So, when did this trend begin? Armin Vit, graphic designer and author of the popular branding blog Brand New, pegs the emergence of the trend to Airbnb’s rebrand in 2014-by the London-based DesignStudio-which switched the logo from a bubbly script to a restrained sans serif. “They’re just trying to be like the other big boys.” “You understand why they’re making the shift from a warm and whimsical look to a more straightforward approach,” he says. Edmondson cites the pared-down Pinterest logo, which abandoned its playful ligatures for a grotesque sans-serif (“grotesque” refers to a simple, classically-proportioned typeface, similar to Helvetica). Tech companies who resist the trend may do so at the risk of appearing old fashioned. “The problem is we don’t always want to perceive corporations as legitimate if they’re not legitimate, or as friendly if they don’t actually have our best interests at heart.”Īrguably, there’s a parallel between the current geometric sans-serif takeover and Helvetica’s domination of corporate branding in the 1960s. “These typefaces are ubiquitous, and they lend an air of legitimacy to whatever is being presented,” Edmondson says. Type nerds ended up embroiled in a spirited debate Fast Company Design turned to branding experts for their reactions.įor his part, Edmondson does not view this trend as a positive one. His tweet comparing the twinning logos went viral. It’s the typographic equivalent of walking into your Airbnb in Cologne and realizing it’s decorated identically to your Airbnb in Seoul: different site, same aesthetic.Įdmondson, who spends his days designing offbeat typefaces for his one-man foundry OH No Type Co., evidently struck a chord. Turns out that the new look for big tech is flat, bright sans-serif and essentially interchangeable. Google, Spotify, Airbnb, and Pinterest-companies that had blossomed from nimble tech startups into multi-million dollar giants-had all gradually abandoned their distinctive logos for rebrands so similar, they could have come straight off an assembly line. SSI’s 3,600 employees serve more than 2,500 clients worldwide.Recently, San Francisco-based type designer James Edmondson noticed something unsettling. SSI staff operates from 30 offices in 21 countries, offering sample, data collection, CATI, questionnaire design consultation, programming and hosting, online custom reporting and data processing.
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