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This feels so generic. I get the problem they're referencing with too many colors and not working in all contexts. But the human mind being what it is, I never

This feels so generic. I get the problem they're referencing with too many colors and not working in all contexts. But the human mind being what it is, I never had a problem connecting "rainbow-colored #" with "Slack". This...this is just some kind of blob. I couldn't tell this apart from a big pharma company, or some kind of conglomerate that makes everything from toasters to jet planes. I'm reminded of the Philip Morris rebrand to Altria, even as far as a generic colorful squarish logo. It's gone from "# means Slack" to "I guess that's Slack...?"

radicalriddler 8y ago
Wow. So you're telling me; that the icon that you've been viewing as the symbol for Slack over the last couple of years looked more familiar than the new logo they released today. That's mind boggling
- seandougall 8y ago
  No, I believe the point was exactly the opposite: that the new logo feels too immediately familiar, because it's so reminiscent of countless other red-amber-green-blue tech logos from Windows 3.0 on.
tir 8y ago
Agreed, the '#' had a long history of indicating a channel, like on IRC, and by extension text-based communication.
- eppsilon 8y ago
  And for those not familiar with IRC, the association of "#" with Twitter hashtags says "communication" too.
  - Infernal 8y ago
    And for those not familiar with early Twitter, the hashtag was not a feature of the platform, but a shorthand way to indicate a topic. This of course was recognized and formalized by Twitter soon after, but I find it fascinating that it was a feature essentially developed by the users and more simply recognized by the platform later.
    - jolmg 8y ago
      > a shorthand way to indicate a topic And I imagine it was also inspired by IRC channels.
      - sleepybrett 8y ago
        100% slack is essentially evolved irc.
        jolmg 8y ago
        The part I quoted was about Twitter, not Slack. Slack's relation to IRC was already mentioned. Essentially, my comment was "Not just Slack, Twitter too was inspired by IRC."
        seba_dos1 8y ago
        I'd bet that quite a lot of early Twitter users were also IRC users.
    - handyman5 8y ago
      99 Percent Invisible did a whole show on this a while back: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/octothorpe/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/octothorpe/
- bobsil1 8y ago
  It was nice homage to what they were ripping off, I mean modernizing.
- libertine 8y ago
  This - the # wasn't a random choice for slack. And there's no shame in that.
DonHopkins 8y ago
It looks like a # woven out of thread that changes color when it ducks underneath.
markmark 8y ago
To add to the generic feel they've changed the font for "slack" to be very similar to the fonts used by every other tech company ever.
philsnow 8y ago
going through a "rebrand" is not something most companies undertake lightly. > I'm reminded of the Philip Morris rebrand to Altria IIRC that rebrand was done to distance the company from cancerous associations with the name "Philip Morris", whereas the only reason I can think of for Slack to do this now is to give them a quick short-term publicity boost to make them more relevant to "retail investors" -- that is, this corroborates rumors of a public offering later this year, and imho means that it's going to happen sooner rather than later.
tpowell 8y ago
^THIS. It does feel generic. I'm actually retroactively impressed that the old one looked so classy using so many colors (pour one out for https://metalab.co https://metalab.co, who is doing just fine). I actually loved the different treatments—the Slack brand always felt like one of their strongest assets. It looks like the Joomla logo now – https://www.joomla.org/ https://www.joomla.org/

radicalriddler 8y ago

Wow. So you're telling me; that the icon that you've been viewing as the symbol for Slack over the last couple of years looked more familiar than the new logo they released today. That's mind boggling

seandougall 8y ago
No, I believe the point was exactly the opposite: that the new logo feels too immediately familiar, because it's so reminiscent of countless other red-amber-green-blue tech logos from Windows 3.0 on.

tir 8y ago

Agreed, the '#' had a long history of indicating a channel, like on IRC, and by extension text-based communication.

eppsilon 8y ago
And for those not familiar with IRC, the association of "#" with Twitter hashtags says "communication" too.
- Infernal 8y ago
  And for those not familiar with early Twitter, the hashtag was not a feature of the platform, but a shorthand way to indicate a topic. This of course was recognized and formalized by Twitter soon after, but I find it fascinating that it was a feature essentially developed by the users and more simply recognized by the platform later.
  - jolmg 8y ago
    > a shorthand way to indicate a topic And I imagine it was also inspired by IRC channels.
    - sleepybrett 8y ago
      100% slack is essentially evolved irc.
      - jolmg 8y ago
        The part I quoted was about Twitter, not Slack. Slack's relation to IRC was already mentioned. Essentially, my comment was "Not just Slack, Twitter too was inspired by IRC."
        seba_dos1 8y ago
        I'd bet that quite a lot of early Twitter users were also IRC users.
  - handyman5 8y ago
    99 Percent Invisible did a whole show on this a while back: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/octothorpe/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/octothorpe/
bobsil1 8y ago
It was nice homage to what they were ripping off, I mean modernizing.
libertine 8y ago
This - the # wasn't a random choice for slack. And there's no shame in that.

DonHopkins 8y ago

It looks like a # woven out of thread that changes color when it ducks underneath.

markmark 8y ago

To add to the generic feel they've changed the font for "slack" to be very similar to the fonts used by every other tech company ever.

philsnow 8y ago

going through a "rebrand" is not something most companies undertake lightly. > I'm reminded of the Philip Morris rebrand to Altria IIRC that rebrand was done to distance the company from cancerous associations with the name "Philip Morris", whereas the only reason I can think of for Slack to do this now is to give them a quick short-term publicity boost to make them more relevant to "retail investors" -- that is, this corroborates rumors of a public offering later this year, and imho means that it's going to happen sooner rather than later.

tpowell 8y ago

^THIS. It does feel generic. I'm actually retroactively impressed that the old one looked so classy using so many colors (pour one out for https://metalab.co https://metalab.co, who is doing just fine). I actually loved the different treatments—the Slack brand always felt like one of their strongest assets. It looks like the Joomla logo now – https://www.joomla.org/ https://www.joomla.org/