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Noted Oct. 19, 2018 by Armin
Industry / Web Service
About
(Est. 2004) “SpareRoom is the UK and US’s best and busiest site for roommates, houseshares and flatshares, helping people find their ideal housemates the fast, safe and easy way.”
Design by
Idea Is Everything (London, UK)
Related links
Idea Is Everything project page
Relevant quote
We created a logo based on the idea of a balanced house share, the result of finding home with a group of people that compliment each other’s lives. We also created a custom typeface; SpareRoom Sans. The typeface emphasises the angular and curved forms of the logo and through the inclusion of alternate characters references the diversity of personalities within a house share.
Idea Is Everything project page
Images (opinion after)
Opinion
The idea of the icon in the old logo was fairly clever and the execution was almost there if they had figured out a way to make the people a little smaller and the house at their intersection a little bigger but pretty solid, I’d say. The new icon is kind of weird as I keep seeing an “S” rotated 90 degrees and wedged into a house shape that yields a somewhat awkward set of thick lines. I mean, it’s a decent icon, but there is something not right about it. The wordmark is odd too, with the tilted “e” and the customization on the “R” where neither of those moves are related to the other nor do they relate back to the icon in any way. The “m” also feels too condensed, almost as it if were a monospace font. The custom font works better as part of the identity and with the accompanying wiggles, although everything starts to look like a marina with so many blue and white wavy lines. The buttons and sweatshirt with the “I [icon] CITY” make no sense… “I SpareRoom New York”? Overall, as I wrote this out, I guess I’m not a fan but also, there is nothing inappropriate going on and the service should do fine with this redesign.
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