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HP's New Logo Is the Awesome One It Never Used (theverge.com) 154

An anonymous reader writes: Earlier today, HP announced the Spectre 13, the world's thinnest laptop. One of the subtle changes HP is making with its recent global brand offensive is to its logo. HP has decided to go with a minimalist design consisting of four slashes making up the "HP" brand name. Previously, "Hewlett-Packard" was written out in full on last year's Spectre x360. HP says it will be using the minimalist logo solely on its premium laptops. Even though the logo has received a makeover, it's not exactly new. This very same mark first surfaced online in a 2011 brand redesign study released by Moving Brands, who HP had hired to develop a new logo and brand identity.
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HP's New Logo Is the Awesome One It Never Used

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  • Ew (Score:4, Insightful)

    by binarylarry ( 1338699 ) on Tuesday April 05, 2016 @08:41PM (#51850193)

    HP laptops? nasty

    • Re:Ew (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TheGratefulNet ( 143330 ) on Tuesday April 05, 2016 @08:53PM (#51850283)

      lock down that wifi slot! can't have people installing any old compliant and functional pci-e card. gotta make them buy OURS. we'll whitelist only ours, bwahahaha!

      evil fucking company. then again, anyone that large is also evil; comes with the territory, it seems ;(

      • by KGIII ( 973947 )

        Compared to these laptops, mine isn't very thin and it doesn't really look all that fancy - which is a bonus. It's a bit heavy but lighter than it looks like - even with two drives in it. I'm pretty happy with it but it's a "mobile workstation" and not a "laptop." I bought the Titan X4K earlier this year and have been pretty happy with the product. I imagine it's more than what most folks want to pay (I decked it out, including the extras - sans OS, of course) but I think it's worth it.

        I am not affiliated.

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2016 @12:55AM (#51851191)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by phorm ( 591458 )

        I remember dealing with those issues. My HP laptop had a PITA broadcomm 802.11b wifi NIC which at the time needed ndiswrapper in Linux. I wanted to install either an Intel or a Atheros 802.11g NIC, but the damn laptop wouldn't take any non-HP cards.

        • by ncc74656 ( 45571 ) *

          I remember dealing with those issues. My HP laptop had a PITA broadcomm 802.11b wifi NIC which at the time needed ndiswrapper in Linux. I wanted to install either an Intel or a Atheros 802.11g NIC, but the damn laptop wouldn't take any non-HP cards.

          Had that happen once. I made do with a CardBus WiFi card until the native Broadcom driver (b43?) started to work. ndiswrapper never worked for me.

          OTOH, another HP notebook (maybe a slightly older one) shipped with a wireless NIC with no WPA support...kinda use

    • The previous line of Elitebooks (the ones with the silver cases) was quite good. Solidly made, and reliable. This line, with a flimsy feeling plastic case, no CD-ROM drive, and no latch for the lid... not so much.
      • My experience with those Elitebooks is that they were garbage. The first problem is that they were total dogs performance wise. I'm not sure what the problem was exactly, but you'd get one totally specced out and the thing would just be slow and sluggish and feel like it was several years older than it really was. The second problem is that they just didn't hold up well either. Lots of failures and 3-4 years and they'd be dead. Usually just out of warranty and deemed not worth repairing. Granted, that

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Does anyone else think the logo looks showing the middle finger?

  • An ad (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kamapuaa ( 555446 ) on Tuesday April 05, 2016 @08:47PM (#51850243) Homepage

    I don't get it. Is this sponsored content?

    Hate to say it but I think I agree with all the crazy anti-Windows people that pollute this site. No use getting an expensive windows computer that can't play games. Windows is only if you're making a game machine or want to buy one of the $200 laptops.

    • I've seen several stories obviously pushed by one social media organization or another not quite make it to the front page. I think out new overlords are just a little less savvy about preventing manipulation.
    • by KGIII ( 973947 )

      No, it's not sponsored content. Whipslash/Logan posted above your post but after you posted. I don't think they do a whole lot of sponsored content here. At least not that I've noticed - though I think Dice did some. I'm not sure why everyone seems to jump to that conclusion. So, if you don't mind entertaining me, why is it that you leaped to that conclusion? It's not like there's a recent history of sponsored content. The new overlords are pretty damned open and, seemingly, honest. You can just ask 'em if

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by imidan ( 559239 )

        I'm not sure why everyone seems to jump to that conclusion.

