How Many Companies Changed Their Logos Last Year, and Why

Nearly 20 of them, it turns out

LeTV's new logo recently made quite a splash. Soon after, we noticed that Microsoft's search engine Bing and Google X had new logos too, so we rounded up the companies that changed their logos over the past year. There are more than you might think: about 20.

People who go through a major life event often want a new look, a chance to "start over as a new person." Companies are much the same: many update their logos in step with a big market shift or a change of strategy. A new look usually comes with new moves.

A logo is one of the most important parts of a company's visual identity, and no company changes it casually. Trace the changes and you can trace how a company has grown.

Some logos have become simpler: Google dropped its serifs, and Shanghai Jahwa and Vanke removed their elaborate graphic marks. Others have become more pictorial: Suning.com and Yunda both added images, and quite a few companies dropped their Chinese characters. In short, everyone is "bravely being themselves."

The reasons differ. Some companies want to go international, some want to look younger and more fashionable, and some need a logo that fits a broader business. Our categories are not exhaustive, but you may still find something interesting in them.

To go international

Yunda

Old vs. new

In its 16th year, Yunda changed its visual design, logo included. The old romanized name "Yunda" gave way to a graphic symbol built from "da," the Chinese character in its name meaning "to reach," and the old red became black. The redesign was done by a Chinese firm, Xing Er Shang Design Alliance. Yellow reportedly remains the main color because it stands for the company's positive, warm attitude toward society, while black stands for "strict demands on itself and a serious attitude toward professionalism and safety."

On the whole, the new logo looks far more cosmopolitan: it turns a Chinese character into a symbol that reads internationally. Going global was exactly what the express delivery company, founded in 1999, wanted from the change. In 2014 it renewed its international strategy and began operating a hub in New York.

LeTV

On January 12, LeTV unveiled a new logo at its global brand conference. The old "LeTV" has been simplified to "LE." The design follows the minimalist trend: four overlapping bars in red, blue, green and gray form the letters "LE." As LeTV's businesses multiplied and specialized, "LeTV" no longer described the whole brand, so the abbreviation became LeEco, short for ecosystem.

Old vs. new

At CES 2016, LeTV and Faraday Future announced they would jointly build a new concept car, the FF Zero1, LeTV's first step overseas this year. LeTV also ran an ad on Instagram captioned in traditional Chinese characters, clearly aimed at markets outside the Chinese mainland. All of this explains the new logo: LeTV wants to go international.

Click here to read our earlier report on LeTV's logo change.

Vanke

Vanke unveiled its new logo at the Milan Expo in May 2015. The previous logo was a square made of four letter "V"s, which netizens nicknamed the "mahjong table." The new logo replaces it with the English short name "vanke," and the company slogan changed from "Let buildings praise life" to "Praise life, build cities together." The new logo officially took effect on May 1, 2015.

Old vs. new

Vanke said the design, which drops the graphic and relies on Chinese and English text, brings it in line with mainstream international design and reflects its plan to go international and draw on resources worldwide. The new mark's light, soft lettering signals that Vanke will approach customers with more care and more humility. It was designed by the well-known designer Han Jiaying.

To look younger

Shanghai Jahwa

We reported earlier on Shanghai Jahwa changing its logo to keep up with the trend. After a period of mergers and management upheaval, in August 2015 Shanghai Jahwa announced a new brand slogan, "Meet beauty from the heart," and a new corporate identity, and said the group as a whole would open stores on Taobao and Tmall. Its brands Herborist, Gf, Maxam, Jiaan and Chayan launched a batch of new autumn 2015 products, with a younger image as a major selling point.

Old vs. new

Comparing the old and new marks, we found the pink of the old logo is gone. Jahwa said this is because it wants to move from targeting mainly women to an image that appeals to all kinds of consumers. The elaborate oval pattern with ribbon lines has also been replaced by an English abbreviation. The logo is less distinctive as a result, but its minimalist style is close to that of the top international brands.

In the first half of the year, Shanghai Jahwa's operating revenue was 3.215 billion yuan, up 14.03% year on year; net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company was 641 million yuan, up 11.73%. But sales growth has slowed at its main brands, including Liushen and Herborist. The new logo, the new slogan, the new products and a bigger push into e-commerce all show Jahwa trying to get ahead of a changing market.

To transform the business

Logitech

Logitech has sold more computer mice than any other company in the world. In July 2015 it changed its logo, dropping the old eyeball graphic and making the lettering rounder. The change is tied to the company's transformation.

