So here it is. The new F.A.T. Lab logo. A hot pink bird on yellow flames, birthed not in some squatted Berlin hacklab, but on Fiverr. Yeah, we hired a stranger on the internet for $35 and some emojis to redesign our symbol of digital delinquency.
Why? Because conceptually, it makes sense.
The Old Logo is Dead, Long Live the Outsourced One
Our old logo carried us through a decade of fuck-you pranks and tactical media hits. It looked DIY because it was. But the world changed, and so did we. We’re not 22 anymore with pirated Photoshop and endless Red Bulls. We’re older, slower, with kids, bills, and maybe even ergonomic chairs.
So we did what everyone else does now: we outsourced it. Not to a friend, not to a design agency but to the algorithmic underbelly of globalized micro-labor. The same digital turk mills that build your datasets, transcribe your podcasts, or crank out your AI training images.
This is the logo Mechanical Turk would make if it got paid enough to care.
Punk Is Dead, Practical Is the New Punk
There’s something honest in this pivot. Everyone outsources everything already! Whether it’s sending code to ChatGPT, hustling pixels to a Fiverr designer in another timezone, or dumping your art ideas into MidJourney prompts.
F.A.T. was always about abusing the system until it spits out something weird.
Now the system is Fiverr. The weird is this flaming bird.
We’ve gone from punk sabotage to dad-level pragmatism. Instead of spray-painting walls, we’re commissioning vectors. Instead of fighting Google, we’re paying a gig worker. And maybe that’s the most punk thing left: to admit we’ve become what we always mocked.
Conceptual Outsourcing
Think about it: the free internet dream was always built on somebody else’s back. Free software, free labor, free culture. We just made it louder, pinker, more on fire. The new logo says the quiet part out loud:
- Yes, we outsourced it.
- Yes, we paid cash money.
- Yes, that’s what you’re doing too.
So embrace it. The DIY myth is dead. Long live DOFI: Do It On Fiverr Instead.
The Old Logo (NBC Pirate Job)
- Look: a hotwired flipped NBC peacock. Corporate logo détournement at its purest.
- Energy: pure prank. Stealing a mega-brand’s feathers while flipping it and spray-painting “F.A.T. LAB” underneath. It said: we’re squatters in your broadcast palace, and we brought clip art.
- Concept: détournement, parody, punk appropriation. Tactical media 101: hijack the corporate aesthetic and push it back in their face.
- Vibe: messy, cocky, “we’ll get sued and that’s the point.”
The New Logo (Fiverr Flaming Bird)
- Look: A slick neon bird rising from vectorized flames. Magenta + yellow. It looks like it belongs equally on a rave flyer and a corporate rebrand deck.
- Energy: dad-punk pragmatism. It’s professional, it’s legible, it’ll scale nicely on merch.
- Concept: outsourcing as praxis. The gag is that we didn’t “design” this … we clicked “Hire” on Fiverr. It’s both admission and performance: everything’s outsourced now, whether to micro-workers, AI, or bots.
- Vibe: more polished, less illegal. Punk matured into “practical anarchism with some budget.”
Old vs. New in One Sentence
- Old: Fuck NBC.
- New: Fuck it, let’s Fiverr.
Why This Matters
The transition from the hijacked NBC bird to the flaming Fiverr bird is a time capsule of F.A.T. Lab itself:
- Old Logo: DIY, clip-art piracy, meme before meme.
- New Logo: commodified gig economy aesthetic, embracing the collapse of DIY into DOFI (Do It on Fiverr Instead).
It’s about admitting that punk now looks different. We don’t steal NBC’s feathers anymore; we pay someone $35 to draw us a new one. And maybe that’s the most honest hack left.
TL;DR
We’ve aged. We’re less punk, more practical. But the flame still burns, even if it’s vectorized.
Meet the new logo: a pink bird rising from Fiverr’s ashes, screaming across the gig economy void.
