# Yahoo new logo (2013)

> Yahoo launched a new logo in Sep 2013, designed by Yahoo in-house. New Yahoo! logotype after 30 days of change.

## Key facts

- Brand: Yahoo
- Launched: Sep 2013
- Studio: Yahoo in-house
- What changed: New Yahoo! logotype after 30 days of change.
- Why: Yahoo redesigned its logo after an employee poll found 87 percent wanted some change.
- Industry: Consumer internet
- Logos: https://rebrandlog.com/logos/yahoo-2013/before.svg (before), https://rebrandlog.com/logos/yahoo-2013/after.svg (after)

## The rebrand, explained

Yahoo had not changed its logo in 18 years, and Marissa Mayer, a year into her tenure as chief executive, turned the change into a show. For 30 days Yahoo displayed a different alternative wordmark every day, then unveiled the real one on 5 September 2013. Forbes noted that by then it was clear the daily logos had never been in the running.

The final mark kept the purple and the exclamation point but almost nothing else. It is uppercase, with letters of varying stroke weight, no straight lines anywhere, and sans serif letters with scalloped ends as a nod to the serifs of the old logo. The double O was meant to keep the feel of the Yahoo yodel, and the exclamation point is tilted nine degrees for whimsy. Mayer wrote that the team considered lowercase but chose capitals for legibility on small screens.

The process was the story. In a Tumblr post Mayer explained that she spent most of a summer weekend in Adobe Illustrator with Yahoo designers Bob Stohrer, Marc DeBartolomeis and Russ Khaydarov and an intern, Max Ma, designing it from start to finish. An employee poll had found 87% wanted some change, and had asked for many of the features that ended up in the mark. Mayer said the brand had been valued at up to about $10 billion, so it was not a change to make lightly.

Reaction was harsh. Investor Michael Arrington called it fugly, typographers pointed out its debt to Optima, and Forbes reported a chorus of boos. Mayer defended it at TechCrunch Disrupt: Yahoo had approached it like a startup, kept it in-house and not spent millions on consultants.

Ars Technica's creative director wrote the sharpest response on launch day. He judged the logo inoffensive and bland rather than a disaster, and said the 30 days of rotating marks had been a good idea at first, a way to prepare people for change and show some of the process. What he objected to was the story Yahoo chose to tell: a chief executive and a small team, including an intern, designing it over one weekend, chiselled bevels and a flopping exclamation mark included, then calling it done. The message, he wrote, was that anyone can do this, so why spend more than a weekend on it.

That defence is the problem. A CEO personally drawing the logo is a strong signal of priorities, and the result looked like what it was: a committee of well-meaning details, scallops, tilt and all, none of which added up to a new idea. It lasted until 2019, when Yahoo, by then under Verizon, replaced it.

In short: A logo designed as a CEO's weekend project, and it showed.

## Other rebrands of Yahoo

- [Yahoo (2019)](https://rebrandlog.com/rebrand/yahoo-2019/) Sep 2019

## Sources

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo
- https://www.theverge.com/2013/9/5/4696274/yahoo-reveals-its-new-logo
- https://www.adweek.com/creativity/and-finally-here-it-yahoos-new-logo-152207/

## Cite this

Rebrand Log, "Yahoo new logo (2013)", https://rebrandlog.com/rebrand/yahoo-2013/, last updated 2026-10-20.