Tripadvisor (2020)Copied

Tripadvisor's owl, Ollie, was famous for its eyes: one red, one green, under a yellow head, which made the logo memorable and, as Creative Bloq put it, gave the impression that Ollie was on a different kind of trip. By 2020 the site had nearly 460 million unique visitors a month and 830 million reviews, and the logo had to work at tiny sizes.

Mother Design's New York studio, credited by Design Week and Creative Bloq, redrew the owl in black only. The studio described it as an exercise in reducing complexity and amplifying character: it kept the owl's personality but refined its geometry for reproduction at all sizes. The colour moved out of the logo and into a wider palette built around Trip Green, with orchid, salmon, rose, sand, moss, pine and mustard. Colophon Foundry made a custom typeface, Trip Sans, and new icons included a parasol for rest, a backpack for hike and a bed for stay.

The company also changed its name from TripAdvisor to Tripadvisor, saying that after 20 years people recognised and pronounced it as a single word. It called the logo the first step in a refresh to be rolled out over the year.

Designers mostly approved: on Reddit's logo design forum people called it an immense improvement and said they had never noticed how manic the old owl looked. Users were less kind. On Tripadvisor's own forum some called the new black owl unfriendly and a waste of money, and missed Ollie's heterochromia; a Brazilian design blog called it 100% flat and 50% dull.

Creative Bloq was kind about Ollie's makeover. The old owl was memorable, but its mix of colours limited it at small sizes, and the mismatched eyes gave the impression he was on a different kind of trip. The new version keeps his personality with refined, simpler geometry in monochrome, which Mother Design described as reducing complexity while amplifying character. A custom typeface, Trip Sans, and a palette built around a familiar Trip Green came with it. It is a sensible edit: the owl stays recognisable, it just stops squinting.

Both reactions are fair. The new owl is better drawn and works everywhere. But the mismatched eyes, odd as they were, were the most distinctive thing about the brand, and the new owl is just another clean mark.