Marissa Mayer and the New Yahoo Logo

The beveled edges of the new Yahoo logo make it look a lot more like the Google logo. All you need to do is change the colors.

Yahoo is one of the oldest Internet companies still alive and kicking. So many other 1990s-era dot-coms have fallen to the wayside, but Yahoo has managed to hang on. But over the years, their logo has remained pretty much the same. But last month, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer announced a new Yahoo logo. Or thirty.

A Month of New Yahoo Logos

Instead of simply changing their logo once, Yahoo decided to change it thirty times. Every day for a month, they came out with a new logo design. Since Yahoo’s logo is a simple wordmark, this meant fiddling around with the fonts. As a graphic design geek, it was interesting to see the different designs they came up with. I was hoping they’d do one in Jokerman font, or at least Helvetica, but unfortunately, they did neither. And as much as I like the concept of a different logo everyday, the resulting designs were rather boring. Still, I applaud the idea.

The CEO and the Intern

On her Tumblr, Marissa Mayer talks about her personal involvement in the design process, saying that she and her design team “had a ton of fun” hammering out the logo over a single weekend. I have to wonder if the intern on the team had the same opinion. I can’t think of many things less fun than spending a weekend with your boss’s boss’s boss micromanaging every design detail. Of course, I wasn’t there. Maybe the staff did have a blast, but knowing what I know about human nature, I strongly doubt it.

Concept and Execution

So how did Marissa and her team do? I’d say the new Yahoo logo is good, but not great. On one hand, it’s done in Optima, one of my favorite fonts, but in the other hand, there’s not much else there. It’s a boring design, and the addition of bevels doesn’t do much to spice it up. In fact, the bevels just make it look more like the (not so great) Google logo. Oh well, at least they didn’t add in a swoosh.