Pinterest’s New Logo: Evaluating the Redesign
Evaluate Pinterest’s redesigned pin mark and wordmark as vector artwork: what the files contain, how to judge them for production, and which rights still apply.
Contents
What this evaluation covers
The subject is Pinterest’s current identity: the circular pin mark (a capital P whose stem and terminal read as a pushpin) used with the Pinterest wordmark. Evaluating the redesign as vector logo artwork means judging official master files for outline geometry, color construction, and lockup rules, then deciding whether those files are fit for production. This article answers that question from a practical vector-logo standpoint. No official source files, path outlines, or licensed asset packages were supplied for this assessment, so file-level claims about editability, measurements, and granted rights are flagged as gaps.
The mark under discussion
Pinterest’s identity is a two-part system. The icon is a rounded badge holding a stylized P constructed so the vertical stem and the opening in the bowl suggest a pin. The wordmark is the company name in tightly specified lettering, typically locked up beside or below the icon, and also used on its own. The redesign in circulation is this same system in its current drawing: a simpler, more geometric pin, a cleaner circular field, and a wordmark meant to hold at small sizes on product UI and at large sizes in campaign work. Primary applications use a saturated red field with a light pin; constrained applications use black, white, and single-color reversals. Those are identity traits of the artwork, not a substitute for opening the master file.
How to tell vector artwork from a preview
A production logo is vector when the pin and lettering exist as outline paths (or live type that you are permitted to outline). A PNG, JPG, or on-screen capture of the same mark is a raster preview: it has pixels, a fixed resolution, and will soften or stair-step when scaled. Some files that look like logos still embed a raster image inside a vector wrapper. That wrapper can scale as a box, while the pin itself remains a bitmap. Editability is confirmed by inspecting the file: select the P and the circle and see independent paths, anchors, and fills. A filename or extension such as SVG, EPS, PDF, or AI does not, on its own, prove that those paths are present or unlocked.
| What you have | What it contains | What you can do with it in production |
| True vector artwork | Outline paths (and, where permitted, live type) for the pin, circle, and wordmark | Scale without quality loss; recolor fills; set up lockups once rights allow |
| Raster preview | A pixel image of the logo, often exported for web or social use | Place at or below its native size; poor choice as a master |
| Vector file with an embedded raster | A vector page or artboard that contains a placed bitmap of the mark | The container scales; the artwork still behaves like a preview |
Checks that decide whether a file is a usable master
- Open the file in a vector editor and select the pin, the circular field, and each letter of the wordmark. Independent filled paths (or outlined type) indicate artwork you can prepare; a single placed image indicates a preview.
- Look at the colour construction. A solid fill on the badge and a solid fill on the P will recode cleanly to spot colour, one-colour print, and reversed applications. Transparency tricks, gradients baked into pixels, or drop shadows flattened into a bitmap limit how far the mark can travel.
- Confirm the lockups you actually need: icon only, icon plus wordmark, and wordmark only. Cropping a combined raster export is a weak substitute for a true lockup.
- Check clear space and minimum size against the drawing, not against a padded preview. The circular badge already implies a margin; extra canvas in a PNG is not the same as the specified isolation zone.
- Treat custom lettering as part of the mark. Substituting a lookalike retail font changes the wordmark and is a different piece of artwork.
Practical implications of the redesign
As a geometric circular pin, the current drawing is built for small UI icons and for large solid-colour reproduction. That is useful if you are placing the mark on an app tile, a favicon-scale avatar, embroidery, vinyl, or a one-colour print run: simple fills and a closed circular silhouette survive those processes better than a detailed illustration. The trade-off is tolerance. Slight stretching, added outlines, or a recolored field that competes with the red will read as a different badge. If you are preparing files for a partner, merch, or editorial use, start from an official master, keep the circle unscaled on one axis only, and hold the pin upright. Recoloring should follow the approved palette in the brand artwork, including the one-colour and reversed versions, rather than sampling a screenshot.
For layout work, keep the supplied lockups intact. Combining the pin with a locally typeset “Pinterest” in another face, stacking elements the masters do not show, or placing the mark on a busy photograph without the specified clear space produces a new lockup. That new lockup is no longer the official artwork, even when each piece started as a vector.
Download, modification, and trademark
Permission to download a logo file is separate from permission to modify it, to combine it with other artwork, or to use the pin, the wordmark, the lettering, or the name in commerce. Pinterest’s pin and wordmark are trademarked identity. Official press, partner, and brand kits usually grant a narrow licence: reproduce the supplied artwork as given, at a size and in a context the company allows. Tracing the mark, redrawing the P, swapping colours outside the approved set, or embedding the logo in a product you sell typically requires express permission. Fonts inside a wordmark file may also be licensed separately from the trademark. Receiving an SVG does not grant a right to restyle the lettering or to subset the type for other projects.
What this assessment cannot confirm
No official vector masters, brand-guide excerpts, or licence text were supplied here, so this evaluation does not confirm path counts, stroke or corner values, exact colour specifications, minimum sizes, or the legal terms attached to any particular file. Those details live in the current brand artwork and in the licence that accompanies it. Until a file is inspected, treat web copies, social avatars, and third-party “logo packs” as previews: useful for recognition, insufficient as production masters, and silent on whether you may modify or use the mark.
Use an official vector master of the pin and wordmark, confirm real outline paths in the file, and treat download access as separate from the right to alter or apply the trademark.