When I read and edited the English language wikipedia this morning, I saw that the logo had changed. I had a strange feeling, at first not being sure if this was only a feeling of surprise or if there was some real problem with that new logo. After performing my editing tasks, I had a closer look at the new logo and compared it with the older one, and I found the following design flaws :
* the diameter of the sphere has become shorter than the Wikipedia word below (some harmony is broken).
* It is darker.
* It is fuzzier (while the older one was brisk, with contrast).
* It bears geometric flaws : when you look at a planet, the meridians which are farther should be closer to each other than the nearer ones. The same kind of problem occured on the old logo, but as it was bigger, the proportions were different, and that problem was less conspicuous.
I suspect a management flaw in the way the Wikimedia Foundation is managed.
1) I suspect this logo change has very little to do with usability. So I don't understand why the "usability people" have been authorised to touch this.
2) When the city council of a big city decides to redesign the statue located on the main square of the city, usually an artistic contest is organised, with a jury of professionals whose job is to find the proposal which has the greatest artistic merit. The same sort of organisation should take place when redesigning something as important as the Wikipedia logo.
Also I feel sorry for the designer of the old logo. It seems that his/her talent is not recognized as should be.
Useful links :
New logo at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia-logo-v2-en.png Older logo at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia-logo-en.png