[mrweasel]

It's not just you. I don't think it works either. It's memorable, so that's good, but I don't think its flexible and I can't see it working below a certain size.

The NeXT logo is, like everything, a product of it's time. It would have had to evolve, just like the Apple logo. It's just that the apple with a bit taken out had a recognisable shape, which Apple have kept. NeXT would have had to transition as much as Microsoft has, because the Paul Rand design is so locked to that specific period in time. It's both the colors and the shape, where the Apple logo is just the colors. Maybe they could lose the writing and the colors, but then it just look like a Transformer faction.

The NeXT logo is interesting as an anachronism, forever locked in the early 90s, with no evolution, due to Apple buying the company.