SUNNYVALE, Calif. (AP) - Yahoo has refreshed its logo for the first time since shortly after the Internet company's founding 18 years ago.
The new look unveiled late Wednesday is part of a makeover that Yahoo Inc. has been undergoing since the Sunnyvale, Calif., company hired Google executive Marissa Mayer to become Yahoo's CEO 14 months ago.
Mayer has already spruced up Yahoo's front page, email and Flickr photo-sharing service, as well as engineered a series of acquisitions aimed at attracting more traffic on mobile devices. The shopping spree has been highlighted by Yahoo's $1.1 billion purchase of Tumblr, an Internet blogging service where the company rolled out its new logo.
The redesigned logo retains some of the elements of the old one, including the company's official color, purple. Yahoo's familiar exclamation point, meant to punctuate a yodeling sound that has long been the company's calling card, is still there, too, but with a twist. When visitors come to Yahoo's front page or an app, the exclamation point dances across some of the lettering before settling at the end of the company's name at a slight tilt of nine degrees.
"We knew we wanted a logo that reflected Yahoo - whimsical, yet sophisticated," Mayer wrote on her Tumblr account. She hailed the redesigned looks as "modern and fresh, with a nod to our history. Having a human touch, personal. Proud."
Mayer, 38, said she spent most of one weekend this summer figuring out what the new logo should look like with four other Yahoo colleagues: Bob Stohrer, Marc DeBartolomeis, Russ Khaydarov, and an intern, Max Ma.
The revision is the first time that Yahoo has made a significant change to its logo since a few tweaks shortly after co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo incorporated the company in 1995.
Since Yahoo's logo is so recognizable, it's a good thing they kept the changes relatively sedate, says branding expert Laura Ries, of the Atlanta firm Ries & Ries.
"One of the worst things in the world you can do is have a logo around for two decades and then do something totally different. It's quite unsettling for consumers," she said. Keeping the purple and the exclamation point was a good idea, she said.