Instagram reveals new, more elegant logo

Guess who’s sporting a new look?! Very slyly, Instagram has revealed a redesigned logotype that is supposedly inspired by Coca Cola’s font.

Even as Instagram released a new update that included a photo tagging feature and certain UI changes, not many noticed that the logotype had changed. The redesigned type is the first time Instagram has made changes to its identity in two years of its existence.

The font flows a lot better now and understandably has a touch of Facebook blue. The new font has been designed by Mackey Saturday, a Denver based typographer. Saturday, a friend of Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom, had been working on the new design for a year.

The new look!

The older script was written in Billabong, which has been noted to lend Instagram a vintage feel, something that is a characteristic of Instagram’s filters. Saturday says he redrew the design by hand, lending it an elegant look. “Kevin has a really good taste for design, and I think it’s a big reason for their success,” Mackey told Gizmodo UK, describing the process. “It was a gradual process of going through and tightening things up.”

Saturday says the thought was to build a long-term brand when he sat down to design it. “The real goal is to sit alongside some of those timeless scripts, like Kellog’s and Campbell’s,” he said. “Coca-cola’s another great example. It’s nostalgic, but it transcends popular trends.”

Instagram released the revamped logotype alongside the newest tagging feature for its Android and iOS app last week. Called “Photos of You", the feature will let you add names to faces as easily as you add hashtags to images. When you’re uploading images now, you will be prompted to add tags to your images. You can tag people you follow on Instagram to your images. When you’re adding tags, you can also move the tag around and add more of them before finally processing the image.

The new logotype is more visible on the website than the mobile apps, though. Do you like the new white-upon-blue type? Let us know what you think of it.