When Airbnb launched their new logo back in July, many designers, as it’s the case with any major redesign, started to shout out their opinion about the new logo on all the social media channels. Some people liked the new approach, however, the vast majority expressed their disappointment with the logo for various reasons. Some said it looked like a vagina, some sad it looks like a rocket, some even said worse things about it.
While all this social uproar against the logo was fresh, people discovered another shocking thing – the logo seemed to be a perfect copy from another company – Automation Anywhere.
Automation Anywhere logo (left) vs Airbnb logo (right)
There are a few lessons to be learned from this logo launch:
- Always do your research when designing a logo;
- Less is not always more and shapes, if they are too simple can trick the mind into seeing other shapes instead (breasts anyone?);
- Don’t force an idea into a design just for the sake of it – we all know that branding is important, but sometimes, you can’t artificially assign meaning to a random icon just because you want it to;
My opinion is that, for the budget that was probably wasted on this logo, they could’ve done a lot better – however, all this buzz and media coverage may turn out to be good in the future. Sure, we don’t like the logo too much, but in time, if they stick to it and convince us that the logo really means what they say it means, who knows, all this exposure may work out miracles for them.