Think of Apple or Nike, those are real logos. The recent logos and icons, including apps like Photoshop's, seem more like we're prioritizing metrics over creativity.
But there are reasons for this. Plain wordmarks are high-contrast and easy to read almost by default, and they work great with groups that aren't already aware of your brand. Or as Netflix puts it (https://brand.netflix.com/en/assets/logos/),
> The Wordmark remains an essential identifier of our brand. While our goal is to lead with the N Symbol, we enlist the Wordmark to ensure brand recognition in low-awareness markets or when production limits the use of color.
CSS doesn't have a ton of brand awareness. Making something akin to the Nike Swoosh for CSS won't catch on, it's not like they have the money to flood your Instagram feed with it and force that brand recognition on you.
Going back to Netflix why would they use a single gently stylized letter where possible? Well,
> In high-awareness markets, we lead with the N Symbol. There is power in owning a letter of the alphabet: it’s universal and instantly identifiable as shorthand for our brand.
That's right. Netflix wants to own the letter N. I think "CSS" is in the same position: owning a combination of three letters is a power move. That's the most valuable thing about the "CSS brand," if ever there were one, so why not lead with it?
But maybe your opinion is still that all of these designers are full of it (apparently including Paul Rand).
- text, with a specific font, position, size, weight
- a specific color
- a box radius in 3 corners
- some variants
By your definition, the Coca Cola logo is not a logo because it’s "just text"
The web community is obsessed with this "neat, tidy" shit while the all the standards involved (HTML, JS, CSS etc) are a dog's breakfast.
At least for how my brain works, having a little picture to hang the information off of is easier than having to memorize a slew of TLAs and FLAs.
Maybe I should rough out some logos for these things for myself.