Red Hat Changes Logo After Customers Call It 'Sinister', 'Secretive' (redhat.com) 180
Red Hat's chief marketing officer discovered their logo was rendering poorly in digital formats (especially on small devices like smartphones). But then they discovered even bigger problems in surveys (including with potential customers) about what feelings the logo evoked:
Sinister. Secretive. Evil. Sneaky. These respondents might not have known anything about Red Hat, but they did believe that man lurking in the shadows didn't immediately inspire their trust. In their survey responses, they wondered who he was and what he was doing in the logo.... Our iconic logo -- including the partially veiled, fedora-wearing "Shadowman," as we Red Hatters affectionately call him -- wasn't squaring with the values we firmly believed the logo stands for...
When we decided to undertake an evolution of the Red Hat logo -- the first in nearly 20 years -- we set two guiding principles for ourselves. First, we'd do the work the Red Hat way, in the open. And second, we'd take this opportunity not just to improve our logo, but to make a bold statement about the ways Red Hat has evolved over its 26-year history... In December 2017, I announced our plans to update our look with a global invitation to collaborate. And since then, Red Hat's Brand team has been collecting feedback from customers and partners, coordinating work with well-known design consultancy Pentagram, poring over survey data, and iterating, iterating, iterating on the new design -- which we're now ready to unveil....
The new logo reflects Red Hat's evolution -- from a scrappy upstart "sneaking" into data centers with boxed copies of a Linux-based operating system (not to mention mugs and t-shirts) to the world's leading provider of open source solutions for enterprise hybrid cloud environments, someone working daily with the largest companies and agencies in the world to develop and run mission-critical solutions. We've truly stepped out of the shadows.
When we decided to undertake an evolution of the Red Hat logo -- the first in nearly 20 years -- we set two guiding principles for ourselves. First, we'd do the work the Red Hat way, in the open. And second, we'd take this opportunity not just to improve our logo, but to make a bold statement about the ways Red Hat has evolved over its 26-year history... In December 2017, I announced our plans to update our look with a global invitation to collaborate. And since then, Red Hat's Brand team has been collecting feedback from customers and partners, coordinating work with well-known design consultancy Pentagram, poring over survey data, and iterating, iterating, iterating on the new design -- which we're now ready to unveil....
The new logo reflects Red Hat's evolution -- from a scrappy upstart "sneaking" into data centers with boxed copies of a Linux-based operating system (not to mention mugs and t-shirts) to the world's leading provider of open source solutions for enterprise hybrid cloud environments, someone working daily with the largest companies and agencies in the world to develop and run mission-critical solutions. We've truly stepped out of the shadows.
People are IDIOTS (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a hat, FFS. There's nothing "sinister, secretive, evil, or sneaky" about it. IT'S A HAT.
Get a grip, you numpties.
Re:People are IDIOTS (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, but it's a lot easier to change a logo than make people not be idiots.
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The quest not to offend (Score:1)
The quest not to offend people has now destroyed something else cool.
A more offensive world would be a happier place.
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Sure, but being an idiot stacks the deck pretty hard against you making purchasing decisions for mission critical Linux servers. These kinds of re-branding efforts normally comes with a pompous load of bullshit bingo and the effects are so vague they can't in any way be measured. They happen because some very expensive consultants have convinced the CEO they need a fresh look and a fresh name based on little more than gut feelings. Isn't red typically the color of danger? And that hat, isn't that typically
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Every person's brain, yours included, does an immediate mapping from images to previous experience and all kinds of stored information. Clearly the previous logo mapped to the reported impressions frequently, probably due to cultural patterns.
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Every person's brain ... does an immediate mapping from images to previous experience
So we have all been stalked by a man in a bright red hat?
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"Something about a company bowing to pressure like this just rubs me the wrong way."
What pressure? The pressure to maximize your profits by not giving your customers the wrong impression? It won't take very many big customer sales to make up for the logo change, and you should be thinking of those a otherwise lost sales.
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Also, it's easy to generate news while doing absolutely nothing substantive simply by changing your logo.
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There's nothing idiotic about evoking emotions based on visual stimulation. But this is slashdot so I guess the vast majority of the ISTJs here as a kid looked up at the clouds and when asked what shapes they see in the clouds replied "cumulonimbus".
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I work in an industry closely related to advertising, I realize optimizing your message for clarity and palatability works.
I also think that if your decision-making process about acquisition of enterprise software licenses hangs on the design of their logo, you're an idiot.
And furthermore, I was mainly going for a frivolous Funny moderation based on parent's use of the word 'IDIOTS' and the universal truth that people generally are.
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I think you have nailed the solution here: Don't cater to idiots." If we stop supplying them physical food the problem goes away. Natural cause, of course. The problem is identification of those idiots in the food line...
