Walk through any modern city and play brand bingo. Minimalist sans-serif font in the corner. Single geometric shape floating in white space. Colors that could be described as either millennial pink or Gen-Z yellow. The design equivalent of fast fashion has taken over corporate identity.

‍

Everyone's chasing timeless design, but they've accidentally created something else entirely: the great brand convergence. Netflix, Airbnb, Uber, Spotify. Put their current logos in a lineup and they could all be products from the same company having a particularly boring day.
‍

This wasn't supposed to happen. The minimalist movement was meant to strip away the unnecessary and reveal the essential. Designers talked about getting to the core truth of a brand. They spoke about honesty in communication and clarity in expression. Instead, we've stripped away everything that made brands distinctive. We've Marie Kondo'd our way to complete mediocrity.

‍

The movement started with good intentions. Companies genuinely wanted to move away from the overwrought, decorative logos of the early 2000s. Remember when every logo needed a swoosh, a shadow, and at least three gradients? The pendulum swing toward simplicity made sense.

‍

But somewhere along the way, simple became synonymous with identical. Distinctive became confused with decorative. Brands started copying each other's homework instead of finding their own voice. The result is a landscape of logos that look like they were generated by the same algorithm.

‍

The irony runs deeper than visual similarity. In trying to be timeless, these brands have become perfectly timed to this exact moment when everyone decided that looking like a tech startup was the pinnacle of sophistication. Give it five years and these logos will scream late 2010s louder than a man bun and skinny jeans combo.

‍

Here's the plot twist that most people miss: some of the most simplified logos actually work harder than their complex predecessors. Nike's swoosh isn't simple because it's minimal. It's simple because it's doing twelve jobs simultaneously. It suggests movement, achievement, progress, and a check mark all while being drawable by a five-year-old with a crayon.

‍

The same applies to Apple's current logo. That simple apple silhouette carries decades of meaning. It references knowledge, temptation, perfection, and innovation. It works because Apple spent years building those associations, not because the shape is inherently meaningful.

‍

The real conspiracy isn't that everyone's simplifying their logos. It's that most brands are simplifying without understanding why. They're removing visual elements without adding conceptual depth. They're confusing minimal with meaningless. They're choosing empty over essential.

‍

True simplification requires more thinking, not less. It demands that every element left in the design works overtime. It means understanding what your brand actually stands for before you start removing things. It's the difference between being stripped down and being stripped bare.

‍

Don't join the conspiracy of sameness. Be essential instead of empty. Make every element count. And remember that simple doesn't mean easy. The best simple logos are often the hardest to create.

‍