Chinese mobile giant Xiaomi revealed its new logo on Tuesday, with the design stirring up hot discussion online. Created by the internationally acclaimed Japanese graphic designer Kenya HARA, netizens have said it looks deceptively similar to Xiaomi’s original logo.
The new logo continues to adopt Xiaomi’s corporate color ‘orange,’ which denotes the company’s energetic and creative vibes. It also has a black-and-silver color version to accommodate the company’s high-end line. Other than this, there are some tinkers made on the “MI” typography to make it look more aesthetically pleasing. Compare to such rather subtle design choices, the most obvious change would be that the previous logo’s four square corners have been ground out, letting the new icon adopt a softer and rounder contours on the logo’s corners.
“Alive” was the concept given to this new logo. It was envisioned by its creator Kenya HARA, an acclaimed Japanese graphic designer who is known for his unique style and design philosophy of combining minimalism with East Asian aesthetics.
Xiaomi’s new logo is no exception; the seemingly simple “rounder corner” was a result of a complex “superellipse” mathematical formula to find the perfect square-round circle that symbolizes Xiaomi’s spirit.
“The new logo is not a simple redesign, but an encapsulation of Xiaomi’s inner spirit,” said HARA during an interview, explaining Xiaomi’s logo design.
Kenya HARA’s collaboration with Xiaomi has become a trending topic on China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo, where it has been received 200 million views as of Thursday afternoon.
Despite some finding the new logo’s meaning too nuanced to be understood and claiming Xiaomi might have been “cheated” because there was not really much design on the new logo, there are still some who seem to grasp its value.
“I get Kenya HARA’s point. Minimalism and being simple are very different concepts. Minimalism is never effortless; it is a process of deduction to find what is the most essential. In other words, the seemingly simple shape has definitely been designed with a thinking process, not like just one quick decision to simply cut the corner. I think the sophistication and subtlety of this logo really make me think Xiaomi has some cool stuff,” Wang, a graphic design expert in Beijing, told the Global Times on Thursday.
“Doing the collaboration with a famed designer is also a way that Xiaomi does its advertising, I think. See, the logo’s controversy has already made it a trending [topic] on Sina Weibo…,”Tang, a PR expert in Beijing, told the Global Times on Thursday.
Xiaomi’s old and new logos. Photo: Sina Weibo
