How many Instagram logos can you remember?
Come on, think about it, you don’t have to go back that far. We bet most of you can remember two. What if we told you that, instead, the app’s history has as many as three different ones? Few remember the first logo, which has nothing to do with the current one. Today we want to refresh your memory: let’s go over the history of the three logos together, from 2010 to the present.
Who remembers the first Instagram logo?
The very first icon was designed by Instagram CEO and co-founder Kevin Systrom. Here it is, inspired by the vintage Polaroid camera.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaroid_Land_Camera_1000
The icon floated on a transparent background and counted numerous details all slavishly taken from the iconic Polaroid camera: the large flash, the rainbow stripe across the center of the camera, three buttons, and the viewfinder. The effect was deliberately three-dimensional and hyper-realistic: note, for example, the shadow of the buttons at the bottom of the camera. Such detailed illustration today would be unthinkable for an icon.
The “iconic” logo
The second logo, the one you will surely remember much better, was designed by designer and photographer Cole Rise in the fall of 2010. The icon again represents a camera this time inspired by the Bell & Howell model of the 1950s.
Legend has it that the logo was designed by Cole Rise in just 45 minutes, this was followed by only minor tweaks to perfect it. The new icon was made official 6 months later, in 2011. A curiosity: did you know that there is also a B-side of him? Cole Rise drew it for fun.
The minimal icon of 2016
Five years since the last redesign, more exactly on May 11, 2016, after 9 months of work, the company announced its third logo.
Here is how Instagram presented the new design in an article published on Medium.
As is often the case when dealing with a drastic change, the response from users was not universally positive and, at first, the new logo sparked irony and criticism on social media.
The features of the new logo
Where did the rainbow, the iconic element of the app, go? And where did the crosshairs and the lens go? Sure it takes a little effort, but upon closer inspection these elements live on in the new icon. They have simply been abstracted: the rainbow lives on in the three-color gradient of the icon, and the crosshair and lens have been synthesized into lines and dots. The logo still suggests the idea of a camera, so the history and soul of the company remain, but it is an abstract image that looks to the future. The new minimalist design is perfectly in line with new trends in graphic design.
The new image is concise, flat, and most importantly, it looks great even in a very small format. The rainbow disappears and 3 colors remain, blending into each other: pink, purple and yellow. Again, a color synthesis process has been applied here that gives off more energy, dynamism and warmth than using flat, separate colors. Only by looking at it in retrospect can we realize how avant-garde the choice of the gradient was, as well as the process of flattening and synthesizing the logo.
What lesson do we take home with the story of Instagram’s redesign? That changes, when they are real changes, are difficult to be understood and accepted right away: it takes time to appreciate their revolutionary scope. And, on the brand side, it takes courage to make a break, to break the habits of so many loyal users. It takes a vision.red