Except it doesn't change my perception at all. My previous perception of Marissa Mayer was that she was a "work hard, not smart" overachiever who has become more known for her ability to make her numbers (like how long she works a week, how many weeks of maternity leave she takes, how many extra jobs around the office she piles on her plate, etc.) look good than to actually produce results. My perception was that Yahoo's board, in its infinite incompetence, hired her purely because she was infamous at Google for her work ethic (yet clearly didn't get the memo from Google as to why she wasn't moving further up the ranks), expecting her mere presence at Yahoo to turn the company around.

This "stunt," as you call it, did nothing to change that. In fact, it makes me have even less faith in Yahoo. How great do Yahoo's investors feel that their CEO is spending her time on trying to be designer instead of streamlining and turning her company around.

The one part of Yahoo's brand that was at least MILDLY interesting was its personality. I mean, the name is based on someone screaming! The new logo makes it look like they should change their name to "Ahem" or "::Clears Throat Politely::" Which brings me to my final point that, what scares me most about this logo redesign is that Mayer clearly doesn't understand her own company's brand perception. She had the opportunity to hone in on what makes Yahoo great and let that quirkiness shine, but instead she took a zamboni to her brand in a failed attempt to make a more "mature" look. If Mayer was so excited about literally tilting an exclamation point 9 degrees to the right as some sort of liberating self-expression, can you imagine how up-tight people must be over there now?