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The 10 best corporate logo changes of 2013
Corporations change their logos to refresh a stagnant brand, signify new ownership, or simply to make themselves more relevant to changing tastes. When done correctly, a logo change can breathe new life into a brand.
"Flat" was king in 2013. The days of shadowing and embossing are gone, meaning most brands are turning away from 3D effects.
This is largely due to marketers' embrace of mobile as an integral part of their campaigns, and the need to look as good on a phone screen as on a physical product.
The best corporate logo changes of 2013 managed to bring a new level of relevancy to top brands without sacrificing recognition, essential components to a successful rebranding.
10. Arby's
Arby's 2012 logo is a design disaster, with its gaudy sheen and embossing. The update returns the sandwich chain back to its roots, but now with bolder font.
9. Facebook
This one may be very slight, but it is cleaner and more direct. Facebook got rid of the light horizontal bar at the bottom of their logo, making us wonder why it was ever there to begin with.
8. Nivea
Nivea, the skin care manufacturer, cleaned up its logo for a rebranding. The circle is a reference to the cold cream tins that made the brand famous, and due to the surface area it takes up on packaging, makes Nivea products stand out on store shelves.
7. TGI Fridays
The restaurant chain decided to de-clutter its logo by removing punctuation and outlining. Fridays has been losing market share to local bars across the country, and its makeover is an attempt to shed its aging look.
6. Google
For being such a massive online presence, it was surprising to see how old-school-Internet Google's logo looked. The update finally rid its name of the embossing that has slowly been edited out over the years (remember the shadows it used to have?).
5. Instagram
Earlier this year, Instagram was preparing to expand from a neat photo-sharing app into a full-blown lifestyle brand. Before adding new features like videos and advertising opportunities, the brand got a cleaner, more professional looking logo.
4. Spotify
Some Spotify fans like how its logo stuck out from the ever-flattening crowd around it, but we didn't think that was actually a good thing. Its new sans-serif font and lack of stripped-down details keeps it clean without killing its fun image.
3. WNBA
The WNBA inked a huge deal with ESPN this year to start showing more of its games, and it celebrated the announcement with a new logo, which is the most radical change on our list. It now looks as if it's not trying to mimic men's sports brands, and its dunking athlete represents an increasingly higher level of play.
2. Dow Jones
Rupert Murdoch restructured his media empire this past summer, and the new Dow Jones logo pops off both paper and screens. The logos for the new News Corp and 21st Century Fox (20th Century Fox remains a production studio) are also excellent.
1. Motorola
Google bought Motorola for $13 billion last year, but this year's logo change is proof of their ownership. The new design manages to be refreshingly new, while immediately triggering within the consumer established connections to both the cell phone manufacturer and its parent company.
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