DeviantArt's New Logo

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DeeForty-Five's avatar
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"Our new logo is symbolic of everything we believe. It is an audacious and inspired evolution of our original dA mark--literally turning the art world upside down. We love it because, like DA, people might not get it right away and, like all great art, it challenges perceptions and perspectives. Most importantly, it elevates DeviantArt and our artists."

What a load of bullshit.

Before I go into the pretentious mess that is the explanation above, let's talk about the logo itself. Do you know what I see when I look at it? I see a sickly, puke-green percentage sign. Not a cut-off letter A. Compare this: "%" with this: "A" and tell me which one looks more like the new logo to you.

Of course, the logo need not be a percent sign. It could also be a poorly-made letter Z. A distorted Swiss cross. The logo looks like all of these much more than it looks like an A.

The official explanation is that it's a stylized letter A cut in half. First of all, if you're going to have your logo look like the letter A, fucking make it look like the letter A. Don't cut off the right leg and add a wonky bit jutting out to the side and expect people to understand what you're going for. It's not going to happen.

The logo itself is awful. It hits all the checkpoints of lazy undergrad art student design. Slanted lines? Check. Negative space more important than the actual shit that we see? Check. Obnoxious color jumping out at the viewer's face? Check check check! Rather than try for an inspired design, DeviantArt's new logo just follows the leader and goes for a "trendy" logo packed with false meaning.

Let's go into that explanation at the top of the screen. It's a paragraph full of stilted business-ese, pack with eye-rolling attempts at intelligence and meaning. "Our new logo is symbolic of everything we believe." Is it? Well, since it's a percentage sign, I guess that fits the recent commercialization of the website. Buy this, make us profits. Get 20% off when you use DeviantArt points! But I guess that's not fair. After all, it's supposed to be an A. Let's look at it from that angle. It's a letter A with a crucial part missing and extraneous bits added. Wow, got me there! You really hit the nail on the head! After all, dA is indeed missing many basic features unless you purchase a premium membership--tying into the money complaint above--and recently they've added pointless things rather than fix some basic problems. An example of these worthless additions? Jeez, I don't know, maybe a trashy new logo?

"It is an audacious and inspired evolution of our original dA mark." Really? Let's go to the dictionary and look at what these words mean. Audacious: "showing a willingness to take surprisingly bold risks." While from a certain point of view the new logo is indeed a bold risk--replacing an established logo with a poorly thought-out new one--it's not particularly bold in the sense of bravely striking new territory, which is what I think they were going for. It's the sort of second-rate trendy garbage we've seen everywhere in the new tens. Inspired: "of extraordinary quality, as if arising from some external creative impulse." No. If your new logo causes a website full of professional artists to double take and complain about it, your logo is not of extraordinary artistic quality.

"[Our logo is] literally turning the art world upside down." Literally? That's not a word to be used lightly. For one thing, I don't think anything can literally turn the art world upside down. The "art world" is an abstract concept that has no up or down. "But Dee," you say, "surely you get that they meant they were just shaking things up?" No, I don't, because unfortunately the word "literally" means just that: that the words that follow are literal, i.e. to be taken completely at face value with no abstractness or double meaning. There's a whole community of writers and poets here; maybe they could have asked one of us to define a few words for them, because it's clear that whomever wrote this doesn't understand them. Digressions aside, I think this refers to the fact that the new logo looks the same upside-down as it does normally. That's not edgy, that's a dumb gimmick.

"We love it because... people might not get it right away." They knew. They fucking knew! They knew their logo would be confusing and draw ire from many corners and they did it anyway. Why? I don't know. Probably some high-up suit fell in love with this design and ordered it changed despite the protestations of the rank and file. Here's the thing: logos aren't meant to be understood after contemplating them and giving the issue thought. It should be clear right away what they represent. If your logo is so vague that you need to hedge your manifesto with a warning that not everyone will understand it, you're doing it wrong.

"Like all great art, it challenges perceptions and perspectives." I wonder if this logo was reverse-engineered to adhere to a new mission statement. I suppose that from a certain mindset, this bastardized A that looks the same upside down could challenge perceptions and perspectives. I won't disagree about that statement about great art--great art really does challenge its audience. But this logo is not great art.

"Most importantly, it elevates DeviantArt and our artists." How, exactly? As they said in Wendy's commercials and political campaigns, "where's the beef?" Please explain.

As a professional writer with a Daily Deviation under his belt, I feel justified saying this new logo blows. It's an awkward, pseudo-meaningful eyesore that tries so hard to be trendy and hip and le artiste that it's become a convoluted, confusing mess. I won't say nobody likes it, because obviously someone at DeviantArt corporate offices fucking loved this thing or it wouldn't be here. But most artists on this website I've seen or spoken to are not impressed.

Also, the website was abbreviated as both "dA" and "DA" in that little manifesto. Did you notice that? I bet you thought that was a typo on my part, huh? Nope, that's in the official release. The new DeviantArt doesn't even know how to abbreviate itself.


© 2014 - 2024 DeeForty-Five
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Cookieeater827's avatar
The new logo is modern art, and modern art is lazy art that's made in probably less than a minute.