2019 is regarded as a big year for companies looking to give their brands a fresh new look. From Warner Bros. to Staples a number of brands have facelifted their branding situation. Not all the rebranding events are a global phenomenon that makes it to the front page of the Washington Post, but it is still encouraging to see how some of the biggest brands in the market feel comfortable with totally changing their image. Rebranding is done for reasons ranging from altering negative sentiments linked with brands to giving them a new look, one compliant with the latest standards if they’ve been around for a long time.
While going to rebrand, one thing must be kept in mind that the shift should be intended at some strategy, like realigning with the target audience for increasing sales or a complete overhaul of the image of your brand in the market and not only to improve the way your brand looks.
Sometimes, while trying to give the brand a new look, the brand company can end up going totally out of the realm of sensible branding. An example of that is Dunkin’ Donuts. They dropped the “Donuts” part from their logo in early 2019, a move meant to convey that they are dealing in things beyond just donuts but the outcome of that was not a very good one.
Let’s have a look at the major rebranding events of the last year.
Android
If you don’t know it already, the bot in Android’s logo has a name and it’s Andy. In August of 2019, the Android logo got a total facelift. The most obvious change is the shifting from a “full Andy” to just his upper head and some alteration to the typeface. They have also changed the color scheme which now has some blue in it in contrast to the entirely pale green we’d been seeing since 2014.
The rebranding of Android stands for the new accessibility features added to the mobile platform. It also depicts that the logo is now intended for end-users and not only the developer community. Putting it in the words of Irina Block, the designer of the original Android logo, “Initially the logo was meant for the developer community, but it quickly became consumer-facing.”
Zara
While rebranding is the need of time, it cannot be forgotten that the same can be a source of considerable risk as logos are one of the chief factors in the emotional attachment customers have for a brand.
Zara has faced a lot of criticism on the design of its new logo. The logo is designed by Baron and Baron and the owner of this logo studio, Fabien Baron, is known for developing highly complex logos opposite of what we see in the minimalistic logos of the leading tech companies.
In Summary
The brand identity of any business is the most valuable asset of any business. If you want to progress fast as a business, you need to have a clearly defined brand identity that makes people believe in you and makes them trust you. It will take some time to build brand identity but once established it will pay you back many times over.
