500pxCopied

On 14 October 2015 the photo community 500px unveiled its first major rebrand since launching in 2009, PetaPixel reported. The company was unusually frank about what it was replacing. The old mark, known as the 5-infinity symbol, turned the two zeros of 500 into an infinity sign, and 500px admitted there had been no story behind it, no real reason it was chosen, and none of the company's culture or vision in it.

There was a practical problem too. As PetaPixel and Design Week both noted, the old logo did not actually communicate the name; it was a 500 with an infinity, with no px. The new system has two parts: a logotype that spells the name clearly, and a separate mark that gives the brand flexibility on platforms with tight space.

That mark is the interesting bit. Design Week described it as an abstracted fingerprint combined with a camera lens. The studio's designer told the magazine the brief centred on quality, approachability, authenticity and community, and that the circles were meant to show the company name while focusing on a subject, and also to represent community. 500px said both elements conveyed quality, authenticity and personal expression, with the photographer at the centre, and explained that px was shorthand for personal expression.

The early reaction was cool. PetaPixel noted that commenters on the official announcement were not enthusiastic: one called it a shame, another said it looked like an amateur had done it. A Design Week reader asked whether three variants were really needed for something so simple.

The fingerprint-lens idea is genuinely clever: identity and photography in one set of concentric lines, a mark that earns its abstraction. The logotype is less distinguished. But replacing a symbol nobody could explain with one that explains itself is progress, and fixing a logo that did not even spell the name was overdue.