Chatter: Everyone’s looking at Instagram’s new logo

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but Instagram‘s new logo generated far more than that on social media as users from around the world weighed in on the design.

“When Instagram started, it was a primarily a place to edit and share photos. Five years later, it’s a global community of interests where people share photos and videos, use new tools like Boomerang and Layout, and connect with others through Explore,” the company said in a statement to Marketing. “We’ve been inspired by all the ways the community has grown and changed, and we wanted to create something that reflects how vibrant and diverse storytelling on Instagram has become.”

Of course, that community is also a highly vocal one, and nothing inspires knee-jerk negative reactions like a logo change. While many people will probably get used to the new version before long, the immediate reaction inspired a lot of feedback.

Perhaps predictably, agency types had very specific, tongue-in-cheek concerns:

When the #instagramlogo messes up your #colour coordinated home screen pic.twitter.com/S7SGkf0ipn

— EleanorFayNicholson (@LifeInCMYK) May 12, 2016

While brands and marketing execs jokingly called copycat:

Hey @instagram, did you go to our tailors for that new logo? #instagramlogo pic.twitter.com/IB8dPNeGsr

— London 2017 (@London2017) May 12, 2016

the new Instagram logo looks like it was designed by Lisa Frank pic.twitter.com/6Q1DVs54op

— MONICA LIN ⚡ (@thundercupLA) May 11, 2016

There were also some funny thoughts on how a logo design is factored into a larger rebranding strategy:

https://twitter.com/sarahcpr/status/730475814374899712

Canadian media and PR types didn’t hesitate to weigh in:

Remember the Instagram logo? Why do i feel old? pic.twitter.com/LqLRvQVD5q

— Eric Alper (@ThatEricAlper) May 12, 2016

I liked this better … #instagramlogo #FoxKatZ1035 pic.twitter.com/4FqrgvHC4X

— Scott Fox (@ScottFoxonair) May 12, 2016

But, overall there was nothing more prominent on social media about the logo than the following meme, though we can safely assume the redesign process was at least a little more thorough:

Designers of Silicon Valley #instagramlogo pic.twitter.com/4rFsszi8Gp

— Engjell (@iamengjell) May 12, 2016