This new branding (logo/color/typeface) is pretty bad
As a digital artist and designer myself, it is my professional opinion that this rebrand completely fails to impress.
COLOR: Not only was the old color (a muted cobalt blue) unique among other brands, it was simple, approachable by all demographics, it exuded professionalism with a hint of cool and an aversion to being stuffy. This new "Blurple" is way too saturated and makes things difficult to read, not to mention it and the rest of the new color palette screams "I'm for kids!" and could be found on Fisher-Price toys.
TEXT: The typeface (chosen or designed) for the logo is, again, childish. This is on the same level of the Google rebrand years ago when they went from serif to sans serif. The old typeface was, again, unique and gave the impression of being modern yet futurist. That notch cutout in the D was particularly genius to reference a speech bubble. The text was geometric, balanced, and clean. The new one is quite the mess and a real eyesore. The tension of unresolved heights/widths gives the logo a haphazard, incredibly unbalanced look.
CLYDE: As for the icon logo itself, the asymmetry wasn't noticeable except at larger sizes. If it really bothered you, just average the difference between the sides and be done. I bet you no one would notice. The thing I liked about the old logo is that it reminded me of an old space invader which made it feel retro but with a modern feel to it and unique enough to be its own thing. Now the new logo looks like a simplified blob trying to be a controller... but not... with eyeballs. You've lost the dimensionality of the old logo so the new logo looks flatter than ever. The softness of the old logo is gone and in its place is a hard block that has little appeal. Yes, the overall shape of the old logo was a trapezoid, but it had the feel of a rounded face in the foreground, adding to it feeling warmer and more appealing. The old logo struck a good balance of shapes to achieve something unique and easy to recognize, while also referencing something that says "gaming" to those in the know.
APP UI: I should also note that saturated colors against the dark theme of the app are a large eyesore. I really would appreciate a "Legacy Mode" for my designer brain to be calmed. These bright colors on my DCI-P3 color space display hurt my eyes.
It saddens me to see Discord going in this direction like so many other companies trying to be "cool" and "hip" by splashing bright colors all over everything. I thought Discord was different. I thought Discord was a rebel, not a follower of what's fashionable with what everyone else is doing. I guess I was wrong.
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I could not agree more on the option to at least get a "Legacy" mode or something of that sort.
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Well stated.
The new branding isn't inherently bad, but it makes no sense for Discord. I usually find myself in the camp of supporting "controversial" logo and branding changes (I was okay with Google's), but this is just a real head-scratcher for me.
The original logo really looks great, and everything from the various illustrations to the actual app design fit perfectly with it. This has just thrown a wrench in all of that for no good reason.
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I second the idea of a "Legacy" theme, or maybe just custom theme support in general would be appreciated.
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On all my clients (Mac, Win, Android), the new logo color is extremely clashing with everything else on those operating systems, I have a negative visceral reaction to those colors every time I use the app these days :( ..didn't get used to it even after a few days, it feels so bad. Now I know how much I really loved the old color !!!
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I would like to put in. The new Blue color is really harsh on my eyes. it hurts to look at. I've given it quite a few days to see if it would be something to get used to, but its as I feared it's just a really bad color that hurts the eyes. i really miss that misty blue it was before. It was easy to look at and read. Didn't give me a headache.
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