London, UK: When I saw the pop up on my MacBook Air asking me to upgrade my 2013 OS X Mavericks to the new 2014 OS X Yosemite, I was excited – that is, until I actually downloaded it. Upon noticing that Apple had transformed their beloved 3-D icons to simple flat icons, I was disappointed. I immediately thought, what is Apple doing? Because based on media trends within the last decade, an evolution towards 3-D visuals, such as 3-D movies and 3-D televisions was apparent – making this appear to be a huge regression for Apple. Or was it?
In fact, Apple was slightly rebranding their software to adhere to one of the latest design trends – Flat Icons. This new era has even gone as far as using line art icons that are even simpler than flat icons. In fact, new design websites that provide databases of free line art icons, such as Entypo (pictured below) and iconmelon, are growing successfully as the trend continues to grow.
With the emerging trend of flat design and line icons on newer websites, mobile applications, and various branding materials, it’s no surprise that logos have and will continue to follow this same trend.
The simple mono-weight lines are versatile and easily transformable. Companies are able to evolve their designs into white line art logos over backgrounds created out of their company colors, without the loss of brand recognition.
The most important facet of any great brand is to stay relevant. And how do brands stay relevant? They rebrand. Whether it’s the removal of the company’s name, the company’s tagline, or the reworking of visuals, companies are continually evolving their iconic logos into more simple and easily identifiable ones every few years.
Here’s a look at some major brands’ rebranded logos over the past few decades:
In this era of Marketing, simplicity has become one of the major factors in deciding the next design. Brands’ logos have turned into icons and require less detail to be recognisable, which can be seen from the redesigns of the McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Shell opting out of including their name. It is only a matter of time until brands start redesigning their logos with this theme in mind.
Printsome are a UK clothing printing agency delivering from Swindon to Dundee and everywhere in between. For a quick quote, some advice on personalised bags or workwear, or simply a nice chat about line art logos, just get in touch!
