Meet Virgin America's New Logo. It Looks Like a Sports Bra. (An April Fool's Joke on March 31?)

Virgin America unveiled its new logo today. No, it's not April Fool's Day. That is tomorrow. Yes, their new logo looks like... a sports bra. UPDATE: But upon looking closer at the story and the video... it does seem like a parody.

Here's how they describe it:

Ultimately, every stroke of our new logo represents the essence of who we are – and what we mean to people. The combination of sharp angles and sleek, sexy, supple curves are meant to surprise and delight upon repeat views – but also highlight humanity’s inherently contradictory nature, the yin and yang, the id and the ego, the fact that sometimes we want to stay connected and work with fleetwide WiFi, and sometimes we want to just kick back and relax with on-demand entertainment, food and drink.

"Sexy, supple curves."

Starting from the top and working our way to bottom, the first things that you’ll notice are the angular shapes protruding from the pinnacle of the logo. These isosceles triangles – triangles that have two sides that are the same length are meant to highlight our product consistency and the fact that we have both an amazing product and service on every flight, every time.



The two prominently displayed half circles represent both our tech-forward innovation on the one hand – and our supportive approach to guest care on the other. By connecting the two half circles, we’re making it clear that they are inextricably linked. You simply cannot have one without the other. To achieve the look and feel, a team of 15 designers spent over 2,500 hours perfecting the precise shape of the circles. In fact, if you look closely, you’ll see that each circle is designed to mimic the nose of our Airbus A320 aircraft. To achieve this effect, Connor had us physically remove the entire nose and flight deck of one of our aircraft. The 14 ton section was then lifted with a crane on to a giant sheet of paper the length of an entire football field, at which point Connor traced the shape with a charcoal pencil to achieve the thick, bold lines you see bordering the logo.

That's quite a bit of work... and money... to honestly fix a logo that wasn't broken. So is it real? I'm now guessing not. Nonetheless, I guess we'll find out tomorrow.

Throwback Thursday: The Making of HBO's 1980s-Era Flying Logo

I remember watching this short film as a kid and being mesmerized by how filmmakers built an entire mini-city set to produce HBO's signature "flying logo" opening. Of course, now this would all be produced on computers and done in half an hour! But back then, this was quite an undertaking!

A Rebuttal to The Atlantic Wire: Good Design Doesn't Matter?

Yesterday in The Atlantic Wire, Rebecca Greenfield wrote:

One would think that with all the intense outrage over Yahoo's new logo that this is the most cared about logo to ever grace our eyes, but it's not. Just a few of years ago, the new Gap logo evoked more ire than it deserved. The anger got so extreme that the clothing company reverted back to the old look. This happens often: The public gets very upset over something that matters not at all. Maybe the new Yahoo design is "dull, uninspiring and limp," as one critic put it, but does it mean anything? No. But everyone gets all worked up because they have the facilities to do so in a somewhat astute (sounding) manner — a phenomenon known as the "Bikeshed Effect."

First off, I must admit, I was flattered that Franklin Avenue's critique was singled out. But...

I must say, Greenfield's post was a bit of an overreaction to the overreaction. We live in a social media world where everyone reacts with intense outrage to everything. Miley twerking. The boiling temperature in Southern California today. The latest crazy thing to come out of Pat Robertson's mouth. The cancellation of "Happy Endings." Do any of these things matter? Yes and no. They matter to people in the moment, and isn't that all that matters?

Everyone has something they care about. You may be pissed off at an NFL trade that I have no idea about. I may be pissed off at MTV for naming a song of the summer that is so clearly not the song of the summer because, you know what, that does matter to me. In my world, a world in which I grew up obsessing over the Billboard Hot 100 and even printing out my own Top 30 music chart every week (what? Yes, I didn't just collect TV Guides), stupid stuff like that matters. And am I going to voice my opinion? Yes, because I care that much. I really do. (And sorry MTV, but a terrible One Direction song that has just been released can not, under any logical argument, be considered the 2013 song of the summer.)

That brings us to the Yahoo! redesign. Why do I care so much? Well, I care about things like logos, typography, fonts and good graphic design. I've been obsessed with these things all my life. I even married a graphic designer. I grew up printing fake newspapers (yep, not just music charts and TV Guide collecting for this guy!) mostly because I loved the idea of how publications were laid out. I obsess over logos, enjoy looking at old examples and have even designed my own through the years (for my college radio station, among others). So when I see what I *know* to be a bad logo, and I consider the amount of time, money and energy that went into that bad logo, I want to vent. Thanks to social media, now I can. On this blog. On Twitter. I know Yahoo! has no interest in what I think. But at least I got it off my chest, and have been able to share in my disgust with others. (That's what social media is about, after all. A community.)

My AT&T U-verse email goes through Yahoo!, as does our Franklin Avenue email. Which means I have to look at that logo several times a day. And every time I look at that new logo, with its thin letters, I wonder why. Why a major new media company like Yahoo! would go for a logo that was so faint, so dull and so uninspiring. It especially looks faint next to the bolder, thicker (and yet, uncapitalized) logo of AT&T, an ancient company that has nonetheless been able to effectively rebrand itself.