Old vs. new

As its PC accessories business declines, Logitech has been shifting its focus to Bluetooth speakers, conference-call systems and tablet accessories. Some product lines have been renamed from "Logitech" to "Logi," and the new name and mark will appear on the new product lines. The PC accessories, game controllers and speakers that consumers know still carry the Logitech name.

Logitech has also hired a Chief Design Officer for the first time. Its CEO told Wired that the goal is to become a design company. Click here to read our earlier report on Logitech's new name and logo.

To expand the business

Didi

Old vs. new

In September 2015, Didi Dache changed its logo and even its app name. The company wants to do more than hail taxis; it wants to become an internet services platform tied to services in the physical world. Didi Dache became Didi Chuxing ("Didi Travel"), and the logo changed from a literal picture of hailing a cab to a letter "D" with a corner missing. A simpler symbol can stand for more things.

After its release, the logo was accused of imitating Uber's, and some pointed out that it copies a dental clinic's sign. Judging by shape alone, the two really are almost identical.

Lianjia

On June 30, Lianjia Real Estate officially renamed itself "Lianjia" and adopted a new logo. It also announced a strategy: to build China's leading real estate O2O (online-to-offline) platform, handling transactions worth trillions of yuan. That is why it dropped "real estate" from its name.

Old vs. new

Next to the old mark, the new one feels a little lighter, because its color is paler and less saturated, though it loses some depth. The new mark relies on Chinese and English text, with no graphic. A dot sits between "LIANJIA" and the Chinese name, said to "symbolize connection, integrating offline business through the online platform." Does borrowing the "." from ".com" really make it "Internet Plus"?

Suning.com

Since Suning Appliance renamed itself Suning Commerce Group in 2013, it has kept expanding online. In April 2015, Suning.com, Suning's O2O retail arm, updated its logo. It dropped the old yellow-and-blue design of a romanized name plus Chinese name, added a small lion, and switched to three colors: black, white and yellow.

Old vs. new

Suning said the lion's mouth in the new logo is shaped like a cloud, to express Suning.com's "cloud commerce" model, which unites online and offline sales. It dropped blue because the color felt too much like an appliance store. The domain name Suning.com also changed from mixed case to all lowercase, which looks more balanced. The new logo will be used both on the online mall and in physical stores, and Suning.com will become Suning's single retail brand online and offline: every physical store will carry the Suning.com name.

Meizu

After 12 years with its old logo, Meizu unveiled a new one on September 23, 2015, at the launch of its flagship phone, the Pro 5.

Old vs. new

Meizu developed the new logo with the well-known design firm MetaDesign. The idea of "Uplifting" runs through every part of the new identity system. The new logo is simpler, uses a sans-serif typeface, and drops the old thick-to-thin strokes. Chen Xi, Meizu's visual design manager, said: "The old logo's strokes varied enormously in thickness, which felt very high-tech. We wanted the new one to have warmth, so it is rounder, the letter spacing is even, and it looks more balanced and steadier." This is probably the feeling of being "calm and steady as a bright mirror" that Meizu founder Huang Zhang has talked about.

Since taking investment from Alibaba, Meizu has clearly picked up its pace. It has abandoned its single-product-line strategy to reach new groups of consumers, and has released Pro, its long-planned premium sub-brand, to break into China's high-end phone market. Changing the logo just as it launched a premium phone is part of a new brand strategy, as if to declare that Meizu makes phones at every price, not just cheap ones.

China Resources Vanguard

China Resources Vanguard is a retail chain owned by China Resources Group, a central state-owned enterprise. In February 2015 it released a new logo. The old "sunflower" was replaced by an all-red, roughly six-pointed star, which looks simple and festive. The company's own reading of the logo: "full of energy, conveying a contemporary, international style while prompting the most direct visual associations in its audience."

Old vs. new

This makeover followed China Resources Vanguard's 2014 purchase of Tesco's China business, and is probably tied to its push into e-commerce and convenience stores.

Changes in business and structure

Google X

Old vs. new

Google X, the "secret division" that works on forward-looking projects, is now five years old. Now that it has become an independent Alphabet subsidiary, its role in the group has changed too: it has been renamed X, given a new logo, and repositioned as Alphabet's incubator, and it has started to pay attention to whether its projects are feasible.

Click here to read our earlier report on Google X's new name and logo.

Google Ventures

After Alphabet was set up, Google Ventures changed its logo too. Unlike Google's multicolored logo, the Google Ventures logo is cool and somewhat minimalist. Wired commented that where Google dropped its serifs to look more approachable, the Google Ventures logo plays up its avant-garde side. Well, it is a subsidiary that invests in startups, after all.

