Why Instagram’s new logo sucks

A logo is to a business as your face is to you. It is how you are recognised. It reflects your personality, or in case of your business, your values and principles. It is also the most powerful marketing tool known.

Logo design establishes your identity.

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Well, last week Instagram revealed their brand new – very different – logo. Surprisingly most people hate the new icon, and if you disagree, you’re wrong!

The iconic instant camera icon — with a glass lens, viewfinder, brown leather wrap and rainbow, alongside the word "Insta" in the corner is completely gone.

You’ve probably already seen it by now, but the old logo has been replaced with a simple glyph in the shape of a camera outlined in white and set on top of a yellow / orange / pink / purple gradient.

Yes, it is definitely different! And once Instagram junkies saw it, boy did they react! In a statement, Instagram said that they wanted to make sure that the updated look was still recognizable. However, I think the issue is that it is too minimal, plus why fix something that wasn’t broken?

Although the old icon could have been updated just a bit, there was just something familiar, relatable and very calming about seeing it on your home screen and then tapping on it.

Whether this was because of the warm brown colour or the old-school camera lens, the logo just didn’t feel like it was ever in your face. However, the new icon does. It is just screaming for attention! The new icons loud design was intentionally done though, Instagram’s designers didn’t want to get lumped in with the other camera apps. My opinion is that they should’ve just updated the logo, but kept the same, original design.

If you analyse your phone’s main home screen for a minute, you’ll probably notice that the most popular apps you use are green (Phone, WhatsApp, Messages, Spotify) or blue (Facebook, Mail, Twitter, Messenger). The only app that now sticks out like a sore thumb is the new Instagram logo!

The logo is not the only thing that has changed. The user interface is new too. It has been stripped of almost all its colour and been replaced with black, with red notification icons instead of orange.

They may have been going for the minimalistic look, but I feel that it looks terribly bland now. There is nothing distinctive about it anymore, it’s like it has become as generic as the other hundreds of photo-editing apps out there, and in design that’s not a good thing at all!

Change is hard and I guess we will just have to deal with it and get used to the new Instagram logo over time. But for now, you’re allowed to hate the new icon with a passion!