        Well, it seems like 'slashvertisement' is the automatic cry that people raise when a product or service that they don't personally like or use is mentioned in a post. And anyone who disagrees with that judgment is a 'paid shill.'

        For what it's worth, I like the new logo. I don't think it's either particularly necessary or helpful, but I don't have any problem with it.

      • No, it's not sponsored content. Whipslash/Logan posted above your post but after you posted.

        If it was the case that for X bucks you can get a [non]-story posted, and if you were him, would you just come out and admit it?

    • Windows is only if you're making a game machine or want to buy one of the $200 laptops.

      Or want a computer that doesn't actively battle the user every step of the way to do basic tasks while at the same time not wanting a mac.

    • No use getting an expensive windows computer that can't play games. Windows is only if you're making a game machine or want to buy one of the $200 laptops.

      No, Windows is used to do real work, too. It's still the dominant CAD platform, for example. Basically all automotive software is for Windows, including tuning and programming. Seems to still be the dominant platform in GIS, in spite of most of those tools being available for Windows now, presumably we can chalk that up to inertia and legacy software. I'm sure there are numerous other industries where Windows is the de facto standard.

  • by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Tuesday April 05, 2016 @08:49PM (#51850253) Journal
    I used to work for a software company that was an OEM vendor to HP. The Logo police declared on the top left corner of the window, we should have the logo. So we created it that way. Then we created a cool animation that will "spin" the logo, as though it has been etched on a glass plate spinning on a vertical axis. It would spin if you click on that corner. A small inconsequential easter egg.

    No! The logo police came down on it like a ton of bricks. The aspect ratio of the log does not match the company spec during the animation. They made us pull the release candidate and rebuild the whole software.

    We had the last laugh though, we spun off the OEM software under our own brand, and HP competed with us, then spun off its software division as Agilent, and then we beat Agilent in that business. They eventually sold their customer base who used the competing version created by them to us and exited the business. Anyone who spent that much time enforcing logo display deserved to go out of business.

    • by Xabraxas ( 654195 ) on Tuesday April 05, 2016 @10:09PM (#51850623)
      Every large company has branding standards and most are very strict about how they are used. This is not limited to HP.
      • by KGIII ( 973947 )

        Shit, I was an MVP award winner with Microsoft for about a half-dozen years. This was ages ago but they were VERY anal retentive about what logo could be used, where it was to be used, and how you used it and presented it - you signed both an agreement to do so (or you didn't get the award) and an NDA to not discuss the rules. I am, kind of obviously, no longer receiving that award every year. I haven't participated in the program since about 2006.

        Ah well... They did give us an insanely awesome version of M

    • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2016 @03:39AM (#51851665)

      Anyone who spent that much time enforcing logo display deserved to go out of business.

      You have just described the entire fortune 500 portfolio. When companies get to the point where their logo is valuable or their products are worth forging there are good reasons to enforce incredibly strict logo rules. This can be to:
      a) show consistency
      b) drive a certain message (i.e. our branding standards include which colours can cover which part of a page and a based on psychological studies of how people react to colours).
      c) ensure that the brand is advertised in a consistent way; which ties into:
      d) fight forging, when you're always 100% sure of exactly how a product is supposed to look it makes it easier to spot the fakes, especially since the fakes often make minor modifications to the logo to avoid falling afoul of trademark laws which are about the only laws that apply properly in much of the world.

      I once had to redesign a product because the printing proof showed a single colour of the logo slightly differently due to a supplier changing printers. And when I say slightly differently it was resolved by increasing the yellow colour by 2 values (out of 256). I couldn't tell the difference side by side between the printed copies but the brand team could.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2016 @04:35AM (#51851787)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Logo and branding are VERY specific and related closer to trademark then to copyright. There are always forms and papers on how the logo should look, what colors must be used, what if it is in black and white and a lot of other things.

        We have one of them that states very specifically in quite strong terms when the business name is written down each word MUST start with a capital letter.....the logo is all lowercase /facepalm

      • They marketed Stella as being Premium French beer.
  • by AmazingRuss ( 555076 ) on Tuesday April 05, 2016 @09:01PM (#51850325)

    A logo change for a company nobody cares about anymore is like don't care squared.

    I hope they paid well.

