New HP Logo will need to be frequently cleaned with a Q-tip

I quite like HP's new logo (right), which the company paid for but has not yet implemented. It's a simple, clean, and unmistakable distillation of its established identity.

But as Armin at Brand New says, it's not quite there: "HP still feels like a stodgy PC company trying to be cool."

The ascender and descender are a bit too long, and it could also be BP's new logo, but for me, the real problem is that it evokes the past in an unfortunate way. It looks like the cooling vent greebling on yesteryear's consumer electronics. You know, the bars and troughs that get filled with dust, and require Q-tips to clean (or, in a pinch, a rolled-up wad of paper chewed to a point). You can find them on many computers, but not so many in this decade; the Atari 2600 video console, released in the 1970s, is as good an example as any.

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coreymaley

Like the MIT Press logo, except worse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Press
http://boingboing.net/ Rob Beschizza

The MIT Press logo looks like it’ll have your fingers if you’re not careful with it.
http://grathio.com Steve Hoefer

I read it as “lip”. or “lqi”

Better than what Gap did, and HP could sell me on the “we’re stripping away the unessential bits” theme, but they went to far. It does little to dissuade me from my idea that HP has become a cargo cult for other companies technology, senselessly making copies since they went into the PC market years and years ago.
http://twitter.com/thesev @thesev

it’s funny you should say that, my first reaction was that it reminded me of ELO’s 1986 album ‘balance of power’. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_Power_(album)
http://twitter.com/hughstimson Hugh Stimson

It looks an awful lot like the Lip watch logo:

http://www.watchismo.com/lip-watches.aspx

Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I hafta say that logo looks pretty badass chiselled into a slab of diode-equipped brass on my wrist. Could also look good on a aluminum ultrabook chassy or similar.
- dculberson
  
  I gotta say, it’s similar enough to be a problem. Maybe that’s why HP hasn’t implemented it yet.
- swylie
  
  that’s the first thing I thought of too, italics are not enough to make a difference
  http://www.lip.fr/en
- penguinchris
  
  According to the Lip Watches website @boingboing-3bee85ac5d60c54d2a92f67e0814422f:disqus linked to (in the “history” section) that logo has been around since at least the early 50′s. I’d say it was probably a clear and direct influence on the MIT Press logo, dating from the early 60′s. Interesting!
bluest_one

lqi?
Lane Yarbrough

Go with Hewie, it’s fun to say.
hughstimson

speaking of Q-tips…
Alan

Looks appropriately like a section of barbed wire.

Vis: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Barbed_wire.jpg
http://www.doggo.org doggo

“Greebling”? WTF? *wikiwikiwiki* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greebling Ah. Maybe not correct term… Still, new word. Thanks Rob.
http://boingboing.net/ Rob Beschizza

YOU’RE WELCOME, HP.
Lane Yarbrough

Anybody know what this is in Sign Language? Imagine the signer facing you. The left is the extended thumb and the longer is the middle finger, the pinky finger hidden, not apart of the message, kind of like an upside down “Go F*** Yourself”.

Yes? You feelin me?
UrbanUndead

Oooo. Like a Risko rendering of my index finger typing style!
imnotbinky

Looks like barbed wire to me.
http://daniel.friesen.name/ Daniel Friesen

You know, this is an article with the original logo directly beside it, with “hp” everywhere. And it took me a long time, with “hp” already in my head, just to see the h and p in that logo. ;) Practically NO ONE is going to understand what this logo is supposed to be for on it’s own.
Thomas Juette

What are you doing while using your computer that will require you to clean it with a Q-tip afterwards?

Oh. The same thing we’re ALL doing with our computers. Sorry…
http://twitter.com/daveyclayton davey

I think it’s pretty recognizable, but if I saw it rotated 90 degrees I’d have no idea what it was. The old logo is unmistakeable.

That’s not to say that it doesn’t look cool, which I think it does, and much more at home furnishing a hi-tech product than the current, rather frumpy affair.
merashallan

When I saw the new logo I thought it was for Lip, the French watch company.
alfanovember

Looks like coffin nails to me.
atimoshenko

They’re taking minimalism to an excess – especially for a logo. What is going to be the next redesign? Getting rid of the ascender and descender for / / / / ?

Not to mention that now is absolutely not the time for them to be introducing a drastically new logo, even it it was the greatest logo in the world.
- kyle sebring
  
  Conveniently, the design firm (Moving Brands) lays out their road map on their site. By 2021, a simple / will suffice! Seriously.
Alvis

Unless I’m misremembering things, weren’t those ridges on the 2600 just design flourishes – they weren’t functional vents, I don’t think?
Emo Pinata

When the vast majority of their business is in network and software for small and large business, are they really a PC company anymore?

Also, I read “liji”.
scifijazznik

So….am I the only one that sees “BP?”

[edit]…sorry, I’m an idiot.
- http://lectiblog.blogspot.com/ lecti
  
  I saw it.
  - scifijazznik
    
    I didn’t read Rob’s post thoroughly enough before hastily posting.
Micah Seymour

That symbol actually signifies a rank similar to Colonel in the Visitors army.
kekko

It’s a strange, quite strange logo. I mean, it’s out of the ordinary for a company like HP. Actually, I’m very interested in seeing this new logo in motion. Maybe the middle is its waist and it could carry a semi-trasparent belt, or maybe it could start as a single oblique line and then expand to reveal its true identity. It could lose gravity and fall to the bottom, piece by piece, or every piece float like a balloon and find its place in the center. Maybe it could change color, a different color for every line, or drip color from its bottom: it’s four lines so they could use a variation of the logo to represent their printers (cyan-magenta-yellow-black). Ok, I’m getting dizzy now, but you get the point!

EDIT: I just watched this video ( http://vimeo.com/29420574/ ) and BAM! Ink levels!
telaquapacky

Looks like a candle chart of a stock that is tanking.
awjt

lip
bp
lyi
lqi
hp
sparkdale

There was a band in Toronto called the Barcelona Pavilion that had the exact same logo, except not italicized.
JPW

FLIP it, and it FLIPS YOU OFF! . . .
Fred_Sacramento

It looks like the logo was designed by an hp printer that was running out of ink!
ecobore

Lip watches
ausPPC

Why, that’s nothin’ but a stylised, upside-down bird-flip. Shame on you, HP! Or maybe not – maybe this is how our corporate overlords provide full disclosure in this day and age.
penguinchris

Because of the q-tip suggestion, I first saw it as a nose, in profile, with the two small lines delineating the sides of the (large) nostril, and the lower long line representing a q-tip (or finger) that has been inserted into the nostril.
relawson

I was thinking of the encoder strip in their inkjet printers that need cleaned when I read the Q-tip thing.
http://twitter.com/pixelmagtest test user

This is probably not going to be used: “The ‘Progress mark’ logo is not the go-forward direction for HP.” from the designers website: http://www.movingbrands.com/?category_name=hp-work
LuisDanielCarbia

It looks a little… runic to me.
Shashwath T.R.

Very good metaphor for a company that’s disappearing into nothing!
http://tokyofarm.com Spencer Cross

Confirmed: this is NOT the new HP logo: http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/follow-up_hp.php