A design critique of the new OLX logo

The good, the bad, and some useful lessons about logo design

I know, I know… Few things make me roll my eyes more than designers whining about rebrands of major companies (they’d wish they had the chance to work for). This is not that. In this article, I’ll attempt to critique the new logo of OLX as objectively as possible. Hopefully, this review will help you sharpen your eye for design and provide you with ideas you can use for your own company or client work.

Who’s OLX?

For those of you who are not familiar with this company, OLX is an online marketplace similar to Craigslist. Globally, OLX serves hundreds of millions of customers in 35+ markets and over 50 languages. Recently, OLX unveiled its biggest update since its inception by overhauling the entire app and web experience, alongside showcasing a new brand identity.

The new brand

I want to preface this by saying I think this is good design work even if I’ll point out things that I think are not great. This brand is the work of the folks from Design Studio. Their client portfolio includes major names such as Airbnb, Premier League, Logitech. I’m sure they know their stuff.

That being said, let’s dive in. To kick things off, check out the official announcement video. 👇

The good

It’s not just a logo. It’s a system. By reducing the shapes of the letters down to their most basic form, they become more versatile. Suddenly, the O and the X are two opposite entities, separated by the divider — the simplified L. They’re flexible, allowing them to be manipulated without losing their meaning and identity. You can spin them around, make them thinner or thicker, color them, and place them against any background. The mark will still be recognized.

A good brand is adaptable and iconic. It needs to transcend the logo. Parts of it need to be equally recognizable when used in designing branded materials. This logo allows designers to creatively use the X and the O as brand identifiers and embed them in any design.

It tells a story. Any good logo has a story and meaning behind it — the Nike swoosh, the Airbnb A, Apple’s apple, etc. What’s the story with OLX? This is a guess but OLX has all kinds of crazy stuff listed on it. From modern apartments to quirky antiques, you can find pretty much everything. This variety is well represented by the X and the O, two letters that could not be more different. This is a happy accident, as this wouldn’t be possible with, for eg, a B and an R. A good design exploits such coincidences and the particularities of the brand name, and uses them to enrich its “visual vocabulary”.

It’s not perfect. This is probably what most people complain about. It’s not your typical, perfectly-polished logo. It has a randomness to it that makes it stick out like a sore thumb. However, that can be good when it comes to branding. To explain, let me tell you a short story.

In 1969 A Romanian poet named Nichita Stanescu (Mar 1933 — Dec 1983) was being interviewed about his new book, The Unwords. At one point, when talking about the nature of art, he said that perfection has nothing to do with good art. Why? To illustrate his point, he referred to a perfect cube, explaining that nobody would pay attention to it because it’s what people expect — a perfect cube. Its perfection renders it unremarkable. If however, you take that same cube and smash one of its corners, thus making it imperfect, it will stand out making the viewer wonder what happened to that oh-so-perfect cube.

This idea can be applied to designing a logo. Don’t make it perfect. It needs to command attention and make an impression. This happens when people take a second to look at something and think about what it means, even if it’s just for a split second. Of course, I’m not suggesting you should go ahead and make a mess of your logo. Instead, it should be “beautifully imperfect”. That will make it remarkable, humane, and relatable.

The bad

Legibility. I think this is obvious to everyone. It reads O/x, not OLX. The minimalist interpretation of the lowercase L detaches the shape from its meaning. There are no signals that it should be read as a letter. It becomes a simple decoration or a divider. I assume they were comfortable with this lack of legibility because OLX is so well known in the countries where it’s active. On the flip side, it won’t help if the company has plans to expand to other countries under the same name, and it might hurt brand recall in the market where it’s already present.

Balance. As mentioned before, the lowercase L becomes a separator between two elements — the O and the X. This leads viewers to expect the two letters to balance each other, in this case, asymmetrical balance. This feels a bit too scattered. In their defense, the previous logo had a similar feel of randomness to it. Maybe they tried to keep that, but in any case, it could use some cleaning up.

Let’s fix it

As mentioned before, this is a good logo, so we don’t need to do too much to fix it. All we need is to tweak the size of the O, the height and shape of the L, and readjust the spacing between the 3 letters. Below I’ve quickly put together 2 options: one that’s more abstract and is closer to the current logo, and one that fixes the legibility issues but sacrifices some of the abstractedness.

Conclusions

In closing, here are a few key takeaways:

• Have meaning and a story behind your design. Don’t just design a literal representation of what the company does. Nike doesn’t have a sneaker for their logo. CNBC doesn’t use a TV icon as its logo. Design something that represents the ethos of the company.
• Don’t be afraid to be “beautifully imperfect”. To do that design a perfect logo and then do something subtle that throws it off slightly and makes viewers stare at it for a second.
• Always pay attention to legibility. When in doubt, make sure it reads exactly as it should.

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