Revising MailChimp's logo | Hacker News Reader

Revising MailChimp's logo

jessicahische.is

212 pointsdarkchyld64 comments

This is one of those things that I read through and go "yep. yep. yep. and yep." But I would have never seen those things if not for a before and after or having a trained designer point them out to me.

There's a big difference between understanding something and being able to generate it ex nihilo. Years ago, I would look at code samples and think "ah! how clever! why couldn't I think of that?" Now, having had much more practice I can come up with all those once-clever solutions on my own. It's fun to move from looking at other's people work and thinking you could never do it, to realizing they've done it a good way, but you might do it a bit differently.

Now I just look at my code and say, quit being so damn "clever", but that's a different topic.

You know what's funny? I had the same feeling when I was working with Jason Long who designed the git-scm.com logo [1]. I asked if he could help me design a logo for http://gitignore.io and he came up with an awesome design [2]. It took elements from the original git-scm.com and used them in a creative way to emulate a dot file. I showed it to my friend and he was like "That's so easy to do" and my response was "yeah, but you would have never come up with it 100 designs." My friend didn't refute that.

[1] - http://git-scm.com/images/logo@2x.png

[2] - https://raw.github.com/joeblau/gitignore.io/master/public/gi...

I started watching the Github repo [1], I love your website!

1: https://github.com/joeblau/gitignore.io

Thanks :)

I find the final p Mail Chimp extremely hard to distinguish, especially at smaller sizes. The p looks like its saying Chimyo instead of chimp.

I will probably get downvoted into oblivion for this... So let me preface by saying that I really like the new design.

At what point do you as a startup justify spending a huge amount of money on a "designer" to tweak a font? Does it look nice? Absolutely.

Would I, as a business owner, pay a lot of money to change one cursive font to a slightly different cursive font? I'm not so sure.

Sub question: What does a design tweak like this cost? From what I've seen, sought after designers can go for some serious $$$.

Logos go everywhere so to have something that is really amazing that you use for years; why not spend a few bucks to make it look even better.

A fair question. It's essentially the design equivalent of optimizing your db code: Will your business suffer because you get 8% fewer writes per second than you could with some refactoring? Probably not. But it all adds up to the responsiveness of your web application, and likewise, the easy-to-miss typographic nuances add up to the overall impression of quality of the product.

By the way, to be designer-pedantic... There are actually no fonts involved at all here, as far as I can tell – the original logo appears to have been an original calligraphic piece, and the new one is an iteration on that, further refining its calligraphic form.

So long as we're being pedantic, the original logo used Wendy Std Bold with a slightly modified "C": http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/adobe/wendy-lp/

Wow, I stand corrected. The original logo also has subtle adjustments to one or both of the lower-case 'i' characters to make them each different, which was what threw me off.

Thank you for a great explanation/analogy.

Let us not forget the human. An additional benefit of refactoring is you are going to feel better motivated, which may help you produce better work in next few days. So will anyone maintaining your code in the future, and perhaps the time she would've spend WTFing at previous code, she will spend differently, and more motivated as well.

FWIW When I was a student at the Art Institute of Atlanta, one of my instructors was Aarron Walter (UX Lead at MailChimp). He mentioned they paid John Hicks a flat fee of $50,000 for the logo and the monkey illustration.

For them, building on the emotion and branding of Freddy was not a joke and they wanted something that could be playful while still performing an essential business function.

Agree with the cost or not, it did start an era for them where they've done very well.

I imagine Jessica's fee was not as much as Hicks but not far away either I'm sure.

Well worth it, I'm sure. When choosing between MailChimp and CampaignMonitor for our newsletters (both equally good at the time as far as I could tell), we went with MailChimp simply because we got a kick out of it.

It rings true for me too; along the same lines as those that buy an amp to drive $50 phones or buy Dre's Beats. A change in sounds doesn't necessarily mean an improvement. There's a noticeable difference; I paid big bucks; it must be better!

This is not to say the OP is a hack. I appreciated the article and work very much. But as others have shown in this thread, with the right framing, there are flaws in the "improvement!" To me, the article needs patio11 A-B treatment to convince me the masses are giving a crap.

I hope that didn't cost serious $$$. Looks like a freebie font turned into a logo.

That's a cute troll comment. Like when my mom says "aren't all websites the same?"

Here's a question:

I noticed that in the last step, she separated the words Mail and Chimp with a space. Given that this article is kind of about subtleties making a difference, does that introduce confusion as to whether the company is Mail Chimp or MailChimp? When I look at the text portions of the page, I see it referred to both ways (ex: in the page title and left sidebar). On the MailChimp site itself, it's without the space. So, I assume that's correct.

So, could the logo confuse the branding? Or is it unimportant?

It's unimportant.

It's not a space. The l and the C are at the same distance as before. She just remove the ligature. I looks more natural I think. Writing with a pen on paper, I wouldn't write the l and the C with a single line. There's a natural cut here.

Ah, you're right. It's not a space. That brings up and interesting point. Because, in cursive, the removed ligature means there's a word break. So, that and the upcased "Chimp" seem to suggest that it's two words. OTOH, I think it is an easier read and more natural, as you suggest. I guess there's a little "tension" between the design and the naming elements of the brand? Maybe one that was introduced by the original cursive choice?

I am usually not a pedant, but it raised the question since the article is about nuanced choices in branding.

I also may be sensitive to it because I founded a company with such a compound name, that is also meant to be written without a space and with the first letters upcased. We don't use cursive in our logo, but people frequently write our name without the space as well. And I've always wondered what, if any, impact it has on our branding, SEO, etc.