I almost snorted my coffee reading the original post:
But then they discovered even bigger problems in surveys (including with potential customers) about what feelings the logo evoked:
Ok - "public opinion" = the same phenomenon that brought us Boaty McBoatface. Never listen to "public opinion." Why? Because "democracy" is where any two idiots outvote a genius. The amount of intelligence in the Universe is a cons
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I still say it was all a ploy to drum up support calls.
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This is the biggest point of excitement with the IBM takeover IMO. I'm confident that Lennart and the Lennartards will be ejected in a ballistic arch shortly after it all comes into effect. And then there will be cake.
IBM is a company that makes huge amounts of revenue selling support for dodgy software (mostly their own) will remove dodgy software and the producers of said dodgy software? No....
Although they may decide he's too expensive and replace him from somewhere cheaper.
Re:People are IDIOTS (Score:5, Funny)
It's a hat, FFS. There's nothing "sinister, secretive, evil, or sneaky" about it. IT'S A HAT.
Get a grip, you numpties.
No, I think they may have a point, logos can affect you. Every time I see a Windows logo, after a while, I get this overwhelming urge to throw something at it
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The biggest problem with Windows 10 is the logo looks like it would actually shatter. The old Windows 7 logo would just brush it off waving in the wind. :)
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No, I think they may have a point, logos can affect you. Every time I see a Windows logo, after a while, I get this overwhelming urge to throw something at it
From Wikipedia: "The broken windows theory is a criminological theory that shows visible signs of crime, anti-social behavior, and civil disorder create an urban environment that encourages further crime and disorder, including serious crimes."
That certainly explains a lot.
Re: People are IDIOTS (Score:1)
They should use a raspberry beret, the kind you find at a secondhand store
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They should use a raspberry beret, the kind you find at a secondhand store
And charge a princely sum.
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19.99 seems about right.
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White hats are for ethical people.
I know, right? [gettyimages.com]
It was the dude under the hat that spooks people (Score:5, Funny)
It isn't the hat that was the problem-- they kept that. It was the shadowy figure under it.
The major problem this change will cause is now no one will understand my tattoo. It's right next to the napster cat. So many bad boy logos now dead. At least my facebook tattoo will never go out of style. Smart move on my part, no longer tattooing impermanent lifestyle choices.
But they kept the hat. It actually is a better logo for logo purposes since it reproduces well at all scales and isn't overloaded with stuff like a shadowy spectre. So I can't fault the move.
The blog to hand-wring over the stated motivation is silly. It's just a sharper corporate logo. Hooray.
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What you don't understand is that under the hat is 'day man [youtube.com]'. He is only scary because he's 'shadowed' by the hat. The hat is the problem and clearly must go!
He's definitely scarier in full light and spandex. Now that the hat is gone we should also remove the spandex and his codpiece. He won't be so scary then.
Re:It was the dude under the hat that spooks peopl (Score:5, Funny)
It isn't the hat that was the problem-- they kept that. It was the shadowy figure under it.
The shadowy figure was Lennart Poettering. People were finding that scary.
Re: People are IDIOTS (Score:1)
It always reminded me of Carmen San Diego. A fictional spy. I've always thought it was amateurish and evoked something, at least on the surface that they shouldn't be taken seriously. Now, being a geek and knowing the truth I didn't let my impressions of the logo change my opinion of the company. But always thought if they wanted to be taken seriously, the logo would have to change.
People are not idiots (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a fedora tilted down, an image closely associated with film noir [wikipedia.org]. Whether or not you're cognizant of that, the association with questionable people interacting on rainy city streets at night is fixed in the public conscience.
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It's a hat, FFS. There's nothing "sinister, secretive, evil, or sneaky" about it. IT'S A HAT.
Get a grip, you numpties.
No it was a creepy looking guy (hacker?) wearing a hat.
NOW the logo is a hat, idiot.
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No. It's been changed to a hat. What it *was* was a shady looking guy wearing a hat. I still remember seeing the logo the first time and straight away thinking "Spy vs Spy", but back then I was also reading mad magazine a lot.
Bright red, yeah that's sneaky (Score:3)
Red hats violate the IBM dress code (Score:3)
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IBM Marketing are idiots (Score:2)
Remember who bought Red Hat.
Their marketing department is doing random crap just for the sake of having something to do.
Thank the GPL that we still have Debian, CentOS, etc.
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I'd give you a left handed compliment, but it might be considered sinister.
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There's no grip to get. And the logo isn't just "IT'S A HAT"...there's a person under it. Weather you like it or not, people's perception is their reality, and the design clearly had a perception issue. While most people don't give a shit, one VP or government contracting officer not liking it could cost them millions in contract money.
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No it's a man with a hat obscuring his eyes looking downwards from the observer. His mouth not shown indicating a neutral to negative expression. Thus we have someone that wears a hat (inconsequential) hiding his eyes, not looking towards the observer but something that can't be seen, and without a positive expression on his face.
