

A New HP: HP commission a new logo - robin_reala
http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/a_new_hp_so_close_yet_so_far_away.php?

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tartuffe78
People don't like Apple, Google, etc. because they have cool, meaningful
logos. I don't even know if the apple has a significant meaning beyond a
fruit, and if it did it wouldn't make me want Apple products more than I do
now.

This reminds me of when Pepsi paid several million dollars for a new logo, and
this 27 page marketing doc leaked explaining how their new logo takes into
account everything from the Mona Lisa to gravitational fields:

[http://code.google.com/p/daxp/downloads/detail?name=pepsi%20...](http://code.google.com/p/daxp/downloads/detail?name=pepsi%20gravitational%20field.pdf)

I wonder if the Pepsi execs are still looking at this doc and wondering why
they are second to Coke and Diet Coke?

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rdtsc
I think companies that are falling behind seem to be grasping at the straw.
Someone suggested "well we seem to be losing market share, it is probably
because we have an outdated logo, let's fix that"

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EwanToo
Some of the design work in the main case study [1] is fascinating and really
good, but I think the new logo suggested is pretty poor.

It's a nice concept, but falls down badly on actually being readable and
recognisable as a company logo, not a random modern art installation.

[1] <http://www.movingbrands.com/?category_name=hp-work>

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artursapek
HP is a big enough company that they will be able to take this and make it
recognizable. As with any brand, it will take a lot of time, but I'm
interested to see how this works for them.

It's likely the most abstract and simple logo I've seen a company of this size
try using, so I admire this move on their part because it's risky and
interesting. I do question the 13° thing, though. It may be crossing the line
of simplicity and non-description if they intend to move on to just a forward-
slash in a decade. I don't know if such a simple shape can do the job of a
logo.

edit: Regardless, almost any logo can be a good logo if it's stamped on good
products.

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rbanffy
> HP is a big enough company that they will be able to take this and make it
> recognizable

If they have to do it, it's already a failure. Unless you are _very_ familiar
with their current logo, the odds of you guessing what the new one is are
vanishingly small. They'd have to spend a ton of money to _maintain_ its
recognizability.

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artursapek
_If they have to do it, it's already a failure._

That's not true, no logo is recognizable when it's first designed. The whole
point is you build an association to your company by putting it on your
products, and ads (which will probably be crucial in this transition). If you
start seeing this logo and hearing the letters "HP" along with it you'll start
to recognize it really quick.

 _They'd have to spend a ton of money to maintain its recognizability._

Like I said, the way you maintain a logo's recognizability is by simply using
it. What I meant to say is if they use a specific design aesthetic/context,
through repetition the logo will become recognizable. HP is a big company and
their usage of it will be heavy enough to make that happen. It just might be
more challenging since they're pushing the limits of abstraction in logo
design, which is what I find interesting.

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rbanffy
> no logo is recognizable when it's first designed

I am surrounded by logos anyone with even the most a tenuous grasp of written
language would be able to interpret correctly in less than 5 seconds. IBM,
Dell, Microsoft, Philips, HP (the current one), iG (the company I work for).
The ones that would require more work would be the Microsoft flag, Apple's
bitten apple (which is obviously an apple) and Ubuntu's circle of friends. I
understand your point of continuously using the logo in order to build
context, but this one is not like Cisco's bridge - it's a very generic set of
four parallel lines. When someone tells you it's HP's logo, you say "ah! of
course!" but, until then, people will scratch their heads for a while.

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artursapek
Maybe you're right, but to be fair those names you mentioned all use logotypes
and this design is bordering on just a logo- it's much less of a logotype.

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rbanffy
True. This would be HP's first pure logo. I mean, it resembles vaguely what
remains from h and p when you get rid of all horizontal lines...

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bluedevil2k
"The defining signature of the system is the 13° angle. 13° represents HP’s
spirit as a company, driven forward by ingenuity and optimism about the future
and a belief in human progress."

This reads to a non-designer like myself as pure BS, written merely to justify
the likely exhorbitant cost of their work. All that seems missing is a few
"paradigms" and "outside the boxes".

Could an experienced logo designer weigh in a let us "pure techies" know if
this kind of stuff passes muster with you? Does a 13* angle really convey that
much more than a 14* could?

For what it's worth, the new logo looks terrible. The old one had a classic
tech look like IBM's.

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artursapek
As a design student I can guarantee the 13° stuff is presentation BS. It's an
attempt to make the HP board-members feel as if they really got their money's
worth, like it's been meticulously designed and perfected to the degree.

I wish they had just referred to it as an italic, because that's what it is.
But that wouldn't fly.

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rbanffy
13 is louder than 12, after all ;-)

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Jgrubb
Does anybody else like the 1941 logo a lot better than the rest of these?

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rbanffy
I like the current one better than the 1940's one, but the best one, IMHO, is
the one used from the 60's to the late 90's.

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latch
When you _look_ at it, you see the 'h' and the 'p', but when you just glance
at it, it's nothing. The effect is kinda neat, but I'm tempted to say that
'clever' is not what a logo should be (and I think clever here is being
generous).

edit: at least not this kinda of clever, where the whole thing is hidden.

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udp
[http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/hp_mb_lo...](http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/hp_mb_logo_explain_chart.jpg)

Seems to imply this is some kind of joke?

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Raphael
No, that's easily on the level.

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zyb09
A little bit too simple for me. I guess it supposed to look cool and sleek,
but I don't know, something is odd about just 4 lines. What do you guys think?

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listic
It might be a fad in logo design: oversimplify everything into a few lines. I
hope it goes away and I hope good designers don't follow it.

I would say that the Cisco (old: <http://www.it-
building.ru/insertfiles/Image/cisco-270406.jpg> new:
[http://www.theavco.com/sites/default/files/images/Cisco_logo...](http://www.theavco.com/sites/default/files/images/Cisco_logo.png))
and Russian Railways (<http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/1487/1111qa.jpg>
old: left, new: right) are too parts of this worrying pattern.

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GFischer
Cisco was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw this new logo.

I also don't like this fad.

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cawhitworth
I honestly can't tell if this is satire.

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bradleyland
So you're the new CEO at HP, and you look out across the landscape. You see
many problems. Lots of things need deliberate attention with a mindful
approach to creating solutions that can be put in motion today and followed
through for years to come....

And you come to the conclusion that what the company really needs is a
corporate identity refresh.

Je ne sais quoi - An intangible quality that makes something distinctive or
attractive.

\-- <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/je_ne_sais_quoi>

I can say, with a high level of confidence, that the intangible quality that
produces _je ne said quoi_ surrounding brands like Apple. The current HP logo
is sufficiently "designy" to surpass the general public's expectations.

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swombat
Yeah, because what HP needs right now is a new logo...

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prawn
Looks like "lip" at first glance.

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warmfuzzykitten
Happy to see Meg is on top of HP's core problems. They were so 12°!

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josephkern
It looks like they just copied the MIT Press Logo and italicized it.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Press>

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jerrya
Looks like the MIT Press Logo just drank illy coffee:

<http://cyberiancafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/illy1.png>

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gnu8
Looks like a middle finger to me.

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rytis
I couldn't stop reading it as bp. Maybe it's a hint of another merge?

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antifuchs
Good choice! They went with a logo that is as stripped down as the company
itself.

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kondro
Looks like a 4-state postal barcode to me.

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wtvanhest
They should have just made it a pear with a bite out of it.

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wtvanhest
I like the way Californians have zero capacity for sarcasm. Source: down voted
comment above.

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jerrya
Zis is Hacker News, we don't dududu here.

