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Slack Rebrand Marketing

Slack evolves ‘simply awful’ logo in 2019 refresh

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By John Glenday, Reporter

January 17, 2019 | 2 min read

Cloud-based communication tool Slack has begun the New Year with a refined new look after launching an ‘evolution’ of its company logo in favour of a simpler and more distinctive identity.

Slack

Slack evolves ‘simply awful’ logo in New Year refresh

Authored by Slack’s in-house design and brand team together with Michael Bierut and Pentagram the streamlined solution does away with the ‘simply awful’ toppling hash symbol and its 11 separate colours in favour of a rationalised mark in just four hues.

In a blog post detailing the need for change, Slack wrote: “Our first logo was created before the company launched. It was distinctive and playful, and the octothorpe (or pound sign, or hash, or whatever name by which you know it) resembled the same character that you see in front of channels in our product.

“It was also extremely easy to get wrong. It was 11 different colours—and if placed on any color other than white, or at the wrong angle (instead of the precisely prescribed 18º rotation), or with the colours tweaked wrong, it looked terrible. It pained us. Simply awful.”

These problems spurred the creation of a slew of different logos to compensate for these deficiencies but at the price of a growing lack of cohesion.

Over the coming months, the new visual identity will propagate across the website, advertising and product to create a unified look for the first time.

Slack's success in workplace communications has inspired a slew of imitators, including Facebook which has launched its own team collaboration tool.

Slack Rebrand Marketing

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