Yes.
1 Like
Then as a graphic design teacher, you know that âcenteredâ and âbalancedâ are not the same thing. While the square is not perfectly centered, moving it very slightly to the right balances the overall design, due to the extended line on the left.
The stroke adds weight to the left hand side of the logo. The rounded square in the middle is off centre to âoptically centreâ it.
The little bit hanging off is most probably for aliasing - without the hang over it probably has some strange pixel level effects on that edge.
Most corporates have logo kits - multiple variations of logos for different purposes - CMYK, RGB, reversed, black on white, white on black, color on a dark background, color on a white background, raster versions, SVG, EPS, AI, etc etc. This is probably some variation that needs to be very small.
2 Likes
Certainly. But there are two reasons I suspect it was just a mistake in this case:
-
Putting the square slightly off-center would make sense if the icon was used in isolation, because optically it would feel balanced even if it wasnât. But this icon was designed to be used against a background that effectively works like a set of cross-hairs drawing attention to the fact that the square isnât quite in the middle.
-
Anyone who cared enough about attention to detail to intentionally set that square off-center for optical balance wouldnât allow the stroke on the left to just hang out into space like that. The end should be masked to match the curve of the circle, or the entire blue area should be knocked out of the white shape.
4 Likes
I feel like that box could have been laid out better.
2 Likes
If by that you mean âbeing driven nuts by bad kerning on postersâ and âjudging alignment on every logoâ and âbeing able to spot Arial a mile awayâ, then yes.
4 Likes
My wife took a noncredit âIntroduction to Graphic Designâ class with me once. She still hasnât forgiven me.
16 Likes
âUh, they make âŚscrews? Are Robertson half-slot screws a thing?â
2 Likes
Thatâs what she said.
1 Like
To me, the new logo looks like the bloodshot eye of an alien creature. When I first noticed this thing on my phoneâs home screen, I was genuinely mystified by just how bizarre and unsettling the icon was. âItâs like some kind of lizard creature staring at me,â I thought. Then I read the Wired article that explains the logo was inspired by a bathroom tile. âAh, ha!â I said, âThat explains it! Itâs not a lizard alienâs eyeâitâs a bathroom tile!â And so I felt a little better when I moved the curious alien-bathroom-tile-eye-thing into a folder on another screen, because even though it will no longer inhabit an honored place on my home screen, it will be safe and unseen somewhere else, easily summoned whenever I need to hail a minion from the Alien Lizard Eye Tile Bathroom company to come pick me up. I, for one, welcome our new Alien Lizard ride-sharing overlords.
2 Likes
What⌠what if the bathroom tile was taken from an alien eye?
No kidding! My first thought too.
1 Like
I think the mistake was that someone posted a rough, preliminary version. Looking at the version I pulled off CNN, itâs clear that the box is fully centered. The red and yellow lines were added by me.
3 Likes
One of us, one of us. Gooble gobble, Gooble gobble
2 Likes
The square looks centered to me. And I have no idea how the horizontal line is supposed to over hang when it is the same color as the background.
I think youâre right, itâs a backwards C, C stands for Cab. Uber is a backwards cab.
maybe the O is the house, and the line is the driveway that goes a little bit out into the area surround the house, the square is the parking area. See, it all makes sense.
Something like this would bother me more:
1 Like
Pretty much. Melissa Mayer pulled a similar âimprovementâ with the branding at Yahoo.
Jobs was able to get away with it since more often than not, his tastes were unerring. But thereâs a few stories around of his awful directions and decisions that were only averted at the last minute.
1 Like
As a freelance designer, Iâve worked for and with a ton of startups and small companies, and every single CEO/founder Iâve done work for has declared that they use Steve Jobs as the model for how they run their business. Jobsâ successes gave CEOs permission to act unhinged, micromanage, and say crazy brash things in the press. The big difference, as you say, is that Steve Jobs usually had excellent taste and ideas to back up his bravado. Someone like Travis Kalanick just comes off as distrusting and annoying.
3 Likes