Now ask yourself how one is expected to act when meeting a new person in order to give a good impression.
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as long as there won't be a Vista Hat
New Red Hat logo looks confusingly like Pizza Hut (Score:1)
I am totally confused now. What have pizzas to do with a computer?
Where are the lawyers when one needs them?
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I am totally confused now. What have pizzas to do with a computer?
Where are the lawyers when one needs them?
Luckily, your first question is why your question isn't the answer.
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New Red Hat logo looks confusingly like Pizza Hut
Pizza Hat you mean?
https://www.buzzfeed.com/polit... [buzzfeed.com]
(scroll down to pizza hat)
Pimp hat linux (Score:2)
I canâ(TM)t believe they havenâ(TM)t had to scrap the logo entirely and change the name because âoemetooâ or something. But seriously, Iâ(TM)ve looked at that logo since the Red Hat 4.x (way before the RHEL days) and immediately thought âoewho but a pimp would wear a red fedora?â
But then, I roll with an OS that uses the devil as a mascot, so yeah.
Re: Pimp hat linux (Score:2)
I've always said pimps are born, not made. I've have played the role of "unintentional pimp" as well at least once during my life. For Red Hat to be laying pipe to them this long, they have to be strokin SOMETHIN right.
Consulting firm (Score:1)
Does anyone else find it funny their consulting firm is named Pentagram?
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The average person drools over a symbol of powerful evil.
The problem with Shadow Man is that we only know he's in the shadows, he isn't associated with any symbols of power.
Simply being in the "hard boiled" story genre isn't enough to invoke power.
It got even more sinister (Score:2)
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He's not spying, he's running from Seolhyun, of course!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
(kpop video in "Hard Boiled" style by Ace of Angels featuring the 7 Angels chasing/spying on a guy in a hat. According to the lyrics, they're investigating his phone number.)
Should we really be listening to ignorant opinions (Score:1)
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Ah, but just watch the video - not one of those fedoras is red!
Less humorously, as stated in the summary, the problem was not the hat - they kept that. What was the problem was the shadowy man hiding his face beneath it. The pose seems to pretty clearly evoke the shady characters of old noir films, and I'm not at all surprised it was perceived as sneaky or sinister.
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It's what happens when peoples actions are based on emotion instead of fact. Enjoy the clown world. HONK HONK.
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You mean should we placate our customer's impressions? No, let's just leave millions of dollars in lost sales on the table. That wouldn't be so ignorant, would it?
Red hats are in (Score:2)
make Linux great again
Beginning of the end. (Score:1)
Re:Beginning of the end. (Score:5, Insightful)
Um ... logos ARE marketing.
Not all red hats are fedoras. (Score:2)
Or IBM (Score:2)
The survey was in early 2017, IBM is dropping 34B on Red Hat.
Fall of Red Hat (Score:1)
Calling it now, whatever Red Hat was before, is no longer. . Why don't they go after the Pillsbury Doughboy for fat shaming or Nike for a logo that looks like a machette? The amount of stupid in this is unreal.
It's not even funny on a meme level. It's kind of expected a massive merger like this would result in some kind of logo change but ffs, call it a logo change. The rage I have at this is a little too close to home because I know the kind of people who sat in meetings discussing it at length ho
I'm going to go out on a limb here... (Score:5, Interesting)
My guess is that the *real* reason is the "rendering poorly in digital formats, especially small form factors (like smartphones)" part. I've noticed a lot of simplifications of logos, particularly on app icons, these last few years as more and more peoples' primary internet devices become smartphones and tablets. In Asia, this is especially common... hardly a laptop to be seen, even in coffee shops which, in the US, would be a sea of (no-longer-)glowing Apple logos. But everybody and everybody is on their iPhone or Android almost constantly. So a simplified logo like the new one makes a lot of sense in that context.
I'd bet that the "sinister connotations" part is mostly just an invented BS narrative supported only by a vanishingly tiny and stupid minority of users, if at all. We are talking about the words of a marketing guy, after all.
Re:I'm going to go out on a limb here... (Score:4, Informative)
(Full disclosure: Former Red Hatter here.)
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Thank you for the internal insight. But in fairness to the OP, clicking through to the actual RH blog reveals that the original source is Tim Yeaton -- RH's chief MARKETING officer. So it really is literally true that all any non-insider has to go on are the "words of a marketing guy." And therefore it is a perfectly fair and usually valid assumption that the entire narrative - claims of an "open process" included - would be a load of dingos' kidneys.
Who else did you expect to write the press release?
Besides, that blog post by the marketing guy actually contains a link to the project they used to design the logo [redhat.com].
The OP was just being lazy and looking to take a cheap shot.
Secret Agent; at least I always thought so. (Score:2)
Red Hat always reminded me of Extreme - Get the Funk Out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I guess everything becomes offensive over time.
