The Strategies Behind Successful Rebrands

Most branding and logo design examples do not come from a blank page.

Every company that focuses on their brand and brand identity is also focusing on their history, their vision, their message and their mission, with the aim being to convey all of that into a simple, easy to recognise symbol.

It can be very difficult to get right, so for Yorkshire-based companies going for a local design agency in Hull can be an ideal step to ensure not only that you get a high-quality end product but also that it maintains that distinctly local flavour.

With that in mind, here are some recent examples of successful rebrands and the strategies they used to achieve them.

Flexibility Is Key – Premier League

The English Premier League is one of the biggest sporting leagues in the world, but whilst the football it was presenting was increasingly free-flowing and emblematic of the beautiful game, the lion emblem that had been used since 1992 was not.

It was hardly a bad design, especially after a 2007 redesign made it less openly heraldic. However, the 2016 DesignStudio rebrand was perfectly devised, with the lion’s head and simple purple colour scheme making it ideally suited for use in nearly every type of advertising and broadcast format.

Embrace Your Legacy – Mozilla

In 2009, RadioShack attempted one of the worst rebrands in history with the “Our friends call us The Shack” campaign. Amongst its many many failings was the contempt it seemed to radiate for its core audience, its history and its heritage.

The exact opposite can be said of Mozilla’s very public and very open rebrand, which culminated in a simple new logo with the “ill” part representing part of a web URL.

By removing the pretence, embracing the geek culture that makes Mozilla what it is and marrying that with simple, strong typography, it created a surprisingly brilliant logo that serves as a lesson to businesses in all sectors to be proud of who they are.

No Need To Reinvent The Wheel – Google, Mailchimp And Many Others

When some people think of a rebrand, they have a huge vision in mind of completely changing a brand’s identity, but most rebrands are far subtler than this.

Take Google’s logo change, which only changed very subtle aspects of a highly-recognised design, such as softening the shades and removing the serif features on the font.

Mailchimp simply refined the calligraphic approach that was already there. Apple’s highly touted and truly excellent rebrand simple removed the rainbow colours and complexity of a logo that has existed since the 1970s.