

Ebay's new logo - hodgesmr
http://pages.ebay.com/announcements/new/index.html

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jaysonelliot
I was one of the UX designers for eBay in 1997-98, just before the IPO. I was
working on what would become the Gallery view.

When Meg Whitman took over, I presented the work we had done so far. I was
pretty wet behind the ears at the time, and I was enamored with the latest
shiny objects on the Web. eBay, by way of contrast, had a look that could be
charitably described as "homespun." I was busy polishing things up, tightening
the color palette, improving typography (as much as one could in 1998),
reducing clutter, and using what I thought of as killer JavaScript flourishes
to really blow people away with the Gallery View. I may have even tried to
introduce some Flash at the time, I'm not sure.

What I do remember was the way Meg schooled me when I came in to present my
slick new state-of-the-art Gallery. I don't remember her exact words, but she
told me that I was building something that simply wasn't eBay. She explained
to me that the success of eBay came from the sellers who thought of eBay not
as a company, but as their own corner of the Web that belonged to them. The
audience for eBay, she explained, was mom and pop types, people who were
comfortable with garage sales and flea markets, and who had built a level of
trust with eBay based on what they saw as a brand that shared their down-home
values. eBay's biggest competitor at the time was Yahoo! Auctions, and eBay
was killing them, because people thought of Yahoo! as a faceless, monolithic
corporation, and couldn't feel a sense of ownership about placing their
auctions there. I learned a valuable lesson about the importance of being
appropriate to your audience, and not always going for the latest, slickest
design.

I've always liked the fact that their logo kept that original homespun feel.
The site has slowly evolved over the years, and their audience surely has as
well. It's arguable whether eBay still has the folksy appeal it had in the
1990s. The new logo represents a very authentic reflection of the change to
the brand, and the company itself. The nostalgic side of me would love to see
the old logo and the old brand stick around forever, but if I'm being honest,
this is probably the most appropriate thing they could have done. It's a
genuine expression of the brand's history and personality. You can't say much
better for a logo than that.

~~~
growt
Thank you for this story. I always wondered why ebay looks the way it does.
And I always assumed it was because of greed (the reasoning being something
like: "If we can charge for bold text, we will not matter how it looks"). This
puts ebay's design, or the lack of design, in a much better light.

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aaronharnly
According to a Mashable article, eBay has had a few previous logo iterations
you may not be familiar with:

1\. The original "AuctionWeb" black bar: <http://5.mshcdn.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/08/aw.gif>

2\. eBay black bar: <http://4.mshcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/ebay.gif>

3\. eBay blue: [http://5.mshcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Original-
eBay...](http://5.mshcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Original-eBay-
logo.jpg)

4\. The kooky eBay we've come to know: <http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/EBay>

Article: <http://mashable.com/2010/08/07/ebay-facts/>

~~~
squarecat
Quote from the article:

"…one that didn’t last more than, well, probably a week if my memory serves
me. And thank heavens for that! Can you imagine what eBay might have become
with such a boring old logo? Still, it could have happened…(shudder)." - Jim
Griffith, the first customer sales representative at eBay and the current host
of eBayRadio, regarding the #3 logo (above)

Seems to apply this time around, as well.

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Robin_Message
Hang on, is it called _ebay_ or _eBay_? The logo is _ebay_ but the press
release seems to be firmly _eBay_.

Then I checked their website and realised their current logo is _ebaY_ , so
maybe they don't mind about capitalisation.

~~~
dexter313
Wiki and Google say it is eBay

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay>

[http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&newwindow...](http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&newwindow=0&suggon=0&safe=off&q=ebay+inc&btnG=Search&gbv=1&sei=NANSUKj-K8ik4ATNqYGIDA)

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andrewljohnson
Never in the history of the internet has a new logo been posted to a forum and
elicited a positive response. I think it's a fundamental law of the internet.

~~~
harryf
This one makes me wonder if Google is about to buy ebay

~~~
possibilistic
Now that would be truly exciting! I'd love to see a battle between Google/Ebay
and Amazon take shape.

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bcks
They burnished out all the character. It completely lacks the quirk, play, and
scrappiness of the old logo and projects a much more "neutral" and generic
space. Which I suppose is a valid intention reflecting a strategic shift --
it's just a bit dull and bland for my taste.

~~~
sharkweek
the funny thing is -- and I'm making an assumption about ebay here based on
previous experience I've had in logos and redesign -- is that this was
probably the effort of hundreds (if not thousands) of hours of deliberation,
re-designs, focus groups and meetings; but the end result looks like it could
have been derived in about an hour of work

~~~
bcks
Yeah, it totally reflects such a process. Maybe the suits wanted something
sleek and "frictionless marketplace" or something, but it also just screams
process: clearly the lowest common denominator, the least offensive to the
largest number of people.

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nicholassmith
Quite simple reaction, 'huh'. It's not an ugly logo, nor a beautiful one, it's
incredibly plain and doesn't really sell me on it. So, huh.

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mladenkovacevic
The font is very retail-ish .. Macy's logo comes to mind. And the
Google/Microsoft primary colours associate it with that tech giant domain. So
I guess it kinda works from that point of view but it's just a little boring
for my liking.

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mbell
Interesting site design Somewhat distracting and confusing but its the first
time I've seen something that uses a piece-wise parallax type movement(the
ebay underneath the content bars).

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D3nver
It really bothers me how the e and the b overlap more than the other letters
overlap.

