4 ms·

I disagree, he actually makes it clear on multiple occasions throughout the piece that his critique is not about the end product of the logo and what could or c

by emhart 13y ago

I disagree, he actually makes it clear on multiple occasions throughout the piece that his critique is not about the end product of the logo and what could or could not have happened in the hands of a real designer. His critique is about her unserious approach to the process, an approach that she then justified in a cloud of post-process rationalization. His critique is saying that if this is the way she treats the logo redesign (even celebrates the casualness of the approach) then is she actually a competent steward for the Yahoo brand. I think it's a question worth asking and find that many of the comments here seem very focused on the debate about the merits of the logo design, rather than the question of brand management which both the piece, and thankfully your comment, at least attempt to address.

jerf 13y ago
And part of why I ended up skimming the piece is that I'm not convinced original post can be interpreted to that degree. Remember, this is (putatively) a direct communication from the CEO of a large multi-billion dollar company. If it sounds breezy and informal, it is because she wanted it to sound breezy and informal. Whether or not the actual process described is breezy and informal is hard to ascertain under the fact that she wanted it to sound that way. Every sentence may be literally true, but who knows what was omitted to fit the breezy-and-informal template. I think an awful lot of people are over-interpreting a chunk of text that probably doesn't contain anywhere near as much information as it appears to. CEOs at this scale are masters of using lots of words and appearing to say things while in fact saying either nothing at all, or saying something that bears very little resemblance to the surface.
- jfarmer 13y ago
  > And part of why I ended up skimming the piece is that I'm not convinced original post can be interpreted to that degree. Not to interject -- well, ok, to interject -- but isn't this completely backwards? Shouldn't you skim articles you mostly agree with, but read more intensely those you disagree with? You get less out of the former and probably know what they'll say, regardless.
  - jerf 13y ago
    I read the first couple of pages intensely, came to that conclusion, skimmed the rest for why I might be wrong. Fair question.
  - jtheory 13y ago
    I had the same response. It's not about agreeing or not -- there's no point to reading an opinion piece that covers my opinion plus my rationale -- rather, it's about assessing the quality of the arguments as you go. I started reading, was put off by the snark and sarcasm (snark is occasionally entertaining; this wasn't), then I got to where the author was baffled that Meyer described Yahoo's identity in positive terms. Really? I skimmed a bit after that then wrote it off as a waste of time.
205guy 13y ago
"His critique is about her unserious approach to the process..." What's so laughable and made me skim the article is that all of his arguments are based on tidbits of social media that described the process. It shouldn't be a newsflash that those tidbits are part of the marketing campaign themselves. I don't see how someone in the business could be taking them at face value. I suspect that Yahoo did have a whole design and marketing process (and a large budget) around the logo redesign, and this turned the redesign into a carefully scripted story in and of itself. The stories of a CEO working over the weekend were parts of that script, probably true at the core, but embellished and certainly not revealing the whole picture. Essentially, I found this designer's rant to be rather feeble. And incidentally, I like the new Yahoo logo, I also pay for Yahoo premium mail (only because Yahoo is not Google, oh wait, that's Bing), but I certainly don't lionize the company.

by emhart 13y ago

jerf 13y ago

And part of why I ended up skimming the piece is that I'm not convinced original post can be interpreted to that degree. Remember, this is (putatively) a direct communication from the CEO of a large multi-billion dollar company. If it sounds breezy and informal, it is because she wanted it to sound breezy and informal. Whether or not the actual process described is breezy and informal is hard to ascertain under the fact that she wanted it to sound that way. Every sentence may be literally true, but who knows what was omitted to fit the breezy-and-informal template. I think an awful lot of people are over-interpreting a chunk of text that probably doesn't contain anywhere near as much information as it appears to. CEOs at this scale are masters of using lots of words and appearing to say things while in fact saying either nothing at all, or saying something that bears very little resemblance to the surface.

jfarmer 13y ago
> And part of why I ended up skimming the piece is that I'm not convinced original post can be interpreted to that degree. Not to interject -- well, ok, to interject -- but isn't this completely backwards? Shouldn't you skim articles you mostly agree with, but read more intensely those you disagree with? You get less out of the former and probably know what they'll say, regardless.
- jerf 13y ago
  I read the first couple of pages intensely, came to that conclusion, skimmed the rest for why I might be wrong. Fair question.
- jtheory 13y ago
  I had the same response. It's not about agreeing or not -- there's no point to reading an opinion piece that covers my opinion plus my rationale -- rather, it's about assessing the quality of the arguments as you go. I started reading, was put off by the snark and sarcasm (snark is occasionally entertaining; this wasn't), then I got to where the author was baffled that Meyer described Yahoo's identity in positive terms. Really? I skimmed a bit after that then wrote it off as a waste of time.

205guy 13y ago

"His critique is about her unserious approach to the process..." What's so laughable and made me skim the article is that all of his arguments are based on tidbits of social media that described the process. It shouldn't be a newsflash that those tidbits are part of the marketing campaign themselves. I don't see how someone in the business could be taking them at face value. I suspect that Yahoo did have a whole design and marketing process (and a large budget) around the logo redesign, and this turned the redesign into a carefully scripted story in and of itself. The stories of a CEO working over the weekend were parts of that script, probably true at the core, but embellished and certainly not revealing the whole picture. Essentially, I found this designer's rant to be rather feeble. And incidentally, I like the new Yahoo logo, I also pay for Yahoo premium mail (only because Yahoo is not Google, oh wait, that's Bing), but I certainly don't lionize the company.