Thinking about Branding on Different Devices
Apple may be one of the most recognised brands in the world, but it’s also one of the most influential. When it redesigned iOS, it sparked a sea of change in website and logo design.
Apple introduced flat design across its OS and apps, moving towards smooth, simple logos and away from complex and detailed ones. While there is a good stylistic argument for keeping things simple, we only have to look at the way we’re viewing these logos to figure out why trends are changing.
On mobile devices, logos are replicated at very small sizes. The size of an app icon on iOS can be as small as 76 pixels square. Could this be why so many brands are subtly changing their branding?
Corporate Branding Football Focus
The Premier League has recently redesigned its well-known lion logo, moving away from the highly detailed drawing and towards a simplified version.
Arsenal football club has also substantially altered its famous crest.
Even Google has got in on the flat design trend, moving from serif to sans-serif fonts.
Rebranding, and changing logos, is part of the evolution of a business. But we’d speculate that there are multiple forces at work. There’s the trend to work towards simple, vector-based logos, purely from an aesthetic point of view. And there’s also the fact that many of these logos are being viewed at small sizes, million of times a day.
Learning Lessons
In today’s competitive and digitally-driven world, all brands need to be instantly recognisable. The brand logo must stand out in any context, and on any device.
If your business has an app, a website, and perhaps some vehicles with branded livery, redesigning the brand logo is clearly going to require investment. It’s important to plan and execute the rebranding very carefully.
Look at Pepsi, one of the most recognisable brands in the world. It changed its logo to incorporate a ‘smiling face’, with a slightly different logo for each product. But the concept of ‘smileys’ went flat, as many people failed to connect the concept to the brand name.
Clearly, even the world’s largest companies sometimes get it wrong.
Rebranding Support
Experts estimate that Pepsi spent $1.2 billion on its rebranding exercise, with its logo swallowing up $1 million of the budget. But rebranding isn’t just for the big guys. If your business has changed direction, or you need a fresh start in your niche, contact our rebranding experts at Ultimate today.