-a-like site, regardless if the design made sense for their business. Always thought they were a hack, but they were employed, so good for them.
Edit: Just wanted to point out that the return of serifs is probably a good thing - good designers seeing that minimalist logos are overdone and wanting to stand out. My comments are more directed at what is inevitably to come - hordes of smaller companies copying the most superficial aspects of this trend.
In fact I suspect most of the value (for the designers) of those exercises where designers involve the client and make mindmaps and select "values" and whatnot is to trick the client into a self-made cage, resulting in manageable bikeshedding.
But, unless someone's deliberately cultivating a retro look, consider any batch of random logos from 20 years ago and compare them to a batch of current ones and you're going to see a lot of common patterns.
(Until the point where you're changing your layout every three months)