The world's creative scrapbook gets a new wordmark.
Since 2010 Pinterest has been helping other people to discover the things they love, but it appears the catalogue of ideas has decided to focus on itself for a change as it settles on a new wordmark.
That's right, the platform preferred by craft-lovers has retired its distinctive script font in favour of an altogether more hard-edged wordmark (above). This change is the first update to the Pinterest logo since 2011. Back then, Pinterest settled on the ligature-heavy font as a deliberate contrast to its boxy pinboards.
The result is a bizarre combination of two fonts. In the Pinterest badge you can still see the script lettering, but this sits awkwardly next to the new typography - which the clever folks at Brand New have figured out is a slightly modified version of Neue Haas Grotesk in its Black weight.
The old Pinterest script was used from 2011 onwards
The situation gets even more confusing when you head over to Pinterest's brand guidelines. Under the logo/Pinterest badge header it clearly tells you to 'only use the Pinterest badge (please don’t use our wordmark!)'.
It's possible that Pinterest only wants to be identified by its badge and nothing else – kind of like what Tinder did with its flame logo earlier this week. However, even other companies that employ a less wordy version of their logo to be used as an icon (Facebook is a great example of this) have consistency between the two designs. Meanwhile the new Pinterest logo is a disjointed combination that does away with what we thought was a perfect look for the site.
Dom Carter is a freelance writer who specialises in art and design. Formerly a staff writer for Creative Bloq, his work has also appeared on Creative Boom and in the pages of ImagineFX, Computer Arts, 3D World, and .net. He has been a D&AD New Blood judge, and has a particular interest in picture books.
