What do you think of the new NI logo and marketing push?

[X___]

I don't think the guy in the picture is going to be here in 100 years. Heck, I am pretty sure nobody at NI today will be here in 100 years.

Come to think about it, NI might not exist any more then. So what a well thought-through slogan to put up on a landing page...

Personally, I think this is way too much color for NXGNI. I fixed that for you:

[LogMAN]

So that just happened

I think it's time for me to watch the livestream footage.

[X___]

1 hour ago, LogMAN said:

I think it's time for me to watch the livestream footage.

Be so kind as to distill the substance of it in a post here.

[crossrulz]

13 minutes ago, X___ said:

Be so kind as to distill the substance of it in a post here.

NI Week keynote.  Pure marketing BS.  Exactly what I expected from it.

[Jordan Kuehn]

2 minutes ago, crossrulz said:

NI Week keynote.  Pure marketing BS.  Exactly what I expected from it.

Perfect. I know exactly what I missed. Thanks!

[LogMAN]

49 minutes ago, X___ said:

Be so kind as to distill the substance of it in a post here.

• About 35 minutes of people talking about how awesome everybody is (for some reason nobody mentioned me 😢).
• At 35:30 they finally address the new design.
• At 44:00 they talk about a six year commitment for the new roboRIO controller (whatever that is) for the FIRST robotics competition, financial support for students, equality and inclusion - quite important messages these days.
• At 45:56 they announce a campaign to "put a lens on 100 game-changing breakthroughs" (collected via Twitter). They will post the best ones here (one per week).
• The last 5 minutes are NI employees from all over the globe.

Pretty much what you would expect from marketing material 🤷‍♂️

The new design probably makes green-screen capture easier.

[David_L]

3 hours ago, LogMAN said:

So that just happened

Oh no... If they changed the NIPM logo, that probably means LabVIEW is not far behind.  It's just so.... green...

Good thing our project is still stuck on LV2016 🙂

[Neil Pate]

Mixed messages here...

 

I was poking around tonight trying to bring a cRIO VM up to speed and realised just how many places on disk or in MAX and other applications they use the name National Instruments. Changing all those over to NI is going to be a job even bigger than developing NXG!

This is going to get pretty confusing to the next generation of ambitious engineers using the products.

Edited June 16, 2020 by Neil Pate

[X___]

39 minutes ago, Neil Pate said:

Mixed messages here...

The more I look at the center logo, the more I believe it captures exactly the kind of excitement generated by the whole operation.

[Neil Pate]

Just now, X___ said:

The more I look at the center logo, the more I believe it captures exactly the kind of excitement generated by the whole operation.

cannot unsee this now!

[Michael Aivaliotis]

Here's the video to the live event that explain's it all:

 

[X___]

 

27 minutes ago, Neil Pate said:

cannot unsee this now!

What do you see beyond "package" and "manager" ?

[Neil Pate]

Just now, X___ said:

 

What do you see beyond "package" and "manager" ?

please post again so I can double laugh...

[Michael Aivaliotis]

[Michael Aivaliotis]

One thing that I was pleasantly surprised by, in the video presentation. Was the announcement of a 6-year partnership (not sure what that means) with the FIRST robotics organization to provide hardware like the roboRIO. I was almost certain that NI abandoned this effort years ago. It's nice to see them reaffirming this relationship. Proof is in the actions, so we'll see. I hope this means more active support to the teams in regards to promoting LabVIEW and not just, ya we will keep selling roboRIO.

[The Q]

My thoughts is that it was just a bunch of marketing... new paint on the same old house.  We'll see if they prove me wrong, hopefully in a good way.

Not liking the logo though.  As everyone has already shown, it's too much like everything else out there.  What they had was unique and easily recognizable.  Now, however, it's just another "modern" acronym-ized logo.

Edited June 17, 2020 by The Q

[bbean]

💩

[Aristos Queue]

3 hours ago, The Q said:

As everyone has already shown, it's too much like everything else out there. 

It is uncommon enough to do the job -- truly unique is hard to do with the limits imposed on modern logos.

