If you’ve been following the news lately, you’ve probably realized that logo redesigns are a kind of a big deal. Today at the Warm Gun Design conference in San Francisco, butt of too many design/user experience jokes to mention social networking site MySpace unveils their new logo which is, get this, the word “my” in Helvetica and then a symbol delineating a space.
MySpace VP of User Experience Mike Macadaan explains the philosophy behind it, “MySpace is a platform for people to be whatever they want, so we’ve decided to give them the space to do it.” Apparently the blank space to the left will be filled with user generated artwork when users hover over it on the redesigned site, like this:
If the iTunes 10 logo and Gap logo fiascos have taught us anything, it’s that people hate logo change, so people are inevitably going to hate this (I can’t wait for the comments section of this post).
But, in all fairness, the new logo’s art school abstractness and UGC element is better than the human centipede + Arial “myspace” blandness of the old logo (see above), and from Macadaan’s presentation it looks like it will have some Google Doodle-like interactive features once the MySpace redesign launches as the end of this year.
In any case, please put your inevitable redesign suggestions the comments, or on Dribbble if you prefer.
MySpace is one of the world’s largest social networks, with about 125 million users. Originally inspired by Friendster, MySpace quickly grew to become the world’s largest social network, before being overtaken by Facebook. User pages are highly customizable and support integration with widgets such as Slide or YouTube. MySpace provides users with a way to connect around content and culture. MySpace was started as a side project of the internet marketing company eUniverse (now called Intermix Media) in August...
Mike has over 10 years of experience leading companies in the context of Product & User Experience Design. His experience spans product and content leadership for companies such as TechTV, Intuit, GO.com and most recently as Vice President of Design at AOL and Vice President Product & Design for Tsavo. Mike currently serves as VP Product at MySpace. He is also actively involved with the SoCal start-up community as the founder of Twiistup.
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