Only sneakiness? (Score:2)
With the modern cultural connotation of a man wearing a fedora, I'd imagine that people might think of the "shadowman" as some variety of mysogynistic sex-starved loser. I'm surprised they didn't change the red fedora to some other kind of hat to get away from this.
I always thought of him as a film noir P.I. Of course its silly to read any of this into the ancient logo which is really an inside joke, as is the tradition with libre software, but I guess they need to appease the various CxOs and PHBs who shop
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I'm surprised they didn't change the red fedora to some other kind of hat to get away from this.
The fedora has a long history within Red Hat and many people within the company are violently attached it. To this very day, every new hire is allotted their very own red felt fedora. (I passed.)
what would Raistlin say (Score:2)
The new logo reminds me (Score:3)
Jeebus... it's the whole POINT of Red-Hat! (Score:2)
... They're not the establishment White Hats holding everyone back, and they're not the anarchist black-hats trying to tear it all down; they're the guys with the knowledge to be either but instead choose to make stuff that JUST PLAIN WORKS, and stuff done out in the open, plain and simple for everyone to see. Red-hat MAN is the symbol of that, not the hat itself you fuckwits.
Just because the general public is fucking imbeciles who don't know software from their own soft skulls is a shite reason to piss a
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Yes, but "Red-hat MAN" had an unofficial name which was used widely within the company and also by media outlets like my former home, The Register: Shadowman.
His name was Shadowman.
So to all the people moaning that the idea that he looked somehow "sinister" or "secretive" is B.S., I've got bad news for you: That was the point from the beginning. And whatever thinking was behind it when Red Hat was founded, the company has moved past it, and it was time for the logo to change.
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Agreed. Redhat used to be a company that was cool with helping its users stay secure and private.
Now it's IBM, they're changing the logo, and I have just a small handful of EL/Fedora machines left to move over to Debian.
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well now that IBM owns them they are the property of the corporate overlords of cube farms full of mindless droids with hordes of lawyers to make sure you toe their line
so who gives a shit what they make the logo into. why not make it a red swastika, IBM automated the gathering of data on undesirables for the holocaust after all.
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"Toe their line" would mean to barely follow their rules. It would not mean to do what they say. And you never have the lawyers try to get people to barely follow the rules; you try to scare them back away from the line so that they just follow the actual intent of the rule.
Your meaning is closer to "towing their line," an archaic and not particularly accessible turn of phrase that you should avoid unless you've worked as a sailor.
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Wrong, educate your very ignorant self before trying to be a pedant and failing: https://grammarist.com/usage/t... [grammarist.com]
To toe the line means to be where you need to be, to act as you need to act, according to a pre-defined standard.
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It's still wrong, even in that usage. The usage you linked to is for when there is a external set of rules, not for when you're trying to impose a rule.
You're right that my pedanticism failed to capture the detail of your mistake. I presumed, falsely, that your mistake was smaller than that. I should have paid more attention to your use of the word "their," instead of dismissing it as an irrelevant alteration.
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My usage was correct, I'm talking about IBM making customers toe the line.
Your ignorance and refusal to be educated is an astounding and amusing thing in a pedant.
Logo image issue? (Score:3, Insightful)
What people think when they see the logo (Score:3)
From the article:
> When people who haven't yet heard of Red Hat see the new logo, I want them to associate it with an innovative hybrid cloud company rooted in the power and trustworthiness of Linux—a company expertly capable of working alongside them to tackle technology challenges with a broad portfolio of solutions, a valued and trusted partner.
Call me crazy, but how exactly would one see a red fedora hat and think "ahhh, this must be an innovative hybrid cloud company..."
If I have never heard of red hat and I see the new logo, I would imagine a company that makes hats.
New logo (Score:3)
Reminds me of a slashdot fortune from yesteryear (Score:1)
Last night, upon a stair, I saw a man who wasn't there.
I did not see him again today. I think he's from the CIA.
Change for the sake of change, again (Score:2)
Obviously, the old logo badly hampered their rise to success.
Well it's not a company any more (Score:2)
Redhat isn't a company any more, it's a subsidiary. Of IBM! The original home of corporate tightassery.
'Sinister', 'Secretive' Systemd (Score:2)
Seriously shit software.
red baseball cap (Score:2)
Whatever you do, don't change the logo to a baseball cap, especially if it says anything about America on it. That could get your tires slashed.
This is offensive (Score:2)
To use the word 'sinister' in this day and age. I don't think I'll overcome this insult and victimization by the evil 'dexter' right-handed cabal! I need my safe-space, a non-gender binary stuffed animal and someone to read me a recent Code of Conduct so I can get to sleep tonight.
It seems that Redhat in trouble (Score:2)
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BSD is for you then. Devil mascot since the start. Gives away the true leaning of Berkeley, CA...