Re: Public concerns over new W3C logo

On 23 Oct 2025, at 16:02, Mike Bremford wrote:

> There's been a request for feedback from the silent majority on this list.

I’ll chime in here, jumping off Mike’s thoughts to share my own.

> * I have *never* heard of a rebranding exercise for a well-known brand that
> didn't immediately result in ridicule. People don't like change, and are
> far quicker to complain than they are to say nothing.

Seconded.  There’s a whole story about how eBay changed the background color of their site by a bit and got massively roasted for it, enough that they went back to the old color.  (And then incrementally changed the background until they got to the new color, which drew exactly no complaints, but that doesn’t really pertain to this situation.)

Relatedly, I remember all the tech pundits who hooted at Apple calling their new tablet computer “iPad” because it would only remind people of menstrual products and hurt sales.  That take aged pretty quickly.

> * Try as I might, I am unable to see genitals, excrement or even a
> coat-hanger. Lord knows I've tried, and I've scribbled enough of them in
> margins to know them when I see them.

I can kind of make out the penile interpretation, but only when I force myself into seeing it, and I lose the association just as quickly when I stop forcing.  And if anyone thinks I must be actively working not to see it, you’ll just have to believe me when I say thee nay.

To me, when pushing my pareidolia, it looks like ocean waves or maybe hills, though the blue evokes water much more than land.  But in all honesty, it looks like nothing so much as a heavily stylized W and 3, which for me nods to the original Cailliau WWW logo while being very much its own thing.  (I do realize that not many are old enough to even be able to have that potential association, so that could be skewing my perception of the logo.)

> Perhaps the process could have been managed better. But I can
> certainly live with the result.

This is where I am, and have been since the logo was first shared in an AB call a little while back.  I miss the old logo a bit, doubtless because I became very used to it over the course of a couple of decades.  I don’t love the new logo, but I don’t think I loved the old logo either; I was just comfortable with it.  I certainly do not hate the new logo, nor am I particularly embarrassed by it, so I guess that puts me on the positive side?  Neutral, at an absolute minimum.


--
Eric A. Meyer - http://meyerweb.com/

Received on Thursday, 23 October 2025 22:06:51 UTC