~~~
aw3c2
Seems like an optical illusion or display related. I thought the same at
first. Feels very sloppy that way.

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timjahn
"Seventeen years ago this month...."

Wait, WHAT? Ebay is 17 years old??? Wow.

~~~
TylerE
17 years old is 1995 ;)

To make us really feel old - the kids getting their driver's licenses today
were not alive when the Lion King came out on _video_ , much less was in
theaters.

~~~
B-Con
How dare you put the last two decades in perspective like that... :-S

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bertomartin
Google influenced?

~~~
crisnoble
I think it's the colors that bring this thought to mind, I had the same
thought. To be fair they already had those colors before:
[http://www.littlegreenrobot.co.uk/wp-
content/uploads/2011/11...](http://www.littlegreenrobot.co.uk/wp-
content/uploads/2011/11/ebay-logo-630x419.jpg)

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cschmidt
The best site used by graphic designers for discussing corporate identity
change is Under Consideration Brand New. They have their eBay article up....

[http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/ebay_set...](http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/ebay_settles_for_lowest_bid.php)

    
    
        Of all the potential logos that could be done for eBay 
        this is the absolute most boring and risk-averse logo 
        that could have been both presented and selected.

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ghostfish
The zero–space kerning badly bothers me. With traditional stylized logos I
think there's more artistic license, but when your logo is just a font, I feel
it should be more readable.

~~~
phmagic
Agreed. Or have some meaningful overlap. To me, whenever a company switches to
a different logo after years of stagnant progress, it signals a last effort to
artificially strengthen the brand.

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lrm
Simple, but I like it. I wonder when we'll see a new Yahoo logo.

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rglover
These folks do not like kerning. Glad they kept the colors.

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conradfr
I was working at PayPal when they changed the logo and thought that it was
indeed more modern, definitely not bad ... but ... slightly not right.

I still think of it that way today and feel the same thing of that new eBay
logo.

And it drives me crazy that I can't really pinpoint what and why :)

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mbrd
It looks like the mockups, particularly the tablet one, were made in MS Paint.

edit: Also, is the "tm" really necessary? Surely they can defend any future
trademark infringement disputes successfully without it? Perhaps I'm being
naive about the world of intellectual property rights.

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raldi
Except in the favicon.

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squarecat
eBay's and Microsoft's new logos communicate nothing about the company/brand.

I appreciate clean, minimalist design, but logos that antiseptic are like
marketing that says nothing about the product or service (which admittedly
works on rare occasion...)

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raphinou
There was a post not so long ago on HN about prices of logos. I wonder how
much they paid for this one (I hope not too much because I feel I could have
done it: select a font, write ebay, color letters with colors of old logo).

~~~
arrrg
Logos never stand on their own. Making them work in context is the hard part
(but we can, for obvious reasons, see very little of that on the linked page).

All I will dare to say that if they plan to just change the logo this doesn’t
look like a good idea. The ebay website looks very old-fashioned – and the old
logo fits right in there. If they want to change their logo they have to do
more than change gifs on their website. Maybe that’s planned, I don’t know.

If they want to change, their new logo (and the linked page, too) indicates
that they want to change to a minimalist, simple design with few elements and
lots of whitespace. I’m honestly not sure whether that fits the brand or makes
for a very good ebay experience.

ebay – to me at least – has always been about cheap prices and selling stuff
you no longer need to other people. Like a flea market, only more useful. (Hm,
but maybe they want to change that perception of ebay?) Do I want it to look
super serious and professional? I’m not sure. I’m personally a fan of that
aesthetic, but I’m not sure whether it works for ebay.

To me there is nothing wrong with updating the look of ebay, to me it just
seems like you have to do so carefully.

But that’s all premature speculation now. We do not currently know how the new
logo will be used and that’s the important part.

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klrr
Looks great, but why does they make it such a big deal? Marketing purposes?

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rvid
Why photoshop the logo into images? (like in the gallery). I think that's a
horrible thing to do for the brand.

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talhof8
They could have done better than that (though I do think this one is better
than the previous logo)

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DannyBee
This changes everything! I have a sudden urge to sell all my stuff on ebay!

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autophil
One look at it and I thought: whoopity-doo-dah-day

Nothing to see here.

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quarterto
Mmm, Univers. I like it.

~~~
cschmidt
It seems like Univers Extended, which is why it seems too wide to me.

[http://www.fontshop.com/fonts/singles/linotype/univers_std_5...](http://www.fontshop.com/fonts/singles/linotype/univers_std_53_extended/)

It reminds me of the horrible stretched type of the Bing logo.

~~~
uptown
I had the exact same opinion. Also, the position of the inner-circle of the
"b" and the "a" look awkward.

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laserDinosaur
That is certainly...some text.

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virtualritz
Designed by committee[tm]

------
saurabh
Google

