DigiKey unveils their new logo/branding

[Bobertsawesome]

https://www.digikey.com/en/news/press-releases/2023/may/digikey-unveils-updated-logo-and-brand

A sad day for the old logo. Otherwise, nothing has changed...

[thm_w]

Thought the new logo looked cool.
The favicon looks like crap though:

[james_s]

I've never understood why companies do this. Not only do they do it, but they spend exorbitant amounts of money in many cases to pay someone to design the new logo. The whole point of a brand is familiarity, if you change the logo that's changing the brand and making it look unfamiliar, and why? I'm not any more likely to buy from DigiKey now than before, not really any less either so whatever. What would increase the likelihood of buying from them is if they would get rid of that god forsaken marketplace crap, or at the very least make it so the 'exclude marketplace' checkbox was sticky. I find having to click that every single time to be infuriating and it has pushed me toward Mouser despite DigiKey having a far superior parametric search and sorting engine.

[Bobertsawesome]

Well they are just moving into their new fancy warehouse. My order last week was in 2 shipments with the note that they are still transferring items. My guess is it's all part of a marketing team refresh into this new automated ecosystem they have. They surely have been focusing more on their YouTube community page. I "won" a goodie bag from a contest they had a month or so ago (I say "won" because it was a 5-winner prize and exactly 5 people including me entered  ).

But yes I concur that these companies spend silly amounts of money on rebranding. Like millions for a firm to come in and make a more basic logo, taglines, etc. Digikey is still privately owned though so no worries about major corp BS yet.

[SiliconWizard]

Logos have to evolve over time. This one is not particularly fancy or interesting, but that's been the trend in graphics design for over a decade now, so that's pretty average.
All this flat and minimalist stuff. But I've seen more boiring - many companies have changed their logo to something with just their name using an arial font or very similar. At least Digikey used a relatively "fancy" font, that's surprising.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Logos have to evolve over time.

No they don't. Not one single customer or potential customer of Digikey cares about the logo.
They do care that their website works well, but IME this has been noticeably declining over the last year or so. Last couple  of times I've done a big order it's been so bad I nearly gave up and went to Mouser.
They do care about having useful new features that save them time, which haven't been forthcoming for some time. (e.g. easy ordering of Jellybean components).

[wraper]

While I agree that simplifying the logo often is better but this one looks bland and font is awful IMHO.

[wraper]

If they just removed the ellipse from old logo, IMHO it would be an order of magnitude better than this and would remain recognizable too. Dunno why but this font fells really uncanny to me.

[Benta]

I've been through this a few times in my career at companies I've worked at, and it's got very little (=nothing) to do with customer relations or image.

What happens is that there's a new owner, a top management shakeup, a new CEO, whatever. It's all at the top level.

This results in a new "Company Strategy", "Mission Statement", "Focus", restructuring etc.
In this, a new logo is obviously necessary to stoke the new CEO's ego, and erect her/his monument for the future. Usually costs several million $ (all documentation, brochures, signs, exhibition material, products, packaging, you name it has to be changed).

If the new management is smart (very rare), nothing much happens except a bit of pep-talk at a company get-together (*). Unfortunately, it mostly results in months of chaos, insecurity, bad performance towards customers etc.

So, as a general warning to all: if someone you deal with changes their logo, look around for other suppliers.

(*) this applies to companies already running well where the employees know what to do. Others will die by themself.

[Tomorokoshi]

Contrast with:
https://www.ge.com/news/reports/the-initials-of-a-friend-a-history-of-ges-iconic-monogram-logo

Now, Motorola has a really good logo for quite some time. Then the MBA gang got involved and managed to come up with forgettable variations of ON Semiconductor, Freescale, onsemi, etc. after splitting things off. Remind me of how much of the cell phone market Motorola retains?

Hewlett-Packard splitting up into separate businesses also managed to come up with nondescript names and uninspiring logos.

[james_s]

Logos have to evolve over time.

Why?

