Yahoo Introduces a New, Hipper Logo and That's Pretty Much It

Yahoo, the Internet behemoth recently roused from its slumber by new CEO Marissa Mayer, introduced a new logo at midnight on Thursday, the culmination of a 30-day campaign in which the company rolled out a new, rejected logo each day until it revealed off the above redesign. In a lengthy blog post announcing the new logo—which was conceived with the input of at least five people—Mayer walks through the design philosophy. "On a personal level, I love brands, logos, color, design, and, most of all, Adobe Illustrator," she writes.

Here's a minute-long walkthrough of every tiny detail of the logo—which, as a reminder, consists of five letters and a punctuation mark—set to Empire of the Sun's "Alive":

So, congratulations to Yahoo's newest logo, which currently does not offer any service or functionality other than looking more out of place on a child's lunchbox than the last logo did. That's maybe a step in the right direction?

The redesigned logo gimmick isn't at-all new—it's how Google manages to get even a passing mention every few days—but it's another sign of Yahoo cribbing tactics from others or, as in the case of the $1 billion Tumblr purchase, simply buying a larger, younger user base and a slightly elevated rep as a company perpetually on the verge of reinvention.

There are some, such as Om Malik, however, who might disagree. While discussion of Yahoo has increased noticeably since Mayer's hire, use of its services has not necessarily followed suit.

"Animal standoff caught on camera" "lesbian film shoot's issues" & "88 lbs gone in seconds" = Y! hp headlines. And you're worried abt logo?

— Hunter Walk (@hunterwalk) September 5, 2013

Making the exclamation point *animated* is inexcusable. Come on. You had one job, one job. http://t.co/jJieHxIKii

— Farhad Manjoo (@fmanjoo) September 5, 2013

The logo is animated on the company's homepage.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this, but... the new Yahoo logo is irrelevant anyway because no one cares about Yahoo. Sorry MM.

— Alex Taylor (@38percentsure) September 5, 2013

New Yahoo logo bears more than a passing resemblance to Google IMO. Via @brandingsrc http://t.co/2cJ8uuPqn4

— Ben Brookbanks (@benbrookbanks) September 5, 2013