Yahoo Announces Logo Redesign, Launches 30 Days of Change

The gradual transformation of Yahoo under Google alum Marissa Mayer continues apace with a series of major acquisitions of talent and technology, two of the most notable being Tumblr and, just last week, Rockmelt, the browser designed to harness the power of social media. Now it appears that Mayer's plans to overhaul Yahoo are extending to its visual aesthetic as the company has just announced plans to unveil a new logo this fall.

Explaining the reasoning behind the change in an early morning blog post, Yahoo chief marketing officer Kathy Savitt wrote, "Over the past year, there's been a renewed sense of purpose and progress at Yahoo!, and we want everything we do to reflect this spirit of innovation. While the company is rapidly evolving, our logo — the essence of our brand — should too."

However, the sans serif logo presented today is just one of a series of logos the company plans to show off over the next few weeks during what it calls "30 days of change." Each week until Sept. 4, Yahoo will display variations on the logo throughout its network, a move that will likely help the company gauge which modified version gets the best reaction from users.

Some interesting new takes on the logo can already be seen in a short video (below) promoting the impending change. But so far, the video clip is the only hint at what kind of look the company plans to use for the new Yahoo.

Speaking on the specifics of the new design Savitt wrote, "The new logo will be a modern redesign that's more reflective of our reimagined design and new experiences… We also want to preserve the character that is unique to Yahoo! — fun, vibrant, and welcoming — so we'll be keeping the color purple, our iconic exclamation point and of course the famous yodel…"

Yahoo's latest logo update will follow other major visually oriented changes since the arrival of Mayer, such as the revamping of Flickr's interface and the reconstruction of the Yahoo homepage.

Nevertheless, this isn't the first major branding change for the company. Since the Yahoo first launched back in 1995 its logo has undergone a number of changes over the years, a fact that is detailed in a logo history Flickr gallery posted by the company after its last logo change just a few years ago.