I am also the Chief Creative Officer and Founder of Archetype.
3rd
Microsoft Bing Logo
Microsoft launched Bing on Sunday night, their new internet search engine, which has also replaced Live Search. The service is great, lots of positive reviews out there. The consensus seems to be that Bing provides relevant search results and has some innovative features that allow you to explore more aspects of the results.
My only gripe is the logotype. While I do think the overall design is bland and could use a little more flair, the logo is what really stands out to me. It looks like someone just stretched the type, which to most designers is sacrilege. Typographers spend an insane amount of time ensuring each bezier curve of each letter is absolutely perfect. Stretching it kills the rythm, tapering, and style that took so long to perfect, and it instantly looks of inferior quality.
Here’s what I mean, below is the logo from Bing (stretched):
This is what the original typeface probably looked like (not stretched):
I do believe that there are cases where slightly stretching a typeface may be acceptable, but it can’t be as drastic as this. If a client requests a wider version of the same typeface, the correct approach is to move vertices and modify bezier curves so that the typeface remains proportional. This is why many typefaces have a lot of alternate versions (condensed, extended, ultralight, light, semibold, bold, etc).
Update: Looks like others noticed this.
