Journal Entry 3: New Logo Takeover

I have recently noticed a large upheaval of old logos and the design of new ones. It got me to thinking, why do companies do this? Is it for aesthetics alone, or are they trying to boost sales? Are they trying to target new audiences/consumers or just move the product in a new direction? There are a lot of reasons for a logo/design change, and I suppose the only one who will ever know is the design team and the products' creative directors. Either way, let's take a look at two products and one service that has recently undergone a design change.
First is the ever lady-popular Skintimate. I can't live without this stuff. I buy it pretty consistently, which is probably why I noticed the logo change so immediately. One bottle I bought had the old logo, and the next one was made over!

I think that this change was made for the best. The old logo was beginning to look really aged (hence "old"). The new logo is fresh looking and is more apt to appeal to a wider, younger audience. It's hard to see on this image, but some of the colors were changed to be more subtle and less like that bad early 90s flower girl dress I wore to my cousin's wedding. The bottle has more of an organic feel to it now, with "hand drawn" text. The little box behind the product name is also a good addition, it helps the rest of the aesthetics. It appears more balanced and more visually pleasing. The only thing I find odd is that they didn't change the way the rest of the text looked. Before, the logo and the sub texts were unified. Now they are different from each other, and not necessarily in a good way. Hm...

The second product we will look at is The Body Shop's and Bath and Body Works' Japanese Cherry Blossom line. I also can not live without either of these lines...I have the body lotion, the shower gel, the hand cream, the perfume(s), the hand sanitizer...the list goes on. That being said, I was able to see first hand how they shift the design/logos around with each and fit it in with different package designs.
The Body Shop


Bath and Body Works


I think these two products communicate two very different things, and they communicate them to two different age groups. The Body Shop's product line, with it's hot pink and black color scheme, seems to be directed at a much younger audience. The bold text creates a healthy hierarchy: your eyes go straight to the product name, in both English and French. It has a very clean, modern appearance. The Bath and Body Works products seem to have a very different take, using the color of the product (a yellowy, golden sort of color), red, black, and white. It also featured a strong, serifed typeface using color to aid emphasis. This makes the product seem more "serious" or "grown up", and marketed towards adults. Now let's look at the logo change. With the Body Shop, the logo and type remains the same, however, the layout changes according to the bottle or jar or dispenser. This promotes a good sense of variety within the line, making each product its own. The Bath and Body Works products follow a very similar pattern, but their line recently got a makeover. The old design (the perfume on the right), is vaguely mirrored in the new design (the hand cream on the left). The colors remained the same, but the type is softened to make it appear cleaner and more modern. The image also has a new, slightly softer appearance. Perhaps they have made this change to compete at a higher level with The Body Shop's line?


The last thing we will look at in this entry is the redesign of MSN.com.

I hate it. Flat out hate it. It looks too much like Yahoo. The old MSN allowed users to easily navigate material. It was laid out in a very user-friendly way. The new MSN has moved everything around, made the hierarchy different, and has incorporated a weird color scheme mechanism that doesn't do much for it. I find it really hard to click around the site because my eyes can't really focus on what I'm looking at. Each portion of the website, for example "Celebs and Gossip", "News", and "MSN Shopping" are stacked on each other. The new design went for a very 'clean' look, but I think there should be a place to draw the line...literally. The portions are not seperated visually from each other so the eye can't focus on each section individually. It's too jumbled. The white is nice, but further use of color will help each user distinguish between the sections they want and don't want. I think perhaps I dislike it so much because they changed something that I liked. I'll have to get used to it, but I'm not even sure if I will like it then. All of my negativeness aside, let's look at the logos. The old logo was very serious looking and the butterfly was beginning to look quite outdated. This is the only successful part about the redesign in my opinion. I love the non-cap pseudo san-serif used for "msn" and the new appearance of the butterfly. Their ads for the "New MSN tour" have butterfly cutouts in them which I find very unifying with the new campaign. I also appreciate the fact that they kept the same colors for the new butterfly, which makes it very recognizable and unified with their old logo. Overall the logo has a very fresh, younger design. I think they have done this to compete with other homepages such as Firefox, Yahoo, and the newly released Google Chrome's homepage. This kind of overhaul is obviously for the need of attention. But will this attract more viewers or scare them away? Personally, I have been scared away, but only time will tell.