When a Brand Redesign Actually Works: The Quiet Art of Visual Evolution
There’s a moment in every brand redesign where someone in the boardroom asks: “Are we fixing something that isn’t broken?” It’s a fair question. Logo redesigns are risky. They’re expensive. And when they fail, they fail loudly—just ask Gap, who in 2010 unveiled a new logo so universally despised they reverted to the original within a week.
But when a brand redesign works, it doesn’t just update aesthetics. It reframes perception, unlocks new markets, and signals evolution without erasing legacy. The difference between a redesign that lands and one that crashes isn’t always about taste—it’s about timing, intention, and whether the change serves the brand’s next chapter or just its creative director’s portfolio.
Let’s talk about the ones that worked, and why.
The Airbnb Redesign: From Marketplace to Movement
In 2014, Airbnb was scaling fast but struggling with identity. The original logo—a loopy, friendly “A”—felt transactional, like a budget travel app. The redesign, developed with DesignStudio, introduced the “Bélo,” a symbol meant to represent belonging: an upside-down heart, a location pin, an “A,” and—if you squint—a person with arms raised.
The internet had a field day. Memes flooded Twitter. But something else happened: the brand redesign stuck. Why? Because it wasn’t just a logo refresh. Airbnb repositioned itself from “find a cheap couch” to “belong anywhere.” The symbol became shorthand for a philosophy, not just a service. Hosts started printing it on welcome mats. Travelers got it tattooed. That’s not design—that’s cultural penetration.
A logo redesign succeeds when it doesn’t just look different—it means something new.
The lesson here: a brand redesign works when it’s tethered to a strategic shift, not just a visual one. Airbnb wasn’t rebranding because the old logo was ugly. They were rebranding because their business model had matured, and their identity needed to catch up.
Mastercard: The Sound Logo and the Case for Adaptive Identity
Mastercard’s 2016 redesign by Pentagram is a masterclass in simplification without losing equity. The interlocking circles stayed. The red and orange stayed. But the wordmark? Gone—at least in certain contexts. The brand became confident enough to exist as pure symbol, trusting that decades of equity had earned it that right.
But here’s where it gets interesting: Mastercard didn’t stop at visual. They developed a sonic identity—a three-note melody that plays at checkout, in ads, even at events. In a world where interfaces are increasingly voice-driven and screen-free, this was a brand redesign that thought five years ahead.
According to a 2023 study by Deloitte, brands with multi-sensory identities see 23% higher recall than visual-only systems. Mastercard understood this early. They weren’t just redesigning a logo; they were future-proofing their entire identity system for a post-screen era.
Global agenciesare now helping startups think about identity beyond the visible—building systems that adapt across voice, AR, and AI interfaces. The question isn’t “what does your logo look like?” anymore. It’s “how does your brand show up when there’s no screen at all?”
When to Drop the Wordmark
Mastercard’s decision to go wordmark-optional was bold, but it wasn’t arbitrary. Dropping text from a logo only works if you’ve built decades of recognition or you’re designing for contexts where legibility is compromised—think apps, favicons, or wearables. If you’re a three-year-old SaaS startup, keep the name visible. If you’re a global institution, maybe it’s time to trust the symbol.
Burberry: Reclaiming Heritage in the Digital Age
Burberry’s 2018 rebrand under then-CMO Rod Manfred and creative director Riccardo Tisci was controversial in the luxury space. They simplified the equestrian knight logo, introduced a bold sans-serif wordmark, and—most divisive—ditched the lowercase script that had defined the brand for decades.
Fashion purists gasped. But Burberry wasn’t trying to please them. They were trying to reconnect with Gen Z without alienating their core base. The rebrand coincided with a digital-first strategy: Instagram takeovers, AR try-ons, and collaborations with artists like Skepta. The logo became bolder, more flexible, more memeable.
Did it work? Revenue dipped initially, but by 2021, Burberry reported double-digit growth in younger demographics. The brand redesign gave them permission to experiment, to be less stuffy, to show up where their next generation of customers actually lived—online.
Spotify: The Icon That Grew Into an Ecosystem
Spotify’s 2015 evolution wasn’t technically a logo redesign—the green circle and sound waves stayed largely the same. But the way they systemized the brand was revolutionary. Collins helped them build a visual language that could flex across thousands of playlist covers, artist pages, and campaign moments without losing coherence.
They introduced duotone photo treatments, bold typography pairings, and a gradient system that turned every album cover into a mini-billboard for the brand. The logo became less important than the ecosystem around it. This is the future of brand redesign: thinking in systems, not symbols.
The best redesigns don’t just change the logo—they build a language anyone can speak.
This approach has since been adopted by everyone from Slack to Notion. The logo is the anchor, but the real work happens in the margins—the illustrations, the tone, the motion, the sound. A brand redesign today is less about swapping one mark for another and more about building an adaptable identity system that can scale across a hundred touchpoints.
The Rise of Generative Branding
We’re entering an era where logos can be algorithmically generated based on user behavior, time of day, or cultural moment. MIT Media Lab experimented with this in 2021, creating a logo that shifted colors based on real-time weather data. It’s a provocative idea: what if your logo wasn’t fixed, but fluid?
This isn’t practical for every brand, but it signals a shift. As AI tools become more integrated into design workflows, brand identity might become less about “the logo” and more about “the logic”—the rules that govern how a brand shows up, adapts, and evolves.
What Separates the Wins from the Disasters
So what do Airbnb, Mastercard, Burberry, and Spotify have in common? Their redesigns weren’t cosmetic. They were strategic. Each one was rooted in a real business need—entering new markets, future-proofing for technology shifts, or reconnecting with a demographic that had drifted.
Compare that to the redesigns that flopped. Tropicana’s 2009 disaster erased decades of shelf recognition and cost them $30 million in lost sales. Instagram’s 2016 icon shift angered loyalists but ultimately succeeded because the app’s functionality was so sticky. The difference? One was change for change’s sake. The other was change in service of platform evolution.
Here’s a rough heuristic: if your redesign can be explained in a single sentence that connects visual change to business strategy, you’re probably on solid ground. If it takes a manifesto to justify, you might be in trouble.
The Invisible Redesigns
The best brand redesigns are the ones most people don’t consciously notice. Google’s evolution from a clunky serif to a clean geometric sans happened so gradually that most users couldn’t pinpoint the shift. Apple’s logo lost its rainbow stripes and gained a monochrome elegance, but the apple shape—the core equity—remained untouched.
This is the art of the invisible redesign: evolving without alienating, modernizing without erasing. It’s harder than a dramatic overhaul because it requires restraint, patience, and a deep understanding of what actually matters to your audience versus what only matters to designers.
In a world where brands are increasingly built in public—tweeted about, memed, dissected in real-time—the margin for error has never been slimmer. But the opportunity for those who get it right has never been greater. A successful brand redesign isn’t just a new logo. It’s a signal. A promise. A bet on the future that respects the past.
And when it works, it doesn’t just change how people see you. It changes how you see yourself.
