I'm not a designer and know nothing about logo design, so let me ask: Is there an objective way to evaluate a piece of design such as this new logo? Or does it just come down to personal like/dislike?
I'm sure there can be, somehow tying together intricate details how how our brains process visual data and how various associations are triggered.
I'm pretty sure no such process exists today though, which (at least to me) makes various statements that sound as if they were part of such an objective evaluation sound so hilarious.
Note: I have nothing but respect for the skills of good graphic designers, but it's just very strange to hear some of the justications made. My favorite regarding this logo was from the second bullet:
We preferred letters that had thicker and thinner strokes - conveying the subjective and editorial nature of some of what we do.
What does that mean? Am I supposed to look at the logo, and somehow conclude "ah, it uses both thin and thick strokes, naturally that is because Yahoo are sometimes subjective, sometimes they're editorial". Is "editorial" even the opposite of "subjective"?!
Well, what you can do is ask people who have worked with logo design, won awards for logo design etc.
Of course, these people may be biased, but at least they have more experience in evaluating logos than others. So in general, if many of them like it there's a good chance it's actually good.
The other thing you can do is to look back. In 10, 20 years, it might be more obvious whether a logo was successful or not. But again, that may be influenced by the success of the company.
I think saying that it all comes down to personal taste is bit misleading, because that personal taste is generally shared by a large part of the population.
"Well, what you can do is ask people who have worked with logo design, won awards for logo design etc."
"Of course, these people may be biased, but at least they have more experience in evaluating logos than others"
This just raises the question of how these experts evaluate a logo.
I understand that academic art criticism [1] has developed frameworks for evaluating works of art - genre, cultural impact, relationship to preceding works, etc. But a logo isn't art - it is almost entirely functional and used for (mundane?) concerns like brand identity. I can appreciate that some logs have existed for long enough that they have a historical context (e.g. Coca-Cola) but I don't see how this helps evaluate its primary purpose.
