[knowtheory]

Well, this should go down in the annals of logos which should have gotten some wider impressions before launching.

Since nobody else on HN has mentioned it, all of twitter thinks the new logo looks like a vagina. It's hard to unsee.

[grecy]

> the new logo looks like a vagina.

Who cares?

Remember all the iPad jokes about sanitary products when it was announced?

That obviously didn't hurt the now multi-billion dollar giant the iPad has become.

[knowtheory]

You do realize that people still find the "iPad" name awkward, right?

Just because the device sells doesn't mean the name isn't bad.

[raldi]

How do they feel about notepads and mousepads and bachelor pads?

[bpdenimy]

Hmmm. I'd love to see some data around this. (I don't mean this as snakily as it sounds, surveying some folks about this would make a good blog post, it's sort of an interesting lesson either way).

[hxw]

I can hardly see it when I'm trying too see it. People are reaching.

[zem]

agreed. i'm reminded once again of hein's "dream interpretation (simplified)":

    DREAM INTERPRETATION
    Simplified.

    Everything's either
    concave or -vex,
    so whatever you dream
    will be something with sex.

[cal2]

I appear to be the only one who thinks it looks like an "A". The loop reminds me of something an airplane would do in the air. I can see the sexual resemblance, but only if I concentrate hard enough on it, then it just goes back to being an "A".

[minimaxir]

An effective logo should have zero ambiguity whatsoever.

[gmu3]

I think the best logos aren't immediately trivially apparent like the FedEx arrow, Tostitos dip bowl, Amazon A to Z, etc.

[collyw]

Huh? I don't think it does, and I have watched my fair share of porn. Looks like an upside down love heart.

[jcrjcr]

Is that what it's meant to be? Makes sense given their #belonganywhere

[loganu]

or maybe that's sexual. BeLongAnywhere?

[tokenadult]

"Looks like a vulva" would be a more accurate description. /pedantry off

On the other hand, the oldest surviving human art on at least two continents is crude drawings (cruder than the Airbnb logo) of vulvae, so the artistic impulse in this cases is about as old as humankind. (I will be no more willing to rent a room through Airbnb than I was before after seeing today's discussion, and I wasn't very willing before, knowing someone whose reservation was cancelled at the last minute.)

[panarky]

Why does everyone assume the innuendo is accidental?

[visakanv]

Agreed. After all, most of us came out of a vagina. There's all sorts of mother/belonging/home insinuations to be made.

[antr]

It might look like a vagina, but Airbnb's "new" logo is a blatant copy of Automation Anywhere's logo https://www.automationanywhere.com/

[loganu]

Except, the proportions make Automation's look like a clothespin, and AirBNB's like.... well, a vagina now that someone has pointed it out to me, but that definitely wasn't my first impression.

[azinman2]

Glad I wasn't the only one, although for me it wasn't so specific -- it just suggested sexual.

[bellerocky]

I thought the new airbnb logo looked like boobs.

[zackliscio]

Reminds me of this: http://www.funnyordie.com/articles/c5feb0ce69/graphic-design...

[ollerac]

What's wrong with a logo that looks like a vagina? Apple's logo looks like an apple, which isn't really related to their business.

[bellerocky]

While the shape of an Apple can make for a pretty benign and neutral corporate image it doesn't mean this is true for every shape.

[untog]

If you were designing a logo, would you make one that looks like a penis?

[raldi]

http://www.b3ta.com/features/phalliclogoawards/

[CalRobert]

Sure. What's wrong with vaginas? Why do we demonize parts of the body?

[untog]

Yeah, OK, why do we? I agree. It's silly. Does the rest of America agree? No.

Given that this is part of AirBnb transforming to a consumer brand you'd think they'd pay more attention to what their target consumers think. They're a business, after all.

[visakanv]

"Hey, let's rent a place. It costs reasonable, the people seem nice, it's going to be fun."

"OMG, no, no we can't. The logo looks like a vagina."

[nilkn]

"OMG, this service sucks so much, but I like their logo, so I'm going to pay for it!"

Nobody actually thinks this way, but I think it's been demonstrated countless times that people respond to branding.

I guess the takeaway is that just because it's possible to make something sound silly doesn't mean it doesn't have an impact.

[untog]

Why yes, you're right, that's exactly how brand perception works.

[rhizome]

I think you might be projecting with the "demonizing," but it seems obvious that it would serve to limit your audience. You can look at an obvious extreme example for plenty of thought-experiments: do porn companies use sexualized iconography?

[MichaelGG]

Certainly that's only good for AirBNB. They'll get free press out of a otherwise non-newsworthy event.

[jcrjcr]

That was my immediate thought. I don't see how you could see much else in it

[jamesbritt]

Looks like a paperclip to me, even when I was trying to see the vagina.