"http://jessicahische.is/monkeyingaround" has got to be the best URL I've seen in a long time.

It's not just a URL; it's a whole URL scheme!

Home page: http://jessicahische.is/awesome

Blog: http://jessicahische.is/thinkingthoughts

About page: http://jessicahische.is/anoversharer

the contents the 404 page is also funny

http://jessicahische.is/404

Click the heart image in the top right corner of a page and switch to "Teen Girl Mode."

There are plenty of gems in her work. Here goes the last hour of work...

http://jessicahische.is/rememberingherlisafranktrapperkeeper

http://jessicahische.is/anaaaaarrrrrrrrtist

http://jessicahische.is/illustratingpenguinsinbathingsuits

http://jessicahische.is/eatingcornflakesforbreakfast

http://jessicahische.is/workingwithwesandersonomg

Reminds me of http://craig.is/killing/mice

Why not link directly to her site?

http://jessicahische.is/monkeyingaround

The blog you linked to (and you seem to link to it a lot) simply excerpted some of the text from her site, and then included some of the images (but not all) from her blog.

At least that post's author had the decency to re-host the images and put a source link at the bottom.

It looks like the OP took your advice & did so, editing the post to link to the url you posted in your comment, at least when I visited it.

You can't edit the URL on HN submissions. A mod must have changed it.

Thanks, Mods.

Thmods

Looks like the mods got this. Thanks, Mods

Am I the only one that feels the logo now reads as: Mailchimys?

I agree. The 'm' is nicer, but the 'p' is not as nice.

I don't think it's a problem with the 'p'. The join between the 'm' and 'p' is too large. Closing the gap between those two letters would make the join look much less like a 'y'.

Instagram had a similar redesign recently.

http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/hand_bea...

I recommend subscribing to the Brand New blog if you're interested in logo redesigns. (They got the news about MailChimp weeks ago.)

Well done. It's amazing how micro improvements to a logo can make it stand out more, be more memorable, and more readable by getting rid of imperfections and distractions like misalignments. Oddly enough the same can be said for plastic surgery, less is often more. As others pointed out, the only little issue is that for some the logo now reads "Mail Chinys" or "Mail Chimys". A slight alteration to the curvature of the "p" can fix this. Basically by making it rounder and less like a cursive "s".

Looks fantastic, and I really like the presentation of how it was improved.

For the most part it's excellent, and I love Hische's work, but the lowercase 'm' is not as distinct as before. It looks like it says "MailChirry".

For people who dig cursive writing that last part isn't great. But many only claim to like cursive writing. They don't actually use it or read it often.

I think phony cursive works well for this project, and goes well for the MailChimp esthetic overall.

I'm embarrassed to admit that both logos look same to me and that the changes this designer made are really trivial.

It's nothing to be embarrassed about!

Appreciating and understanding the changes to the full extent would require a solid education in visual communication and typography. Just as you might look at my disgustingly hacked together jQuery scripts, a visual designer might look upon your typography with contempt.

That being said, Hische's changes concentrate on a more nuanced intuitive flow of the letterforms that to the lay person, results in a more balance at-a-glance look. It's hard, because it's very subjective, but Hische's redesign is the equivalent to using a spirit level when laying blocks. Hardly noticeable to the man-on-the-street under the microscope, but when delivered in context, consistently and as part of a whole, lends a stronger and more concrete presentation.

Honestly, the old logo looks better. Not everything needs a symmetrical aligned look..some things look better..organic.

I cant help but say that the P, is almost read as a Y, I think the opening of the Y tail, helps suggest that this is a cursive y. The spacing is widened, and places the p further out. Maybe pulling the lower gap between m and p in, reducing the spacing, and keeping the open loop.

Noticed that not only the ligature between 'l' and 'C' is removed, the designer's also, on a few occasions, type the client's name with a space between the 'l' and 'C'.

Great post, awesome to see how much of a craft(wo)manship design actually is. :)

The changes are subtle but nice. Does anyone know how much mailchimp would have paid for a redesign like that? I just want to get a better understanding of how the design industry would work in that respect.

So good to see some design related news on here. Especially when it comes from one of the nicest and best in our industry. Her presentation to the lay person is not only informative but engaging as well.

Putting the new and old logo on different color backgrounds makes it much harder to notice the difference in the two designs.

Mailchimy?!

Well atleast it wasn't about flattening anything.

MailChinys

I saw exactly the same thing. The older logo was definitely clearer in that area.

looks like mailchimjs to me...

The loop on the P is definitely decreasing legibility at small sizes.

I actually didn't see it like that. But now that you pointed it out, I can't unsee it.

I'm really puzzled why the designer chose to open some specific areas here. Specifically, the letters "m" and "p" in Chimp.

Cursive script has some "tight" areas for a reason. For example, the first and second vertical strokes of the lowercase "m" are supposed to overlap to form the appearance of a single stroke. The break for the curve should not start at half of the x-height. Likewise for the lowercase "p", the break for the curve should not start so low.

The net result is reduced readability, IMO.

I was kind of wondering if it was 'y', 'js' or 'p'. The 'p' of the older logo was more readable in my opinion.

Overall, I like the new logo more.

It really starts to look like a y in the smaller size.

Can't unsee. The new p shape does make it less readable.

I saw Mail Chimyo but now I see MailChinys as well. The one thing I don't see is MailChimp.

Was MailChings for me, admittedly with an odd "g", but this part is definitely worse than before.

I agree, my eye went RIGHT to the "y" at the end - but it's not supposed to be a "y".

I keep reading MailChimy

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