Enshittification

Logos don't need to be readable. Logos need to be instantly, and unmistakably recognizable. McDonald's logo is the big yellow M. It's not "readable", because it's not a word. But, the entire world instantly recognizes the logo, regardless of whether they can read English.

I agree with OP, they're doing a disservice to themselves by simplifying their logos to plain text.

Fashions are cyclical and ornamentation and busy-ness will become popular again someday.

Just wait until LLMs are used to design most of them - they will be distinctively average.

Every CEO of every one of these shit merchants signed off on millions of dollars of expenditures to implement these rebrandings after being sold the idea by bullshit merchants.

That's why they deserve the big bucks I suppose.

If I ever start a business, I'm hiring the Rockstar North artist who did all the fake business logos that look like dick and balls from GTA. Start selling actual Giggle Cream.

The Facebook one isn't true, the one on the right was the logo of the company before it rebranded to Meta. The one for the social media platform still looks similar to the one on the left.

I think you're missing the point.

There's a logo and there's the brand text. You posted the brand text. You didn't post the logo.

All of these corporations should be dismantled. And no, I couldn’t care less about their fucking logos.

The logo is a way to present your brand. If the logo is bland, by extension you expect the brand to also be. And if the brand is expected to be bland, and if the company wants it and/or the profits still come, there is not reason forcing the company to try to be better.

Corporate logos undergo a vacillation between flat and aero every few decades. Just look at the Pepsi logo for example. Its part of the whole soulless pandering philosophy they have going on.

They probably all have the same consultancy groups making the same decisions. How dare they not conform to the market or the competition and stand out.

ah dude don't get me started how all the logos on my apps now look the same. it's at the point where I often don't even bother searching for the icon anymore, because odds are even if I find it, they've changed it just enough to not be recognizable

This post seems extremely cherry picked to me. There are more than 20 brands. I picked 5 on my mind from tech: Logitech (stylized g still)

Framework (boring in roughly the same was as in the post; always has been?)

Anthropic (stylized A)

Amazon (still the smiling arrow)

Apple (still the prominent apple logo)

I don't think this is a fad. And if it were a fad, it looks like intentional effort towards readability to me, which wouldn't be enshittification imo.

Ads even more unwanted

Yes, stop looking at logos that are designed by commitee.

Kia went into a different direction but I still don't like it. First time I saw it I thought it was a car manufacturer I've never seen

To be fair the Meta logo actually has graphical elements unlike the Facebook one. And that's about everything positive you will hear me say about Meta. I wouldn't be surprised if they ditched that logo for a butthole like all the other AI companies.

TBF, readability is a big plus for marketing, no?

Absolutely. Marketers periodically do something new to stand out, and if it works they imitate each other for a while. Right now it's boring text. Someday it'll be grafitti spraypaint fonts.

Boring logos are easier to tune out. So I'm not sad abt this.

That's not "enshittification".