Instagram just changed its logo after five years, and just like most of the stuff on the internet, it is getting appreciated, destroyed, memes are made about it, GIFs are being created, every news outlet is talking about it, and so on. The logo change did come as a surprise though because there was no prior hint provided.

It seems that people at Instagram planned the whole thing internally and put out a new logo as a surprise. The opinion of critics is pretty lopsided at the moment, as most of them really hate it. ADWEEK’s contributor Tim Nudd called the new logo a “travesty” and asked the authorities to change it back. The Guardian isn’t a fan either as one of its writers Hannah Jane Parkinson described the logo as if “the camera was murdered, and chalk was drawn around its body. Murdered at sundown.”

These are just opinions though, and everyone seems to have got one at the moment. The two questions, however, that continue to hang are whether the logo change was even required, and if the new look suits the experience that Instagram stands for.

Was the Change Necessary?

Quite frankly, the previous logo of Instagram looked outdated as it was trying to give you feel of the camera with some filters on it. In 2010 when Instagram was launched, it had a strong appeal, but that just seems to have worn off with the passage of time.

Looking at the change from this perspective certainly makes the decision behind the change reasonable.

Does the New Look Work?

We have outlined why the change was necessary so there’s no questioning their decision about the change. However, the logo they have decided to go with just doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t look like anything, which is the main issue. Previously, at least we got a sense that there’s a camera with some filters on it, giving a pretty clear message to the audience about the app. However, that’s not the case with the new logo. From our viewpoint, the new logo is a big fail.

No Nostalgia

The best part about the previous logo was that it paid tribute to the camera of yesteryears, which created a sense of nostalgia. However, the new logo, whatever it is, doesn’t stir any emotion. It’s a just a multicolored picture that seems to have popped up out of nowhere. The change was very much needed, but the change that people actually wanted never came to be. It seems that people at Instagram just took the previous logo, put it in an editing tool and created a different (very bad) iteration of it. It doesn’t look good, it doesn’t feel good, and worst of all, it is not able to generate any kind of nostalgia whatsoever. So we, like many other critics, want Instagram to either change their logo for the better, or get rid of it altogether.