    • by msauve ( 701917 )
      HP isn't HP. Keysight [wikipedia.org] is the real HP (which was built upon test equipment).
      • It's too bad that HP kept the calculators division. Agilent/Keysight might have done something more interesting with them.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      That logo is awesomesauceballs. Minimalist as all hell, but recognizable like yo mommas back.

      But it is as newsworthy as the ass I just dropped.

      I liked the link to hpes logo, which is boring like picking your crack and not finding any Klingons. The (tit)tees are crammed together for the first time in history! Epicleventy!!!

      Wait, CEOs spend time on this shit instead of making a business that doesn't nurse butt. There's your news, and stock tip.

    • by dargaud ( 518470 )
      Well at work we just went from all Dell laptops and HP desktops/servers to all new HP laptops and Dell desktops/servers (don't ask...). So my next laptop arriving next week will be an HP (my Latitude E6410 has served me well and is still in great shape so will go to an underling). But all those negative comments are disheartening... C:-(
    • I vote for changing it to "Stuff Those Matters!", who's with me?
  • by jdavidb ( 449077 ) on Tuesday April 05, 2016 @09:02PM (#51850327) Homepage Journal

    If I look at it upside down it looks sort of like it is flipping me off...

  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday April 05, 2016 @09:14PM (#51850389)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by darthsilun ( 3993753 ) on Tuesday April 05, 2016 @09:31PM (#51850487)
    I can see it, but only because I knew what was coming.

    If I hadn't known, I'd probably still be wondering.

    Epic fail IMO.
    • So it suits the company perfectly then.

    • by Quirkz ( 1206400 )

      I remember with the old logo sometimes seeing it upside down and wondering what a DY was. This one is still susceptible to that, in addition to looking like a fence, or the rain, or someone being beamed up to a space ship.

    • The point of a logo is not to instantly recognise the company, it's to drive a brand. The recognition comes after circulation. Take a car logo for instance. Many people have no idea that the Toyota symbol actually spells the letters Toyota over each other, or that the Subaru logo is based on the constellation by the same name in Japanese based on the pleiades. In either case though after a brief period people recognise the logo and associate it with a company. Or what do a horse and a bull say about a car a

      • Toyota symbol actually spells the letters Toyota over each other,

        This is a new one on me. But I only recently learned of the arrow in the FedEx logo, even more recently the spoon. The Tostitos logo has two guys dipping chips in salsa within the 'tit' of the logo. And the new Baskin Robbins logo has the number 31 hidden in the BR.

        These are all things I appreciate and enjoy.

  • by Jody Bruchon ( 3404363 ) on Tuesday April 05, 2016 @09:50PM (#51850545)
    That's all: this logo is ugly as shit. It doesn't even look like HP. It looks like a part of a postal bar code got stepped on. This minimalism thing is getting really out of hand.
  • Looks like it...

    • actually, they used a dot matrix printer - but it was so old, some of the pins were stuck.

      "hey, look at this! maybe we can salvage this into our new logo!"

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by Anonymous Coward

    The new logo is very nice, clean and minimalistic, but just look at the LIP watches logo from last century - somehow VERY similar.

  • I wonder if they are trying to hide the fact that the owner use a HP brand laptop?

    I am not trying to joke here as my older computer was Lenovo and current one is HP. Both chosen with the criteria of being Debian compatible (chips) and I will not be running Apple in Starbucks for example.

    If they are ashamed of being themselves and try to hide it, they have a bigger problem.

  • Nobody will know what it is unless you tell them, and even then some people will not be able to see it. .. but maybe the laptop will be so dreadful nobody will ever NEED to see the logo.

  • "liji"???
    Yup. How awesome.

  • That is not a very original logo. The MIT Press has one just like it (same "font") and they have had it for decades. See http://mitpress.mit.edu/ [mit.edu]

  • HP = crap. Avoid. And by the way, just stop this slashvertising. It is getting boring.
  • by mwn3d ( 2750695 )
    Anyone else read the logo as "bup"? Just me? OK.
  • by Mr_Silver ( 213637 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2016 @08:52AM (#51852677)

    I'm no brand or design guru (like most people here on Slashdot) but I did rather like the other logo they had on the HP Spectre 13 [notebookcheck.net].

    Wonder why they didn't go with that one?

    • by PPH ( 736903 )

      I think they want people to forget about their engineering and instrumentation origins.

  • ... this 'dy' brand laptop. The hinges are on the wrong side.

  • Looks sort of similar to their [wikipedia.org] logo.

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