Twitter has swapped the fluffy chook that used to symbolise the social media platform for a spindly black X.
Ditching the corporate’s well-known brand and altering its identify to a letter usually related to hazard, demise and the unknown is simply the newest user-aggravating step CEO Elon Musk has taken since he purchased Twitter in October 2022 for USD 44 billion.
However it’s probably the most visually jarring one.
The response has primarily been a mixture of ambivalence, ridicule and scorn. For probably the most half, longtime Twitter customers are sad at what they perceived as one other pointless change that is eroding their enthusiasm for the social media platform.
It is onerous to search out anyone praising the change up to now, besides maybe a few of Elon Musk’s most devoted followers. Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey signalled that he was discovering the uproar overblown.
I am paying shut consideration to this company pivot as a result of I am a scholar of design who researches social media and model campaigns. Logos and model names change on a regular basis and barely trigger this a lot commotion. However as a result of these modifications go deeper than most, I consider the dangers of injury to the corporate are better.
X’s clumsy design
X may strike you as a bizarre model identify, and the change might appear to have occurred out of the blue, however Musk has lengthy been smitten with the letter.
In 2000, the founders of PayPal ousted him as CEO for attempting to alter its identify to “X,” his Tesla fashions are famously named S, 3, X and Y – which displayed collectively mainly spell out the phrase “SEXY,” and one among his many kids is known as X on his beginning certificates.
I might describe the brand new brand, submitted by a Twitter consumer, as a white-on-black, sans-serif X consisting of two strokes. It is minimal and fashionable – and a stark departure from Twitter’s iconic blue-and-white chook. That shade of blue makes you’re feeling calm and serene; black conveys sophistication and thriller.
And but even individuals who know nothing about design are poking enjoyable on the brand’s simplicity and unprofessional execution. To me, the brand seems appropriate for a metaverse strip membership or a courting app for robots.
Fb’s Meta journey
Oddball branding is hardly uncommon for a large tech firm.
When Fb rebranded itself as Meta in 2021, it was a part of a complete, strategic and long-term plan. The transformation signified the corporate’s aspiration to shift from a social media platform to an enterprise targeted on the metaverse.
Whereas the objective of a vibrant metaverse stays extra theoretical than imminent, the rebranding nonetheless gave Meta some momentum because it now seeks to shift its focus to synthetic intelligence.
Meta’s rebranding highlights the significance of staying related and embracing innovation. The corporate discerned the altering panorama and demonstrated a willingness to adapt in response to shifting shopper wants and preferences. When it realised the metaverse wasn’t materializing, the corporate targeted elsewhere.
Maybe that openness to attempting new issues explains why the rollout of Threads, Meta’s new competitor for the social media platform previously often known as Twitter, is seemingly off to a robust begin.
From dunking to Dunkin’ and rebuilding Lego’s model
When Dunkin’ Donuts trimmed its identify to Dunkin’ in 2018, the reception was principally constructive. Its prospects appeared to get that the corporate wished to maneuver away from being intently related to donuts – a high-calorie pastry with little dietary worth – and towards turning into a “beverage-led, on-the-go model.”
That rebrand succeeded, and the corporate has additionally caught with the slogan it adopted a dozen years earlier: “America runs on Dunkin’.”
Lego had one other rebranding effort that enterprise faculty college students find out about as a mannequin.
Lego was worthwhile, widespread and beloved for the complete 20th century, however round 2003 its gross sales started to wane. Presumably, children had too many different toys and digital units to play with and easily did not have the time or persistence to assemble small, colourful, plastic blocks anymore.
Undeterred, Lego performed intensive market, ethnographic and psychological analysis to higher perceive how individuals generally, and youngsters specifically, play with its wares. The corporate’s administration realised that Lego merchandise could be tied to absolutely anything.
Lego blocks are used each in authentic methods – children make their very own creations – and by-product methods, whether or not it is recreating a pirate ship or a dinosaur seen in a beloved film.
So the corporate started to companion with “Star Wars,” Nintendo, “Jurassic Park” and different manufacturers to market particular Lego units. It additionally launched a film in 2014 that grossed practically USD 500 million – boosting Lego gross sales and earnings.
BP rebrand crashed and burned; American Airways had low altitude Many company rebrands both do not work or do not do a lot to assist their firms.
In 2000, BP modified its branding from British Petroleum to Past Petroleum.
Regardless of efforts to reposition itself as an environmentally accountable firm, its actions revealed a contradictory reality. Whereas BP reportedly invested over USD 100 million within the rebranding effort, it continued to spend billions extra on oil exploration than renewable power initiatives. BP deserted the marketing campaign a number of years after its huge 2010 oil spill within the Gulf of Mexico.
After merging with US Airways in 2013, American Airways rebranded away from its iconic 1968 brand, which had blue and pink letters and an eagle between them symbolizing American energy and ingenuity, to a modern red-and-blue stripe with an summary eagle beak separating the corporate’s colours.
The corporate referred to as the brand new brand a “flight image.” Some design consultants dubbed it a travesty.
Regardless of the rivalry, the corporate retained the brand new look.
Final destiny of X
I doubt the X rebrand will succeed – and never simply because I dislike the brand new identify and brand.
There are some difficult authorized points with naming a serious firm a letter of the alphabet. The letter X’s use as a model is already banned in sure nations due to its prevalence in pornography branding.
And the rollout has been messy on the corporate’s personal web site. Musk reportedly swiped the @x deal with from its authentic consumer with out providing any compensation.
What’s extra, many customers had already left the platform due to technical glitches and elevated hate speech; the change to X may make them much less more likely to come again and will not make others extra keen to stay round.
In Musk’s quest to create what he says will turn into an app that “does all the pieces,” I consider that his X rebrand took Twitter another step towards being good for hardly something.
