On the one hand, the author is absolutely right that a good professional designer can bring things to the process that enthusiastic amateurs cannot. A really good logo doesn't just look cool, it communicates something about the nature and spirit of the company visually. It lays down a marker: "this is who we are." A designer who knows the grammar of visual communication will have a better chance of delivering that than will someone who doesn't.
On the other hand, the author sadly doesn't do a great job of arguing the above point. Rather than, say, taking some great logos and pulling them apart for us to show how they do what they do, we just hear a lot of complaints about how the way Yahoo did theirs was "unprofessional." It makes it sound like the main complaint is that Yahoo had the gall to cut designers out of the process rather than that they chose a path that was more likely to result in a crappy logo, which strikes me as a more powerful (and accurate) complaint.
In other words, outside the community of professional designers, nobody cares if Marissa Mayer hurt some designers' feelings. What they care about is how Marissa Mayer is stewarding the Yahoo brand. If you want to convince them that your way is right and her way is wrong, don't show them how her way threatens your business; show them how her way threatens her business.
I disagree, he actually makes it clear on multiple occasions throughout the piece that his critique is not about the end product of the logo and what could or could not have happened in the hands of a real designer.
His critique is about her unserious approach to the process, an approach that she then justified in a cloud of post-process rationalization. His critique is saying that if this is the way she treats the logo redesign (even celebrates the casualness of the approach) then is she actually a competent steward for the Yahoo brand.
I think it's a question worth asking and find that many of the comments here seem very focused on the debate about the merits of the logo design, rather than the question of brand management which both the piece, and thankfully your comment, at least attempt to address.
And part of why I ended up skimming the piece is that I'm not convinced original post can be interpreted to that degree.
Remember, this is (putatively) a direct communication from the CEO of a large multi-billion dollar company. If it sounds breezy and informal, it is because she wanted it to sound breezy and informal. Whether or not the actual process described is breezy and informal is hard to ascertain under the fact that she wanted it to sound that way. Every sentence may be literally true, but who knows what was omitted to fit the breezy-and-informal template.
I think an awful lot of people are over-interpreting a chunk of text that probably doesn't contain anywhere near as much information as it appears to. CEOs at this scale are masters of using lots of words and appearing to say things while in fact saying either nothing at all, or saying something that bears very little resemblance to the surface.
> And part of why I ended up skimming the piece is that I'm not convinced original post can be interpreted to that degree.
Not to interject -- well, ok, to interject -- but isn't this completely backwards? Shouldn't you skim articles you mostly agree with, but read more intensely those you disagree with? You get less out of the former and probably know what they'll say, regardless.
I had the same response. It's not about agreeing or not -- there's no point to reading an opinion piece that covers my opinion plus my rationale -- rather, it's about assessing the quality of the arguments as you go.
I started reading, was put off by the snark and sarcasm (snark is occasionally entertaining; this wasn't), then I got to where the author was baffled that Meyer described Yahoo's identity in positive terms. Really?
I skimmed a bit after that then wrote it off as a waste of time.
"His critique is about her unserious approach to the process..."
What's so laughable and made me skim the article is that all of his arguments are based on tidbits of social media that described the process. It shouldn't be a newsflash that those tidbits are part of the marketing campaign themselves. I don't see how someone in the business could be taking them at face value.
I suspect that Yahoo did have a whole design and marketing process (and a large budget) around the logo redesign, and this turned the redesign into a carefully scripted story in and of itself. The stories of a CEO working over the weekend were parts of that script, probably true at the core, but embellished and certainly not revealing the whole picture.
Essentially, I found this designer's rant to be rather feeble.
And incidentally, I like the new Yahoo logo, I also pay for Yahoo premium mail (only because Yahoo is not Google, oh wait, that's Bing), but I certainly don't lionize the company.
The author makes a much better point, underlining that it is not about the technical quality of the visual brand
> "This post is not about the technical quality of the logo. I am not writing about brand design, but about brand management. This is about a simple rule: Brand design follows brand management, not the other way around."
He clearly states that and how this kind of approach hurts the business. Yahoo's problem was not the logo, but who and what Yahoo is. The logo can help clearing that up if it is an integral part of the brand identity which goes back to the brand ambition, not to Mayer's personal preferences about colors and shapes.
>> In other words, outside the community of professional designers, nobody cares if Marissa Mayer hurt some designers' feelings.
You're absolutely right.
In my opinion, the whole point of the logo redesign had little to do with the logo and much more to do with a PR move. The logo refresh was an announcement to the world that Yahoo is no longer the pre-Mayer Yahoo.
The logo might have been a casualty of this PR stunt (I personally hate the new logo), but really, a bad logo doesn't stop people from using a product.
On the one hand, the author is absolutely right that a good professional designer can bring things to the process that enthusiastic amateurs cannot. A really good logo doesn't just look cool, it communicates something about the nature and spirit of the company visually. It lays down a marker: "this is who we are." A designer who knows the grammar of visual communication will have a better chance of delivering that than will someone who doesn't.
On the other hand, the author sadly doesn't do a great job of arguing the above point. Rather than, say, taking some great logos and pulling them apart for us to show how they do what they do, we just hear a lot of complaints about how the way Yahoo did theirs was "unprofessional." It makes it sound like the main complaint is that Yahoo had the gall to cut designers out of the process rather than that they chose a path that was more likely to result in a crappy logo, which strikes me as a more powerful (and accurate) complaint.
In other words, outside the community of professional designers, nobody cares if Marissa Mayer hurt some designers' feelings. What they care about is how Marissa Mayer is stewarding the Yahoo brand. If you want to convince them that your way is right and her way is wrong, don't show them how her way threatens your business; show them how her way threatens her business.