Scott Hanselman

PDC 2008: New .NET Logo

October 25, 2008 Comment on this post [25] Posted in PDC
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It's official. There's a new .NET logo. It's 'the wave' and it's a nice refresh of the now 8-year old original .NET logo. Here's the logo on a light background and a dark background, oriented both horizontally and vertically.

newdotnetlogo

I liked the new logo so much that even though it's not available on our internal ordering system yet, I had a batch of custom business cards printed with it. If you see me around PDC this week, I'll be happy to give you one! :)

Just one of the new things that are coming up this week at PDC.

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About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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October 25, 2008 13:12
:-|. Looks like "N.NET"
October 25, 2008 13:19
Bad timing... I just ordered new business cards for myself yesterday. One day too late :-(. Looks great!
October 25, 2008 15:48
I like the old one better.

Is that some marketing tricks 'the wave' ???

Nah...
October 25, 2008 16:17
I think this design change of the logo should had happened with the .NET 3.5 release, or with silverlight 2 rtw.
But better now than never.
October 25, 2008 17:26
I liked the old one better aswell.

Does that wave suppose to represent the "N" in .NET?
October 25, 2008 17:49
Reminds me of the Visual Studio Logo, just please do not change the "Infinity-Symbol" of Visual Studio, I love that one.

I was never too fond of the old logo anyway, but that was in line with the "Windows 2000-Style Branding" of the time: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/27/Microsoft_.NET_Logo.png

I would have preferred another color though, I think the Web is becoming "too blue", but that may just be subjective. Not sure yet what to think of the actual logo. The Silverlight one is really great, so is Visual Studio. But the Wave... It's not really a Wave with those sharp corners, is it? It also seems asymmetric, but that is personal preference of course. I think I know what I miss about this logo: Personality. Attitude.Charm. It's looks a bit too generic to me, too polished, too "boring".

Sorry for being negative. It is MUCH better than the old one, but it is just not *really* great and memorable in my opinion. At least I think I would never think about making myself a T-Shirt with it, unlike the Visual Studio Shirt on my Gravatar :-)
October 25, 2008 19:48
Is it vibrating in space time? That's what it looks like.
October 25, 2008 20:07
This logo looks very fresh and quite neat IMO.
October 25, 2008 22:23
I like it. Very sexy!
October 25, 2008 23:45
Where do we buy shirts! It's pretty..
October 26, 2008 5:14
Very cool. Although now my paint.net logo is out-of-sync :)
October 26, 2008 21:46
It doesn't do much for me personally. I thought the 'old one' was just fine
October 27, 2008 1:09
I agree to others; the old one was better. This one doesn’t use gestalt effect very efficiently. Microsoft should seriously consider involving the community in some of these decisions, much like Jeff Atwood did for the stackoverflow domain name and logo.
October 27, 2008 1:10
I agree with the others. The old one was better. This one doesn’t use gestalt effect very efficiently. Microsoft should seriously consider involving the community in some of these decisions much like Jeff Atwood did for the stack overflow name and logo.
October 27, 2008 1:11
I agree with the others. The old one was better. This one doesn’t use gestalt effect very efficiently. Microsoft should seriously consider involving the community in some of these decisions much like Jeff Atwood did for the stack overflow name and logo.
October 27, 2008 9:12
The only one that works for me is the horizontal on blue background (top right). I wouldn't mind having a t-shirt or business card with that background and the logo, very cool. The vertical on the other hand just looks a bit off.

I liked the old one but I can understand their feeling the need to create a new image. I suspect the new logo is an attempt to define a brand for the next generation of .NET apps. I guess we'll find out more this week during PDC.
October 27, 2008 14:11
I kind of like the wave form in the logo. It looks fine, if I try to forget that it is a giant, wacky "N".

But the "wavy" and "free" wave contrasts with the sharp text in the logo in an unpleasant way. At least for me.
October 27, 2008 14:57
Interesting, it looks like Microsoft have trademarked a Tilde :)
October 27, 2008 15:14
My point of view:

The old one wasn't a LOGO. This is a true LOGO.
Looks smooth and matches the Silverlight one very well.
October 27, 2008 20:53
Looks similar to cold fusion box branding
October 28, 2008 2:50
god bless those lawyers with the trademarks and copyrights - really trashes what would be a nice design...
October 28, 2008 5:57
Can't say as I'm super impressed. It doesn't have enough "presence"--it's not something you would want to add to a product or web page to advertise the framework; it's more of a background looking thing.

Granted, I have to say the old one was hideous, and a 5-year old could have come up with a better design with a box of crayons, but it's still nowhere near the level I would like to see it.

@Rick: Guess you'll have to rename it Paint.N, else the new logo won't work. :P
October 29, 2008 15:01
I hope my chief (who is at PDC, while I'm here pretending to work) will take a business card :-)
October 30, 2008 4:54
My 2 Cents - could have been way better - but logos like this are so subjective I'm sure others will like it.
November 01, 2008 0:46
.NET Framework logo, the String Theory edition. Like the logo, still hate the name.

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.