Old vs. new

The logo was designed by Google's in-house design team. After it was made public, netizens and the media liked it, and some even called it the best-looking logo in Google's history. The team also redesigned the website, carrying the slash of the letter V into the site and its icons.

Chart of GV's investments by sector

To look professional

MG Facial Masks

On May 18, 2015, MG Facial Masks released a new logo designed personally by Kenya Hara, art director of Muji, which carries his minimalist design philosophy.

Old vs. new

MG's new logo changes the typeface but still puts the brand's two-letter English abbreviation front and center. The difference is that "mG" has become all-lowercase "mg," and the once slender letters are now thicker and stand out more. The words "facial mask" have also been added after the brand's Chinese name. This detail shows what L'Oréal Group wants from the MG brand: a focus on facial masks. After completing the acquisition, L'Oréal and MG set up a facial-mask research center and launched the "Yuanshengrun" series of masks for mature skin over 25. MG's existing products have also been improved with L'Oréal's technology.

Pearson

Old vs. new

Pearson, the British group whose main businesses in China are Wall Street English and Global Education, has also just changed its logo.

The new logo is a letter "P" made of an exclamation mark and a question mark, standing for the passion and curiosity of learning. Having sold off its media businesses to focus entirely on education, the company said: "We need a clear brand image to show our vision of helping people progress through learning. The new identity has to build on the brand's 200-year history while adapting to the future, displaying flexibly on the internet."

The brand name itself, though, still uses a serif typeface. Pearson China's website has not yet adopted the new mark. You can read more about Pearson's logo change here.

To be simpler

Google

You surely remember that Google released a new logo on September 1 last year. The typeface changed a lot: it is now sans-serif and rounder overall.

Old vs. new

Google's official explanation was that without serifs the logo is easier to recognize on different devices. People used to reach Google only from a computer. Now, in a single day, they use Google's products across all kinds of platforms, apps and devices: phones, TVs, watches, car dashboards. That calls for a cleaner, crisper typeface.

When he announced Google's reorganization under a new company, Alphabet, Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page also said he wanted to start afresh and recover a childlike innocence.

Plenty of people grumbled at first, but by now we seem to have gotten used to it.

Lenovo

On April 15, 2015, Lenovo released a new logo at a global company rally. It is a revision of the 2003 version and drops the italic lettering used for twelve years. Lenovo said the design is more human and shows its commitment to user experience. The logo was designed by the New York office of Saatchi & Saatchi.

Inside and outside the Great Firewall, opinion was strikingly uniform: the logo is too bland, with almost nothing distinctive about it. Some also complained that its typeface and overall style look too much like BuzzFeed's.

Mini Cooper

The new logo keeps the winged symbol MINI has used since the 1980s, but flattens it and reduces it to black and white. The flat version will be used on all screens and printed materials, while the badge on the cars will keep the original three-dimensional version.

Old vs. new

BMW board member Peter Schwarzenbauer said: "This mark is about subtraction. It makes MINI itself easier to recognize." MINI also announced that it is joining BMW's car-sharing program.

Some said that without its metallic sheen the MINI mark looks plain. Other netizens said the MINI lettering is too light and thin while the outer circle and wings are too heavy, so the mark looks unbalanced.

Mini Cooper's other visual materials will also start using a new serif typeface, Catalog Black.

To look more mature

Johnnie Walker

Perhaps one of the few brands swimming against the minimalist tide?

The long-established whisky brand entered China more than ten years ago, and its slogan "Keep Walking" has stuck with people. In April 2015 it updated its logo.

Old vs. new

The striding gentleman is far more detailed than before. In the previous version (in use since 1996) you could not make out his face; now it has an outline and shading, and you can even see the corner of his mouth turned slightly up. In the old figure his left hand was unclear; in the new logo you can see it holding his hat in place.

The Johnnie Walker figure has evolved in an interesting way: from detailed to simple, and then, in the latest version, back to more detail.

Still, with the old flourished script replaced by a steadier-looking typeface, the logo seems to have lost some of its dash.

Just wanted a new color

Bing

A few days ago, Microsoft's search engine Bing changed its logo too. The color is new, and the initial B is now capitalized (which looks a bit more formal). The new logo will gradually appear on Windows devices.

Old vs. new

Microsoft said it switched from yellow to green because green stands out more than yellow (really?). When Microsoft introduced its four-color logo, it explained that blue stood for Windows, red for Office, green for Xbox and yellow for Bing. Now that Bing has turned green too, how will Microsoft explain that?

Bing holds 21% of the search market, against Google's 64%. Bing is still no match for Google, but there is good news: in 2015 Bing finally turned a profit.