Four famous brands that have rebranded.
Now and then famous brands rebrand, sometimes it’s a major overhaul and other times it may be so subtle you may not even notice.
For this blog, I wanted to take a look at four brands that you will know about but may not have been aware of their rebranding.
Let’s start with Instagram.
You may remember the old camera icon that Instagram used, well this certainly isn’t a subtle change, I would say it’s a major overhaul. Gone is the almost ‘Box Brownie’ look and feel that the original logo reminded me of and in comes a new colour palette and gradient.
The idea behind the gradient according to Instagram was ‘to use vibrant colours to make it feel illuminated and alive, and to signal moments of discovery.’ There is even a bespoke typeface ‘Instagram sans’ which has been designed with the brand’s heritage in mind and inspired by design elements their community see every day.
The typeface has also been designed to be globally accessible to include global scripts including Arabic. I think it has a much cleaner look, coupled with the vibrant colour palette, enhances the user experience too.
Now let’s move on to Pfizer.
You may well know Pfizer for their COVID-19 vaccine but you may not even noticed that their logo has been updated, this update is intended to ‘signal a shift from ‘commerce to science.’
The new logo has been inspired by DNA’s double helix structure. A new typeface and dual-tone blue colour palette have also been rolled out. The updated typeface is ‘Noto Sans’ a typeface designed by Google which ‘has clean, open’ characteristics. The new identity has been rolled out across several applications and the logo can even be seen on lab coats.
A brief look at Nokia.
Nokia has said and I quote, "In most people’s minds, we are still a successful mobile phone brand, but this is not what Nokia is about. We want to launch a new brand that is focusing very much on the networks and industrial digitalisation, which is a completely different thing from the legacy mobile phones."
And finally, we take a look at Mastercard.
Mastercard began in 1940 when some of the US banks issued a paper that could be used like cash in the local shops. Eventually, franchises evolved meaning that a single bank in one of the major cities would accept cards as payment. In 2016 Mastercard introduced a simplified logo which was modern and optimised for digital use.
In 2019 the name ‘Mastercard’ was dropped from the brand mark leaving the interlocking red and yellow circles - known as the Mastercard symbol to stand on their own. Simple but very effective, it’s a clean and flexible brand design which will work for years to come. Which brand refresh do you prefer?
