I Shot the Serif — Why Didn’t Anyone Notice the Tumblr Logo Change?

While everyone was riveted to the change in Yahoo’s logo earlier this fall — mostly due to a monthlong Cecil B. DeMille rollout of the logos not used, followed by the I-made-it-myself grand unveiling by CEO Marissa Mayer — no one seems to have noticed a subtle but significant change to the look of the logo of another of the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s properties.

That would be Tumblr, the high-profile New York-based blogging network that Yahoo bought for more than $1 billion in late May. And though it was not touted, the logo changed in mid-October, during an update of Tumblr’s dashboard. Along with making it more clean, several of the logo’s letters had their serifs squared up, in a move not dissimilar to the Yahoo logo change.

In other words, some new sharp and straight lines, versus softer ones — mostly all-serif, but some sans-serif thrown in at the same time.

Here’s the old Tumblr logo:

And here’s the new one:

I like this change a lot, almost as much as I did not like the new Yahoo logo. Then again, I am no font expert, and there’s no accounting for taste.