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Comment by esbwhat | Hacker News Reader

I'm no designer, but aren't logos supposed to be recognizable? This is a geometric shape, why not just use a square for the logo, or a triangle?

Would people really associate this shape (which isn't particularly unique and probably not even trademark-able) with microsoft when they see it? I have my doubts

Also unrelatedly, the missing i-dot is really throwing me off (probably just because I am used to it)

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Microsoft is big enough that a shape that simple could easily become their logo. What company is this:

http://www.owenjonesdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/1_...

or this:

http://www.wearesuntravel.com/SquareLogo_Jewel.303162624_std...

or this:

http://www.vintagevideogamer.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/...

What's the second one? Edit: never mind. Its Square Up. Found it on the second page of a Google Image Search.

Square

Right. I found it. Probably not the best example of a ubiquitous company with an instantly recognizable logo, unless it was just a joke.

With the website you are on it is highly likely that many people would instantly recognize the logo. Maybe not the general population, but here, definitely.

Sure. Just weird to include it between Nike and Google as a company big enough to use simple shapes as logos. I didn't recognize it (obviously). Not a bad logo, though.

Target has almost the same logo just with circles and would be a better example.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but none of those logos is nearly as simple as this one. For example, I wasn't taught a formula for calculating their area in elementary school.

Are there any successful logos that really are this simple?

Target's logo is pretty simple.

Yes, you're right, they're slighly more complicated. Hows about these:

http://blog.iso50.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/windowslive...

http://www.findthatlogo.com/wp-content/gallery/pepsi-logos/o...

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_DvlYtL1ReM0/TIHrinS6g5I/AAAAAAAACw...

this is even better:

http://www.logodesignconsultant.com/images/Memorable-simple-...

this is probably the winner though:

http://www.petergreenberg.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/log...

all of those are significantly more complicated. you really can't argue that a shape made up of one very simple shape is only slightly less complicated than a shape made up of a couple/several simple shapes. by that logic, you could argue that every letter in the Latin alphabet is very simple; I'm sure everyone would agree that there is a significant difference in complexity between a rectangle and an uppercase 'F'.

Interestingly, the red cross logo is actually a trademark of Johnson & Johnson [1], not the Red Cross. It's also easily confused with the Swiss flag, and Swatch Watches (though granted they have inverted colours). Unless there is some context you wouldn't necessarily know which brand that was referring to. If you remove the colour (as is proposed on the page), it's just a plus sign and not recognisable at all.

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1559971/Johnson-an...

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