I really don't understand the appeal of change for the sake of change. Take for example the General Electric 'meatball' logo, it has remained unchanged for over a century, it is instantly recognizable and personally I've always found it attractive, it would be stupid to spend effort "evolving" it. Or Mitsubishi, the 3-pointed logo originally represented an airplane propeller because that's what the company made at the time, it has remained unchanged for decades. It's a logo, its sole purpose is to be a recognizable symbol, it doesn't have to represent anything specifically related to what the company is currently doing.

*edit: Ok somebody posted something about the GE logo while I was typing this and technically I guess it has evolved over time but the changes are very subtle, largely just coloring and the thickness of the strokes. It's still the same recognizable logo for over a century.

[Benta]

Now, Motorola has a really good logo for quite some time. Then the MBA gang got involved and managed to come up with forgettable variations of ON Semiconductor, Freescale, onsemi, etc. after splitting things off. Remind me of how much of the cell phone market Motorola retains?

Hewlett-Packard splitting up into separate businesses also managed to come up with nondescript names and uninspiring logos.

That's irrelevant. All the examples you mention were divisions being sold off. We're talkind rebranding existing companies here.

[Tomorokoshi]

Now, Motorola has a really good logo for quite some time. Then the MBA gang got involved and managed to come up with forgettable variations of ON Semiconductor, Freescale, onsemi, etc. after splitting things off. Remind me of how much of the cell phone market Motorola retains?

Hewlett-Packard splitting up into separate businesses also managed to come up with nondescript names and uninspiring logos.

That's irrelevant. All the examples you mention were divisions being sold off. We're talkind rebranding existing companies here.

Actually, it's completely relevant. See, for instance, how the different GE units retained the base GE logo. There was no reason that when Motorola split up, that they couldn't have split into "Motorola Semiconductor", "Motorola Communications", "Motorola Computers" or what not. Even though they would have independent management. However, that is all a separate topic of whether they should have split up at all.

[james_s]

Actually, it's completely relevant. See, for instance, how the different GE units retained the base GE logo. There was no reason that when Motorola split up, that they couldn't have split into "Motorola Semiconductor", "Motorola Communications", "Motorola Computers" or what not. Even though they would have independent management. However, that is all a separate topic of whether they should have split up at all.

It's possible there were legal reasons, I don't know anything about the split but I think that was what happened with HP, one part of the company had legal rights to the HP name and logo, the one that became Agilent did not.

[langwadt]

Now, Motorola has a really good logo for quite some time. Then the MBA gang got involved and managed to come up with forgettable variations of ON Semiconductor, Freescale, onsemi, etc. after splitting things off. Remind me of how much of the cell phone market Motorola retains?

Hewlett-Packard splitting up into separate businesses also managed to come up with nondescript names and uninspiring logos.

That's irrelevant. All the examples you mention were divisions being sold off. We're talkind rebranding existing companies here.

Actually, it's completely relevant. See, for instance, how the different GE units retained the base GE logo. There was no reason that when Motorola split up, that they couldn't have split into "Motorola Semiconductor", "Motorola Communications", "Motorola Computers" or what not. Even though they would have independent management. However, that is all a separate topic of whether they should have split up at all.

with the split they became independent public companies, why would they retain the name Motorola if they are no longer part of Motorola?

[wraper]

When split happens, keeping the same name for derivatives becomes confusing, especially over time. The are cases when what you think as a single company or brand are completely different independent things. Take for example Daewoo shitshow. Still a lot of different products sold under that name and logo when original company gone bust more than 2 decades ago. And after doing extensive research, you'd be very confused about who makes what. Or take OSRAM LED bulbs which have nothing to do with OSRAM for many hears. Philips monitors and TVs are not Philips at all https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TPV_Technology

[floobydust]

Rebranding is common amongst insecure CEO's that need to feel power and in control. It's a huge waste of money IMHO, expensive therapy.
One company I worked at, we did the new logo design (because only Engineering had Photoshop) and generated all the output files. Next morning CEO comes in and wants to look at it in Photoshop, makes a few tweaks and leaves.
Turns out he started using HIS files meanwhile business cards, coffee cups, signs etc all had the first logo design 
People flipped out- but a neurotic CEO does as he pleases. It was funny seeing two new logos in use.