Color: The folks who study this said that the blue was a color used all over the place in corporate logos; the green is much rarer. There's really only a handful of colors that are available for corporate logos: red and blue are the big dogs, then green/purple/orange. And black. Yellow doesn't have enough contrast -- as we constantly prove trying to put the LV logo on things, so it has to be boxed into stuff. Yes, you pick a shade of those colors, but your logo will be bucketed anyway -- Hulu, TechCrunch, and NI have very different greens, but it's all just "green" when evaluating uniqueness. What that means is, yeah, you can argue about particular shades, but it's hard to actually be unique, so it is all about finding a not-as-common color for your industry. Green works for NI.

Symbol: The logo has to be renderable recognizably down to absurdly small sizes, which limits how many places you can put the logo before you end up with a smudge -- which happened to the blue eagle a lot. Something that is easily represented by vectors scales a lot better. The eagle was a distinctly USA symbol in some places -- sometimes a pro, sometimes a con. Or it was recognized as something else. The new logo isn't a representation of anything, so it doesn't accidentally pick up cultural baggage. 

Is it wild and unique? No. Generally, modern multinational logos cannot afford to be splashy like the old LabVIEW logo was -- too many colors limits where you can use it, and too many graphics limits its scale. But it'll be recognizable. That's the goal more than anything. And it represents a break from the past, and there was a fair amount in that presentation that was different than the Dr. T era. Most of it good, some of it aspirational. We'll see how it goes. 

[Niatross]

Personally, I don't mind the logo, or the colour scheme. I prefer the old colours and logo, but no one likes change do they

What I resented a little bit is that the webcast has been promoted for about a month, promising 'something extraordinary'

In my opinion what was delivered wasn't extraordinary, it was 50 minutes of my life that I won't get back. It offered no value to NI's customers, brought no knew knowledge to the table and just felt like was repeatedly been hit in the face with a PR and marketing hammer.

There isn't a problem promoting the amazing things people do with LabVIEW, but it doesn't need such a song and dance. I would have preferred to have seen an open discussion about this 100 year plan that NI mentioned, what areas they are going to focus on in the coming years, how they are planning the transition between current gen and NXG LV.

A lot of our careers are pretty heavily tied to NI, we aren't impressed by marketing hot air, we just want to be efficiently kept in the loop regarding what NI is doing and how it is going to affect our companies. (I say 'we', that's my opinion, but I would be surprised if I was the only one who thought this)

 

[Mads]

8 hours ago, Aristos Queue said:

It is uncommon enough to do the job -- truly unique is hard to do with the limits imposed on modern logos.

Color: The folks who study this said that the blue was a color used all over the place in corporate logos; the green is much rarer. There's really only a handful of colors that are available for corporate logos: red and blue are the big dogs, then green/purple/orange. And black. Yellow doesn't have enough contrast -- as we constantly prove trying to put the LV logo on things, so it has to be boxed into stuff. Yes, you pick a shade of those colors, but your logo will be bucketed anyway -- Hulu, TechCrunch, and NI have very different greens, but it's all just "green" when evaluating uniqueness. What that means is, yeah, you can argue about particular shades, but it's hard to actually be unique, so it is all about finding a not-as-common color for your industry. Green works for NI.

Symbol: The logo has to be renderable recognizably down to absurdly small sizes, which limits how many places you can put the logo before you end up with a smudge -- which happened to the blue eagle a lot. Something that is easily represented by vectors scales a lot better. The eagle was a distinctly USA symbol in some places -- sometimes a pro, sometimes a con. Or it was recognized as something else. The new logo isn't a representation of anything, so it doesn't accidentally pick up cultural baggage. 

Is it wild and unique? No. Generally, modern multinational logos cannot afford to be splashy like the old LabVIEW logo was -- too many colors limits where you can use it, and too many graphics limits its scale. But it'll be recognizable. That's the goal more than anything. And it represents a break from the past, and there was a fair amount in that presentation that was different than the Dr. T era. Most of it good, some of it aspirational. We'll see how it goes. 

