Reactions to the Slack change range from “friendly in a generic way” to a big load of “bland nothingness.” And that’s before you consider the rather suggestive colouring.

You’ve just come into work; it’s a Thursday, you don’t need any surprises. The weekend isn’t so far away, you just want to see the day out – but what’s this? Slack’s only gone and changed it’s bloody logo, and now your favourite workplace chat app has a new shade of purple that’s a little bit too dark first thing in the morning. How are you supposed to get any work done now, you ask yourself in a panic?

Well, Slack have said the logo redesign was well overdue, explaining in its blog on the matter that the old hashtag insignia was a design nightmare with its makeup of over ten different colours, an inability to blend in with different backgrounds and the fact its tilted slant made it look just plain odd when placed at any other angle. Its brand guidelines meanwhile recommend that the new logo is placed on a purple shade that reminds us of a certain something, but what..?

Looking closer, we see that this vegetable-coloured swatch is being referred to by Slack using the classy European name of Aubergine. Opposed to, you know, the common American-English word its staff no doubt use everyday at work in Silicon Valley.

@SlackHQ pic.twitter.com/F4wWW5Jqrn

— Nikita (@nikitonsky) 16 January 2019

Oh dear. Anyway, if you scrunch up your eyes a bit you can see the Pentagram-designed logo is made up of speech bubbles and lozenges, but people on social have seen other shapes in the rebrand that show how far Slack has come from being a simple chat app.

If you want a brand to be friendly in a generic kind of way, there is a lot of gravity towards red, green, blue, and yellow. Slack has grown into an enterprise product, and now it looks like one. pic.twitter.com/dN2Y3oUF7E

— Allen Pike (@apike) 16 January 2019

Marco Arment also points out how Slack has put form over function for anyone using its app on mobile. Think about it – how many apps on your phone right now feature a letter and tilted visual? Not many, and the new logo just blends into the background with all the rest, especially with that dark eggplant tone.

Slack threw away one of the best and most recognizable icons on iOS for this bland new nothingness that you can barely find amongst the others. pic.twitter.com/kXATYFB6OW

— Marco Arment (@marcoarment) 16 January 2019

Web designer Christopher Grande also makes a valid point.

Let’s play that fun new game: “Is it the new Slack logo or a random medical group?”#branding #slack #logo #design pic.twitter.com/a4RldEJRO1

— Christopher Grande (@chrisgrande) 16 January 2019

Interestingly, the Slack social team has been responding to some of the online comments, which isn’t the usual form in situations like this.

We agree our old logo was cute, but we hope the new one will grow on you, Lilith! ✨

— Slack (@SlackHQ) 17 January 2019

And of course, not everybody gives a slack.

Reaction to new Slack logo pic.twitter.com/pkrinljsIG

— Bobby Anderson ? (@8obbyanderson) 17 January 2019

Anyway, shouldn’t you be getting some work done now?