back to article Calendly’s new logo perceived as either bog-standard or kind of crappy

Online scheduling service Calendly has updated its logo and attracted some criticism because it looks, well, a bit shit. Here’s the logo for you to consider. Calendly logo Calendly logo - Click to enlarge When The Register tried to digest the above, we felt bowled over — if you take our meaning. So did other observers. …

  1. Joe W Silver badge

    Toilet bowl?

    ... maybe a US one. The seats are weirdly shaped, if I remember correctly. To me it looks like somebody is injecting something into a cell, the needle is missing though.

    I also failed to see hte "hexagon", as it has no corners - ok, maybe rounded ones[*] with quite a big radius. Maybe Apple will want to sue them for that?

    [*] rounded corners.... either it is a corner or it is round.

    1. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge

      Re: Toilet bowl?

      I saw that cell injection and also a pimple cross sectional diagram. I have no idea what Calendly is and now I hope I don't have to use it.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Trollface

        Re: Toilet bowl?

        Simplified illustration of a uterus about to birth the green blob.

  2. Potemkine! Silver badge

    Creepy indeed

    and awful too.

    Looks to me like a blob eating something in a horror movie.

  3. Chris G

    If Calendly could just change their name to Crapperly, the logo would fit perfectly.

    Pentagram, like most design houses has not only turned out a shit design but talks it up with a load of shit too.

    Still not sure what Calendly does but I can't be arsed to check it out.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Apparently, they do meeting scheduling. Their "plus" is that they 'remove the hassle of email to schedule the meeting', whatever that means. I'm guessing they have a video platform as well.

      Their logo is blurry because the hexagon in the middle has rounded corners. This is the Age Without Angles, everything must be soft and fuzzy because Heaven forbid we offend someone by showing a pointed corner. That's aggressive .

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        'remove the hassle of email to schedule the meeting'

        they phone instead? print invitations? just grab you as you're passing? assume you agree with everything they've already said so don't bother with a meeting?

        1. doublelayer Silver badge

          I think they have a registration system which works kind of like Outlook does inside an organization but for everybody. That way you can schedule something without the email chain of "I'm available on Tuesday afternoons", "I'm not but how is Wednesday", "I could do any time on Wednesday except for 11:00", "How about 10:00", "That works", "Wait, did you mean 10:00 UK or western Europe time", "UK", "Sorry I'm an hour ahead so that's the 11:00 I couldn't make", etc. I don't know if they do anything else though.

        2. Warm Braw

          Perhaps you tear your appointment off a conveniently perforated roll?

          1. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
            Facepalm

            Does it interface with Izal*.....i mean Azure.

            Icon - OUCH!

            *Yes I'm old (Kids Google it).

            1. David 132 Silver badge
              Thumb Up

              Damn, I must be old as well, because I immediately "got" that reference. That was the TP provided when I was in junior school, Oop North of England. Well, Cheshire. (Which was much less civilized and premiership-footballer-ey back then.)

              Even 8-year-old-me thought it was appalling, and at the time I struggled to tell the difference between the Izal and my mum's grease-proof baking paper. Eventually decided that the difference was that the latter would be softer and more absorbent on my posterior.

      2. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

        Perhaps they could remove the hassle of having the meeting by sending an email instead?

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Facepalm

        > Their logo is blurry because the hexagon in the middle has rounded corners.

        The hexagon is renowned in the mathematical world and the natural world as an efficient, space maximising shape that fills the plane. By choosing rounded corners they are deliberately saying that they are less than optimally efficient.

        Now that's an honest message.

      4. Potty Professor
        Boffin

        Pointy Corners

        I did all right for twenty plus years with my pointy cornered triangle logo

        www.345ARC.co.uk

        Prof.

    2. Youngone Silver badge

      Nobody talks nonsense quite like a designer.

      1. David 132 Silver badge
        Happy

        Honestly, I'm disappointed in Simon this time. An entire article about a new logo, and not once did he use the phrases "whalesong" or "joss-stick". Poor show. El Reg writers passim must be turning in their sarcophagi.

  4. Efer Brick
    Trollface

    Consultancy

    Feeling flush, with the money in the bank

  5. xyz Silver badge

    Reminds me of one of those

    Tampon insertion diagrams

    1. Anonymous Custard
      Trollface

      Re: Reminds me of one of those

      Especially with the tasteful blue colouration from TV adverts of such products...