When it comes to color it is generally a mistake to be "unique". Most cars (and clothes, and houses and...) are one of 4-5 colors. They have their specific effects on the human mind, and you cannot avoid them if you need that effect - which NI does. If you want to project a sustainable image and sell - you need those colors, no matter how many other companies use the same. When it comes to shades most are unusable as they come off as drab, muddy or garish. You can choose a light and "fresh" shade, but move a little too much and you step into the ugly. Choosing green is generally risky, although there are some fresh tones that work in some amounts (like in the logo in this case). The darker greens, used on much of the NI web site, is off that cliff though. I think a majority of the population will tell you that for free. And the screen resolution requirements of the layout sucks on PCs, which is what people shopping for or working on NI related things will use most of the time. The designers have gotten their priorities wrong there. 

As for the logo, that's totally fine, for many of the reasons you mention. The package manager logo though...🤣

Edited June 17, 2020 by Mads

[X___]

5 hours ago, Mads said:

As for the logo, that's totally fine, for many of the reasons you mention. The package manager logo though...🤣

But it is a stylized P nis n't it? (Sorry for thr typoss)

[crossrulz]

31 minutes ago, X___ said:

But it is a stylized P nis n't it? (Sorry for thr typoss)

But isn't every logo?

[gleichman]

8 hours ago, Niatross said:

Personally, I don't mind the logo, or the colour scheme. I prefer the old colours and logo, but no one likes change do they

What I resented a little bit is that the webcast has been promoted for about a month, promising 'something extraordinary'

In my opinion what was delivered wasn't extraordinary, it was 50 minutes of my life that I won't get back. It offered no value to NI's customers, brought no knew knowledge to the table and just felt like was repeatedly been hit in the face with a PR and marketing hammer.

There isn't a problem promoting the amazing things people do with LabVIEW, but it doesn't need such a song and dance. I would have preferred to have seen an open discussion about this 100 year plan that NI mentioned, what areas they are going to focus on in the coming years, how they are planning the transition between current gen and NXG LV.

A lot of our careers are pretty heavily tied to NI, we aren't impressed by marketing hot air, we just want to be efficiently kept in the loop regarding what NI is doing and how it is going to affect our companies. (I say 'we', that's my opinion, but I would be surprised if I was the only one who thought this)

 

Thank you. You stated my opinion of yesterday's event very well. I'm still mad that I sat through that entire webcast waiting for something more informational than a new logo and slogan. 

[Antoine Chalons]

9 hours ago, Niatross said:

Personally, I don't mind the logo, or the colour scheme. I prefer the old colours and logo, but no one likes change do they

What I resented a little bit is that the webcast has been promoted for about a month, promising 'something extraordinary'

In my opinion what was delivered wasn't extraordinary, it was 50 minutes of my life that I won't get back. It offered no value to NI's customers, brought no knew knowledge to the table and just felt like was repeatedly been hit in the face with a PR and marketing hammer.

There isn't a problem promoting the amazing things people do with LabVIEW, but it doesn't need such a song and dance. I would have preferred to have seen an open discussion about this 100 year plan that NI mentioned, what areas they are going to focus on in the coming years, how they are planning the transition between current gen and NXG LV.

A lot of our careers are pretty heavily tied to NI, we aren't impressed by marketing hot air, we just want to be efficiently kept in the loop regarding what NI is doing and how it is going to affect our companies. (I say 'we', that's my opinion, but I would be surprised if I was the only one who thought this)

I completely agree.

New CEO, new start, new world, new logo, new slogan. Good, that's the life of a large company trying too keep up with evolution. Hope it works.

Something "extraordinary"... either I need to get a new dictionary or they do.

[Neil Pate]

The new colour scheme is growing on me, I quite like the green. The logo I think is entirely forgettable but this is really not important to me. Regarding the name change, were we not already referring to them as NI anyway?

I think what we are forgetting is that none of this guff is for us... we are already customers and need no reminding of the benefits of spending your whole instrumentation budget on a cRIO! This stuff is to get the next million customers, the young engineers who might have never heard of National Instruments. The slogan is meant to ignite passion in young people, not to excite the already battle hardened. I do think the event was completely overhyped, but this is what marketing is about.

In the short to medium term absolutely nothing is going change just because it cannot. A behemoth such as NI has so much momentum (or is it inertia... always get that wrong) that things will take time to change. NI was stagnating anyway, so this is probably a good thing.