But let's celebrate the new big warehouse? With the new big markup Digi-Key has had over the past year. Their prices are up, way above competitors especially for small 1,10,100-lot which was what grew the company, Ron Stordahl the founder catered to the small orders because they are related to big orders. Understood by us but not the exec's.
And they've decimated their through-hole parts stock. They offer no shipment dates, like Mouser does. I could go on.

Between all this and the kludgy website, I'm buying elsewhere. And we have to pay for the high interest loans for the big new warehouse? Where's the stock, my MCU is still 147 weeks out?!?!? It's all so tiresome.

[langwadt]

Rebranding is common amongst insecure CEO's that need to feel power and in control. It's a huge waste of money IMHO, expensive therapy.
One company I worked at, we did the new logo design (because only Engineering had Photoshop) and generated all the output files. Next morning CEO comes in and wants to look at it in Photoshop, makes a few tweaks and leaves.
Turns out he started using HIS files meanwhile business cards, coffee cups, signs etc all had the first logo design 
People flipped out- but a neurotic CEO does as he pleases. It was funny seeing two new logos in use.

But let's celebrate the new big warehouse? With the new big markup Digi-Key has had over the past year. Their prices are up, way above competitors especially for small 1,10,100-lot which was what grew the company, Ron Stordahl the founder catered to the small orders because they are related to big orders. Understood by us but not the exec's.
And they've decimated their through-hole parts stock. They offer no shipment dates, like Mouser does. I could go on.

Between all this and the kludgy website, I'm buying elsewhere. And we have to pay for the high interest loans for the big new warehouse? Where's the stock, my MCU is still 147 weeks out?!?!? It's all so tiresome.

why waste space in the warehouse on through-hole parts of few  is buying them, and they just expire?

if they can't get a date or stock from the manufacturer how should they give you a date or sell any?

[tom66]

Seems kinda silly to open a new warehouse with a big logo branded on the side of it only to change the company logo 8 months later, but I'm not paid to be a CEO...

[porter]

Maybe a name change is in the works as well.

 

[ebastler]

I've never understood why companies do this. Not only do they do it, but they spend exorbitant amounts of money in many cases to pay someone to design the new logo.

In DigiKey's defense, the new logo certainly does not suggest they hired someone expensive to design it. 

[rsjsouza]

To my taste the prior logo was visually more unique, although harder to read.

Just for posterity, attached is the old logo. The king is dead. Long live the king!

[coppercone2]

I don't blame them, for the sake of the workers, sometimes you see the company logo too much and it gets obnoxious

[SiliconWizard]

If they had done what almost everyone else does these days, they would have come up with this:


No doubt some will prefer it, actually, but as far as being memorable and unique, not so much.

[floobydust]

They should've had a contest for the new logo design, prizes for the top 10 or so. Just to have fun with customers, even if they all get rejected/overruled in the end. I have seen some companies do this and it was better than using graphics arts professionals that are clueless about the company to come up funky text. The mid-80's logo was exciting lol.

In the new very big warehouse, where are the staff facilities, lunch room, games room, place to sit down for a while?
The loading bays, and I've worked in some, right next to the boxing conveyors... get freezing cold and dry in winter, ESD central.
Is there more to life than Amazon-tier mega-distribution?
Do they have any giveaways? Cheeseball coffee cup? Advertise on EEVblog? Take the heat for their mediocre website?

why waste space in the warehouse on through-hole parts of few  is buying them, and they just expire?  [...]

It's not about the warehouse size, this is cave man gronk has big warehouse lol.
As Ron Stordahl stated, he found the engineers doing DIY hobby stuff at home, will at work spec Digi-Key part numbers in BoM's, so they ended up getting their foot in the door for big orders, larger builds.
I'd looked for through-hole 7-seg LEDs and DIP-16 sockets for repairs, pretty much gone now.
And you can tell Digi-Key has stale parts, no surplus section (aside from semi's to Rochester), no blowout pricing deals, no bait and loss leader products that I can see.

[...] if they can't get a date or stock from the manufacturer how should they give you a date or sell any?

Other distributors not only had stock of many items, but also give order dates so I can at least gauge when stock might be available. Digi-Key gives nothing. They used to give dates. Going there to design in, is no longer possible as far as the part's lifecycle or if it's been on order for months etc. because it's masked.