      1. David 132 Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: Reminds me of one of those

        It's not done to be "tasteful".

        The sanitary products companies are just marketing to the Smurf/Na'vi demographic.

  6. Christoph

    I would like to propose a new quiz show. You take a stack of company logos plus the descriptions by the design companies of what the logos mean, and you jumble them up. Contestants have to identify which description goes with which logo.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      But that would unfairly lump companies with beautiful but meaningless logos in with the Silicon Valley also rans, which obviously includes this Doodle clone. It looks like they wanted to merge a pictogram for a link with the C in a textbook failure of combining different visual languages.

      The website is nicely awful with a cringeworthy video featuring, for no good reason, a band. You'll thank me for having watched this shit so you don't have to!

      1. sebacoustic

        >The website is nicely awful...

        damnit i have to go there now

      2. FuzzyTheBear
        Pint

        We all are. Thanks :)

  7. chuBb.

    Twisted wire puzzle

    Looks like the solution you get inside crackers to those rubbish twisted wire puzzles

  8. jim465
    FAIL

    Hexagon? Looks like a badly drawn circle.

    At first I thought the page was still loading and hadn't quite rendered properly, then I realised it was supposed to look that....

    Obvious icon.....

  9. PTW
    Windows

    Truly the crayon dept.

    And, a case of the Emperor's new clothes. I think he could have done a better job ----->

  10. McCovican
    Coat

    I'm not really all that bothered about the logo itself, but the $1.5m price tag is a joke. Even worse is the language being used by the designers. How does any of that word-salad have anything whatsoever to do with the logo? You could substitute in any marketing buzzword there (or any other company's logo) and it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference, because it's all completely meaningless. It's horoscope-level generic blanket waffling that only exists to justify their own salary.

  11. elwe

    I used to share a house with a guy who did hard science for a job, was a devout christian, an artist and was a colossal pervert. His church asked him to design a new stained glass window, so he used a vagina as the centre of the design. As he worked on it in the lounge of an evening he would ask me if I thought anyone at the church would see the 'centre piece'.

    I think the design house has basically done the same. I bet their designers have an internal betting ring going on who can slip the worst thing into a design and get the client to accept it. Looks like Calendly fell for the design based on a crapper. No sign of anyone falling for the cock and balls design yet...

    1. StuartMcL

      "No sign of anyone falling for the cock and balls design yet"

      Try a search for "Doughboys and DirtyBird logos" :)

  12. Howard Sway Silver badge
    FAIL

    an early 2021 injection of $350 million in venture capital

    For a shared calendar meeting scheduler app.

    I just went and looked, that is literally all it is.

    A wastely of venturely capitally moneyly on this epicly failly..

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: an early 2021 injection of $350 million in venture capital

      Or, as Nac Mac Feegle might have said, OOooohhh Faily, Faily, Faily.

      1. David 132 Silver badge
        Pint

        Re: an early 2021 injection of $350 million in venture capital

        CRIVENS!

      2. Steve K
        Windows

        Re: an early 2021 injection of $350 million in venture capital

        Millennium hand and shrimp!!

  13. RockBurner

    (reading left to right, top to bottom)

    "That's blocked the u-bend."

    "Uh oh, Diarrhoea again."

    "It's got wings!"

    "No, i did NOT take a bite from that..."

    "Solid and well formed.... those pro-biotics worked a treat"

    "There goes a kidney..."

    "Rabbit droppings... "

    "Ouch!"

    "Lasts nights curry was NOT that colour when I ate it"

    "That's one mother of a piece of sweetcorn!"

    "Pebble-dashing services now offered"

    "Ok, who let the wombat in here?"

  14. Mike 16

    Some staff worked at dutchwater.com?

    internet connection via the "return path".

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    They're not the first company with a toilet related logo

    https://www.esato.com/board/ui/xMgKsoQz73ZF2uqdc99X.jpg

  16. ecofeco Silver badge

    Cannot unsee

    Yep, it's a toilet seat.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How much?

    If I gave my dog some crayons he could do better.

    Hang on...

    Anyone want to invest in designdog.com?

    1. David 132 Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: How much?

      Are you saying your dog is a labra-doodle?

  18. llaryllama

    Perhaps the CEO is trying to put forward his image as soft, strong and very very long?

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