Don't Like the New iTunes Logo? You Are Not Alone
Apple (AAPL) redesigned the iTunes icon and the critics have not been kind. People just kinda hate it. It tells you something about how closely consumers examine their relationship with electronics that even something as trivial as a desktop icon revamp creates an outpouring of anger across the web.
The logo was redesigned for the obvious reason that the old one featured a CD, and people just don't buy them anymore. So the disc was binned and the double note emphasized (Apple might also have given some thought to the the fact that iTunes is increasingly about video and other content as well as "tunes.")
Seems reasonable enough but ... designers have been picking it apart ever since it appeared. One of the main irritants, it seems, is that the design uses as many cheesy visual effects as possible. Clinton Duncan of the Brand New blog wrote:
One design blogger discovered that you can reproduce most of the new logo with just 30 seconds' work on Apple's WordArt tool:The new version of the icon seems to be following the standard "more is more" approach of on screen design: drop shadows, glows, bevels, gradients? We got 'em all!
You would think they would spend a little more time on this, but perhaps the iTunes 10 team was too busy making iTunes suck more on Windows,The icon has been nominated for a Tracy Award, which honors bad advertising:
Gradients, bevels and glows! Oh my! I'm aghast this is the best Apple could come up with.
Steve,Jobs replied:Enjoyed the presentation today. But -- this new iTunes logo really sucks. You're taking 10+ years of instant product recognition and replacing it with an unknown. Let's both cross our fingers on this--.
We disagree.There are two things to bear in mind before redesigning a brand logo. First, as Tropicana found out recently, some consumers are extremely attached to old logos but don't know it until they disappear. You might want to do some market research to find out how much angst you'll cause by modernizing your brand in a redesign. Second, consumers are now extremely design savvy. Virtually everyone with a computer can use photo editing and design software, so we have a very good idea of how much effort you put in to a redesign. The old maxim "my kid could have done that!" was never closer to being true than now.Sent from my iPhone
And finally: Courtesey of Brand New, here's Apple's historic chain of iTunes logos. They are, indeed, all horrible:
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