Yahoo!'s original logo was not amazing, but it had a lot more character than this one. I could even hear the famous trademark yodel in my head when I glanced at the old logo. This one looks like a logo that might have been designed for a medium-sized city's public library.

So yes, I think logos mean something. Design means something, just as architecture means something and art means something. It may not be discussing "How Will Yahoo Increase CPM's Given Current Trends in Digital Advertising?" -- but that's an evergreen topic. It's not something that incites passion. I'M ANGRY OVER YAHOO'S CPMS. No. Not the same thing. With the logo, we're discussing something that just happened -- hence all the sudden pouring of haterade. It's a physical, noticeable change that you can put your arms around (in this case, to suffocate it to death.) And someone has to say something. That's why there are literary critics. Book critics. TV critics. Film critics. Art critics. Architecture critics. And yes, design critics. When a major corporation undergoes a major rebrand, and comes up with something so limp, I think they need to hear from us. They need to know that they can do better.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to check my Yahoo! email. While containing my anger.

A few more good reads on the topic:

Yahoo's Logo Reveals the Worst Aspects of the Engineering Mindset (Glog)
Yahoo’s new logo and the 30-day punchline (ARS Technica)

This Is Terrible: The New Yahoo! Logo

For the past month, Yahoo! has teased its users with the promise of a new logo. A different logo appeared daily over the last 30 days... and they were all pretty horrible. Many looked like Yahoo! execs were simply playing with the fonts pre-installed on their computers. Some were downright appalling. I began to wonder if Yahoo! was really going to change its logo, or if they were purposely showcasing horrible logo concepts as a joke.

My original theory? Yahoo! would end the month by sticking with its logo, using those horrible alternate options as proof that there was truly nothing better. Why mess with an iconic brand?

Well, they went and did it anyway. And came up with something dull, uninspiring and limp. This thin, inconsequential logo is the new Yahoo! stamp? Why bother? At least the old logo, for all its problems, conveyed originality and fun. This new one... well, it looks like something that someone came up with in 7 minutes.

I'm really tired of brands with perfectly fine logos going and blowing it up... for what? If you come up with a better logo, great. But it's gotta be amazing. And Yahoo! has come up with... a yawn.

Here's their original logo:



RELATED: A Rebuttal to The Atlantic Wire: Good Design Doesn't Matter?

So What Do You Make of The New KIIS-FM Logo?

I geek out on logos -- but especially TV and radio logos. You've seen me recount the history of the Fox Broadcasting logo, among other things, in the past. So to me, this is monumental: KIIS-FM has ditched its long-running logo, which dates back to the 1980s (and has been replicated by other Clear Channel stations across the country). Above, it's the new logo -- simpler, cleaner, less flashy... but more boring? Below, the logo you're familiar with:



And here's an early KIIS-FM logo, from the early 1980s:



Trivia for you: KIIS didn't originally pronounce itself as "Kiss." In the 1970s, the station referred to itself only as "K-I-I-S." That's because the call letters are actually in reference to KIIS' old position on the AM dial -- 1150 AM. Yep, the "IIS" in KIIS is supposed to look like "115."

And that's why I'm a geek. Thank you!

For Its New Look, KTLA Goes Back to the Future

(Twitpic by Micah Ohlman.)

KTLA -- which recently made over its lead anchor team, with Micah Ohlman and Victoria Recaño taking over the 10 p.m. and newly expanded 6 p.m. newscasts -- unveils its set makeover tomorrow.

The station is touting the new set as very modern and "state of the art," but one element is actually a throwback to the 1980s and early 1990s -- KTLA's new news logo.

Check out the new logo on the set above -- KTLA has brought back the old arty "5" that identified the station for many years. As a matter of fact, that "5" can still be seen on the old tower in front of KTLA's Hollywood studios; it was never taken down, even after the logo changed. Now it's suddenly relevant again!

Here's the KTLA logo from the 1980s and early 1990s:



And this was the KTLA logo in the late 1990s. You might have noticed that the new, 2009 logo utilizes this one's practice of bolding the "LA" portion of "KTLA," presumably to emphasize the station's Los Angeles home:



In the early part of the 2000s, KTLA decided to stop referencing its channel position -- something that bothered me to no end. KTLA is found on channel 5 both over-the-air and on most cable systems -- and that's a huge marketing benefit that cable networks, which appear on a jumble of channel positions depending on the provider, can't match.

This was also the moment that KTLA first introduced the station "whoosh" -- which looked suspiciously like the Nike logo.



KTLA finally realized the error of its channel position-dropping ways by 2007, particularly after someone likely realized that the new CW logo looked bad parked right next to the KTLA logo. The reintroduction of the "5" helped separate the two:



And now, a nod to the past as KTLA unveils its new look on Wednesday. "A little nostalgia to go with our re-launching," KTLA Prime News exec producer Elizabeth Applegate tweeted on Tuesday. "A little old and little new, debuting Wednesday night!"