Having thus far been very positive about Yahoo! on my blog (and generally in life), I do want to take a moment to spew some negativity in light of the new policy about blogging at Yahoo! Don’t worry, I still love the policy, but it does say that we are free to express our opinions, both positive and negative as long as we explain our claims.

So let the Yahoo! negativity begin:

Business Cards:

For a very long time, Business cards at Yahoo! have featured the “Y Guy!,” a yellow “Y” shaped stick figure jumping for joy. Apparently brand wanted to get rid of him ,but he is much beloved by employees. Keeping in mind that I have yet to meet anyone that loves him, I was not heartbroken when a new option was presented last month when getting business cards.

We now have the choice of our beloved, or we can choose the new card which unfortunately is the epitome of boring. The new card sports the Yahoo! logo in purple, the Y! logo (pronounced Y-bang) and then our info in purple and black. More than blandness, it really is pretty unfortunate because of the alignment in the design. There are just four elements (big logo, little logo, name/tile, and contact info) shoved into the four corners of the card. The strange thing is that the sides have different borders, and no part aligns especially well to any other part on the card. In fact, with my title under my name, the two aren’t even justified correctly. To add insult to design injury, the new card is even on flimsy paper.

I ended up with the bland design for two reasons only. I wanted a change. I have never been at a company for three years, much less had the same business card for three years. Heck, at eStudio we had three business card redesigns in 2 years. The other reason is that I hate business cards that are portrait rather than landscape. To accommodate the Y guy, the old design was vertical. Blandness and convention at least fit on a landscape card.

Color Scheme:

I hope I am not the only Yahoo! employee that when they started here thought the corporate colors were red and yellow. Apparently our colors are actually purple and yellow. If I didn’t know it coming in I know it now. Boy howdy, do I know it now. Our color scheme infects our campus. If it can be one or both colors it is. The carpet, the cubes, the signs, the grape and banana jolly ranchers in the cafeteria. Believe me, if you came here you’d notice pretty fast.

I’m all for color branding, but there is something here that crosses the line. The food served by the cafeteria should not be color coordinated to our company. Yellow squash and purple cauliflower is a common occurrence for veggies here. When it is time for roasted potatoes, they are Yukon gold, and those Peruvian purple potatoes that I have otherwise only seen on jetBlue and on cooking shows. It turned my stomach the first time I tried it, but I have conditioned myself on it. Today though crossed the line. Purple potato salad was too much. Chunks of purple potatoes peaking out from behind mayo. *shudder*

Seriously people, there is research on color and taste/quality perception! Here is a little test you can even run yourself.