MenuA new flavour of the month?
December 14, 2021
The past few weeks have seen the launch of two high profile rebranding projects that may signal the start of a new trend in the design of new logos.
At the end of October, Facebook announced that their new corporate name was Meta. Meta is now the parent of Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and Oculus. Their announcement generated, to no one’s surprise, a large volume of commentaries, in news accounts, blogs and social media. These comments focused, deservedly, on the reasons behind the decision to rename the parent and the impact it might have in deflecting all the criticism that has been directed at Facebook these past few months. Not much was said about the design of the actual logo.
The name is certainly not unique; there are other companies named Meta in North America and around the world. One such Meta, based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, saw a momentary spike of their stock price on the NASDAQ exchange, apparently rising by about 26% in after-hours trading. Investors mistakenly thought that this was the Facebook listing, under their new name.
The Meta logo is not bad; one can even claim it’s reasonably well done. While the infinity symbol is not a unique concept (full disclosure: a blue infinity was part of the logo we designed for DAC Group a while back), Meta’s evokes the letter M and that at least gives it some level of trademark-ability. Its most redeeming feature though is its animation. Meta claims it was created first as a three-dimensional object, using their proprietary Quest technology. The animation does give it life but unfortunately they seem to have missed the opportunity to truly have their new logo stand out. In the rendering of the new sign, it would have been remarkable to see the blue symbol animated, rather than being static. The logo on the Meta website is another missed opportunity. Even though it is quite small, had it been visibly animated, it would have signalled that maybe this rebranding was really about breaking new ground and not a diversionary tactic.
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Four weeks after Mark Zuckerberg introduced Meta, another social media titan, Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey announced he was stepping down as its head. Then a couple of days later, his other major concern, Square, Inc., announced it was changing the name of its corporate entity to Block. Block is parent to Square – a sales and register service used by small businesses, Cash App – a consumer payments and investing product, Tidal – a music streaming app, and Spiral (previously named Square Crypto) which “builds and funds free, open-source Bitcoin projects.” While Block did not not make the link outright in its press release announcing the name change, much of the press coverage associated the Block name with blockchain, as a signal that the company’s focus will grow increasingly toward bitcoin and other cryptocurrency initiatives.
Block also has an animated logo, but unlike Meta, the logo with the animated symbol is used on its website. It is quite remarkable and unique. No other marks come to mind when viewing it. What is also interesting is that Block requests, next to the download link for Press assets, that the animated logo be used whenever possible, as that is its primary logo. This doesn’t mean that the Block brand identity is flawless. Their new website features portraits of their board members and leadership team in blocks. These blockhead portraits are, frankly, weird.
The more fascinating question is whether these two new brand identities are the start of a new trend of animated logos. Lately, it seems that many companies have been rebranded with black logos, abandoning any colour in their logo (see our blog post about this trend). It’s an interesting coincidence that two of the best-known social media leaders have launched brands with an animated logo just weeks apart. Will Jeff Bezos now feel compelled to rebrand Amazon with an animated logo? Google has had its many Google Doodles, but its parent, Alphabet, has a plain logo. Will other companies in other sectors follow suite? It will be interesting to see what comes next.
While we’re on the subject of animated logos, it is worth noting that Alitalia, whose logo is truly in motion much of the time, has also recently rebranded. Having gone bankrupt (again), the airline was rebranded as ITA Airways.
Ultimately, the real measure of success for these new brand identities will not be based on their aesthetic innovation or quality. Rather success will be measured by how well, or poorly, they have shaped the narrative and perceptions of these companies.
