So, recently, the obscure indie tech startup known as Google, decided to change the icons of all their apps (sheets, docs, etc) to basically the same design except with different shapes. 

I mean it’s not really earth shattering to me, like, I’m not gonna be hopelessly lost and confused in my treacherous journey to decipher which icon’s Google Sheets or not, but it still makes me go “well that’s sorta dumb I guess”, and that’s what this article’s all about!

A lotta other brands have been going this direction too, of sorta simplifying their logos and other corporate symbols to be more flat and less iconically memorable. Some good examples are like, WB, Intel, Petco, and Pringles all just being basically more corporate and flat shells of their former selves, that don’t really devastate me, but just make me go: Why’d they do that? 

Logos are just sorta a small commodity, a nice lil icon on your packaged product, so honestly there’s more I could be worried about in my life. But if one thing’s true about humans for all of history, is that we like to complain about useless nothingness which doesn’t affect our lives in the slightest. But anyway, they probably do this just to make it easier to draw and incorporate into stuff in a way that doesn’t take too much risks, and are easier to animate with less individual assets to keyframe or whatever, but there’s just something about say, the 2000’s era Pepsi logo, or Windows Xp logo, that just stand out to me I guess.

Making an icon, or design that’s memorable and iconic as a brand or otherwise that’ll stick, is definitely not an easy thing to do, especially when you probably have 20 different executives and management teams that your design’ll have to go through before they can even consider using it. But it is important when you wanna get your brand out there, to be something remembered by people so they can, y’know, keep buying it.

So, I guess when you’re a company as big as Pringles or whatever, striking iconography isn’t really that important when everybody already knows who you are, like people aren’t going “Woaa Burger King? Their logo’s like…a burger or somethin…thats wild man I gotta tell someone about this stuff”.

But still, the worst offenders of this are definitely Snapple and Firefox. While the browser icon’s still there, the Firefox company logo’s sorta just a fire uhh, circle now?

But then again, it’s not as bad as the Snapple redesign. I mean like I’m legit mad about this one, I mean my face is definitely turning red as I spit up white froth on my kitchen counter like a fat baby with a big ol’ vein popping outta my eyeball cause a billion dollar ice tea brand changed how their bottle looks, but really though, IT SUCKS!

I mean art’s all subjective and whatnot, BUT IT SUCKS!

80% of the whole appeal of Snapple was those glass bottles right? And like, ok ok, they changed the material to plastic, that’s alright I guess… but now seriously?? It looks like a bottle of coffee creamer or somethin, like alongside that insanely flat corporate logo, it’s almost like a different drink now.

But here’s a lil beacon of hope so that you can end your reading of this terrible article what some consider a high note: The new Popeye’s logo’s pretty cool.