Apple, being one of the most prominent and recognized companies worldwide, is bound to make waves any time it makes a change or announces anything new. Apple’s celebrated clean and simple design style has spearheaded modern design trends over the past few years. They have been the ones to watch and consequently, have found themselves under much scrutiny this year.
Apple’s latest controversy erupted after Steve Jobs latest keynote speech where he introduced the world to iTunes 10 and their newest application Ping. Ping instantly created quite an esteemed buzz in the Social Media Marketing world. iTunes 10, in sharp contrast, quickly sparked an onslaught of opinions and controversy across the web. What’s all the fuss about? The new iTunes 10 logo. Apple has moved away from its old familiar logo design where a music icon is pictured floating above a CD and replaced it with a music note that is now enveloped by a blue bubble.
Almost instantly, the design world reacted. Apparently, a designer Joshua Kopac sent an email to Steve Jobs saying “…this new iTunes logo really sucks. You’re taking 10+ years of instant product recognition and replacing it with an unknown”. Numerous iTune logo redesigns also started popping up on a design website called Dribble. One created by designer Chris Carlozzi has even gotten as many as 164 likes so far and it has created quite a buzz itself on the web. Wired.com also hoped on the bandwagon and invited their readers to redesign the iTunes 10 icon. Their readers voted on their favourite redesigns and the winner took home an iPod Shuffle. The new iTunes 10 logo has even generated so much controversy that it now in fact the 31st most recognizable logo in the world.
What do you think of the new iTunes logo design?
I agree with what most people seem to be saying about the new iTunes logo. I find that it is too comicy and amateur looking. It looks like the icons we saw on PC in the 90’s. I don’t like the blue bubble in the background. I don’t like the type treatment either and I find actually find it to be quite distracting. This new logo design definitely doesn’t seem to jive with what we would normally see from Apple.
Steve Jobs said that Apple revamped the iTunes logo because iTunes digital music downloads are very much on the rise and set to outpace CD album sales by the end of the year. I get this. CD’s are becoming obsolete but why then keep the music note icon? Isn’t iTunes becoming so much more now as well? It is no longer just a music app. It has become a source of movies, TV shows, podcasts and now with the introduction of Ping, its has even become its own brand of Social Media Marketing.
Regardless, the new iTunes logo has already proven to be quite the attention grabber. With so much controversy, talk and awareness about the new logo exploding on the web, I have to say that Apple is doing something right. Perhaps the rest of us are just too set in our ways to see it. Just a thought...