(Rider app, via Uber)
Uber has just announced a rebranding (though, not for the first time), along the lines of a narrative it calls, “Bits and Atoms“.
Apart from an inside story on Wired, the rebranding is not getting the kind of reaction that Uber might have been hoping.
The Verge reports how non-designer Uber CEO Travis Kalanick personally helped design the new logo and that “it shows,” CNN reports how “the internet is not pleased,” Fortune calls it “bizarre,” while Gizmodo shows you how it looks like a certain orifice. Heck, even Popular Science felt it had to call out Uber’s Bits and Atoms narrative and show, contrary to Uber’s assertion, bits and atoms did indeed exist together before Uber came along!
The app icons – self-described as their “most important touch points” – also elicited a universal, “Huh?!” Uber tried to explain them:
Rider app icon
(Via Uber)
- 01. The Bit – At the center of our app icons is the Bit—the symbol of our technology.
- 02. Product shape – Surrounding the Bit is a shape that denotes the product and represents the atoms moved by our technology. For the rider app, this shape is a circle.
- 03. Grid line – To convey the rider story of a trip in progress or the arrival at a destination, a single line connects the Bit with the shape around it.
- 04. Patterns and colors – Behind the other components is a canvas of color and pattern, another representation of the physical world that symbolizes the cities and people we serve.
Partner app icon
(Via Uber)
- 01. The Bit – At the center of our app icons is the Bit—the symbol of our technology.
- 02. Product shape – The shape containing the Bit in our partner app icon is a hexagon, which imparts familiarity with a nod to the previous version of the icon.
- 03. Grid lines – With the partner app, 2 lines meet at the Bit to imply the connection between riders and drivers. The lines also divide the hexagon into halves: one represents our riders and the other, our partners.
- 04. Patterns and colors – Behind the other components is a canvas of color and pattern, another representation of the physical world that symbolizes the cities and people we serve.
Other elements in their rebranding involved their logotype, which was redesigned to denote “quality and elegance, while the combination of straight and curved lines convey both confidence and approachability”, as well as a 65 local color palettes and patterns, representing countries in which Uber operates and are “authentic expressions of the real world’s diversity.”
I do appreciate their visual design challenge as a “glocal” (global-local) brand, though. I think they were initially on the right track:
We want people around the world to feel like Uber was born in their city, so a conventional brand system simply won’t work. You can’t have the same look and feel in Chengdu as you do in Charleston and expect to be embraced by both cultures. At the same time, building a globally recognizable brand requires common elements people can associate with you.
Another challenge our brand faces is balancing the need to cement a strong unified vision while supporting the unbridled hustle of local teams distributed across 68 countries—both key factors in our rapid growth. Our new identity system was designed specifically to solve for this complexity.
The new Uber brand system is made up of primary and secondary components that tell the story of technology moving the physical world. Some create consistency across touchpoints for building brand recognition, while others ensure the flexibility to serve local markets. They can be combined in a seemingly endless array, allowing our brand to adapt for the road ahead.
Despite all the rationale behind the brand concept, the strategy is meaningless if the execution falls flat.
While a brand is not just a logo – it certainly is the “first impression” of the brand. Good brand logos serve as both a sign and a signifier. In semiotics, a sign or a symbol is the physical representation of the idea that lies behind it… which is what is signified by the sign.
In fact, I like how designer Paul Rand phrases it:
A good logo provides the pleasure of recognition and the promise of meaning.
Uber’s new logo design fails on both fronts, IMHO. It neither provides that “pleasure of recognition” nor “the promise of meaning.” As it is, the logo (and especially the app icon) is not immediately recognized as “Uber” (especially when compared to their previous white “U” against the black background). This is compounded by the fact that there are two separate identities for drivers and riders; and even more so with the multiple palettes and colors for the markets they operate in.
