See What’s Possible
Late last year Adobe released the first images of their new CS icons, and debates ensued here and on many other sites as to their quality or lack thereof. Adobe has now launched a new visual identity for Photoshop. Some say it feels like the PBS logo, or the iChat icon. The response in the thread of comments on John Nack’s site are resoundingly negative.
At first glimpse, the new logo seems profoundly derivative and faceless, while calling to mind some recent iconography from Mac versions of the Microsoft Office applications. The real question is, what do you want to associate with the most widely-used graphic program around? I’ve seen this logo many times before, for many different companies. I would actually like to See What’s Possible.
Update
Armin hits the nail squarely on the head with Photoshop 2.0: The Wrong Kind of 2.0.- Posted at 1:54 pm in Design
Commentary Closed (19)
I don’t love the new logo, but then I’m pretty quick to judge that sort of thing … as are most designers, I would imagine. It is, as you put it, “profoundly derivative and faceless”. Lots of people, including myself, mentioned that it reminded them of PBS. But here’s the thing… Can Adobe ever do anything right in the eyes of creative types? Be it their icon design or logos… we’ve become an overly critical bunch. (Myself included.)
Again, I don’t love the new logo, but we need to start complaining about the real problem here: there’s too many frickin’ variations of Photoshop to begin with. Between Photoshop CS3, Photoshop CS3 Extended, Photoshop Lightroom, Photoshop Elements, Photoshop Album Start Edition, and the soon-to-be-released Photoshop Online, there are SIX products associated with the Photoshop brand.
Amen, Chris on the number of versions. As far as the new, butt-ugly logo, I don’t know why they bothered. if they weren’t going to make it better. At any rate, I love Photoshop, whatever the logo is.
hmmph. this is a definite down grade - WAY down grade.
I think with the onslaught of photoshop variations, the original photoshop CS3 icon would be the best to possibly modify for representation.
this new icon will be changed immediately in my dock due to, both, it’s overly microsoft feel and because its futuristic-y-ness just plain lame.
i liked to O.G. CS3 icons; and all changes in the past were far more amicable than this.
Everything about all of the CS3 logos, along with the installers, is lack luster. Both of them look like a version one program splash somebody slapped together with MS Paint.
I’m with you, Jason. You would think a company that rules the graphical world… and especially after acquiring Macromedia… might want to spend a few dollars to create a new and attractive face for itself. Apparently not!
A speech bubble with a giant hole in the middle. Such symbolism.
I don’t like it. It seems like they don’t know what to do with the brand. I think they needed to move away from the feather, maybe to something more stylized, but this speech bubble shaped like the letter P (clever) is a little too ambiguous.
I have unsuccessfully attempted to install CS3 on my machine at work. The install keeps failing so I get is the icons. I have to wait till they can re-image my machine so I can upgrade. I will search for some new icons however.
I think a new logo/icon is in order (for all of CS3 really). Maybe something that actually indicates that the program is… Photoshop?
I don’t normally get too involved with design I don’t like but for some reason this provoked a very strong reaction. It is a poor pastiche of Web 2.0, it has no Graphic Design discipline and I’m not sure it will work for what it is designed for. How can Adobe get it so wrong?
After thinking about this some more, I’m inclined to think that this logo might be just right for Photoshop. In recent years, their flagship application has become more and more muddied by feature-bloat and “enhancements”, most of which seem to further separate it from being used as a basic design tool.
I’m more excited by some of the small and independent developers who are creating image editing and layout applications. They will likely be the future of our toolset. I think Photoshop has strayed too far into the void to come back now, they would have to introduce an entirely new program just to bring it back to basics.
So, perhaps this is right on target, as Photoshop moves away from being a design tool, so too much their identity and branding. This is only punctuated by the fact that the people in charge of making the design tool have lost the ability to recognize good design.
I have a strong feeling that, over in Adobeland, these decisions are being made by an executive, not a designer. Someone who has a stronger ability to convince than to conceive.
Disheartening. Also, you are right that Adobe has lost their way. I think with their major acquisition of Macromedia, we all thought that maybe, just maybe that was a positive thing — now, it looks like bloat (in both software and design) is the name of their game now.
This is a little bit like the Quark logo fiasco. What the hell? You’d think these multi-million dollar companies have learned to INVEST in better design by now…
It made me think of that “Die Speech Bubble logo, die” article which made me chuckle…
Personally I couldn’t give a bag of cheese what the logo looks like as long as whats under the hood keeps serving my needs. Not that I don’t care about good design, I do, but let’s face it, it’s an incredibly easy target. It’s certainly not an offensive logo, just a bit lazy and unnecessary (I for one didn’t mind the previous ‘Ps’ one - are they changing the rest of the CS icons as well?).
What’s wrong with it being separated from the “basic design tool” realm? Really.. It’s not so basic these days. It’s a mainstay tool for every graphic designer on the planet. Beginner to expert.. so what if the learning curve has increased a bit in the last couple versions.
If it were easy, everyone would do it. So what if it has become more “feature rich” than compact and simplistic? The feature bloat is just what dedicated graphix guys/gals have wanted for a good while.
Maybe we’ve gotten off topic a bit but I think PS has just gotten better and better over the years. It’s gotten heavier, sure, but what design program doesn’t as it evolves? I don’t know what the simplicity of the logo design has to do with that… if anything.
I thought it was a joke when I saw it on John Nack’s blog. There are a lot of disgruntled people commenting over there.
Up till now, I have usually liked the new identity offerings that Adobe has rolled out.
That’s funny, the whole time reading your post, I was thinking, Armin wrote a great critique on the logo on his “Brand New” site. Then at the end I read your “update.”
Anyways like I already mentioned, I agree with Armin, and most other people. So whoever is doing all this work for Adobe these days, needs to take a look in their archives and go back to the old school days.
MattCon:
Unfortunately, I think this is just another graphic being added to the mix. It doesn’t seem like Adobe will replace the existing icon for Photoshop with this new one.
Scott Powers:
Don’t mistake simplicity for quality or effectiveness. The very fact that Photoshop is getting heavier and heavier is moving it farther away from its core purpose. The poor, off-the-shelf logo does more than dilute and weaken the brand of Photoshop, it serves as the harbinger for the very different direction that Photoshop is headed.
In a few years time, I imagine we will be using more focused software for our purposes, likely created by newer independent developers that are filling a specific niche, rather than casting the widest net possible with one piece of software.
Surely, over at Adobe HQ there are bloated committees with equally bloated executive egos at work here. I could be wrong but I can’t imagine that there are real designers on these panels making decisions. As someone who has been in a corporate environment, I can understand how things such as these get out of the hands of the talent & into the hands of the suits.
I don’t love the new logo, but I’m over it.
A bad logo isn’t going to keep me from using my beloved Photoshop b/c it is hands down the best product on the market for my needs. I agree however that it seems to be gaining more & more feature overload…I’m sure I don’t use 60% of the features that the product offers.
I think the logo looks a bit generic and weak, but the actual box design looks nice.
I personally think the name Photoshop stands on its own without a logo. I think they should play up the name more and drop the attempt at a logo altogether.
Does that translate to mean the power to terminate people on a whim?
WTF? Adobe’ s move makes zero sense to me. I know there were a lot of complaints about their Periodic Table system when it was unveiled -but I liked it from the start.
It is/was functional (what what the hell did a butterfly have to do with Illustrator? Or was that icon for another app? I can’t remember)
The periodic table metaphor works conceptually as well.
This new thing reminds me of Zune -in more ways than one -and none of them are good ways.