Refreshing your branding can be a great way to stand out in a crowded marketplace and show customers that you’re willing to evolve and engage.
However, there can sometimes be a disconnect between what you want to showcase as a business and what prospective customers think.
Case in point: Gap’s logo redesign, which lasted all of six days before the leadership team realized they’d taken a massive misstep.
We’ve been watching three recent tech rebrands with interest – Mozilla, PayPal, and Figma. Join us as we cast a designer’s eye over the new look & feels.
Mozilla rebrand: reclaiming the internet
Retro branding is on trend right now. Think Burger King, which recently returned to the logo it originally had in the late sixties, alongside nostalgic, warm colors and seventies-inspired typography.
Mozilla has similarly taken an old-school approach, replacing the red dinosaur with a quirky, 8-bit Tyrannosaurus Rex and an edict to “reclaim the internet”.
The mastermind behind the Mozilla rebrand is Lisa Smith, who interestingly, was behind the Burger King rebrand. The goal was to create a new brand to connect with both new and existing users and show them where Mozilla was heading in the future.
It was vital for Mozilla to showcase its personality and make it stand out from other tech companies. For example, while it employs sans-serif and slab-serif typefaces, it draws inspiration from pixel patterns to differentiate from other brands and add a touch of retro, vintage charm to its modern tech.
Our thoughts on the Mozilla rebrand
We really love this rebrand. It’s an exciting callback to the DIY, activist ethos the internet had in the early aughts. It works on multiple levels too – the new dinosaur logo also doubles as a flag, acting as a rallying call to action.
Compared to Google’s slick, polished, slightly bland branding, it makes Mozilla stand out and appeal to a completely different audience.
However, it’s fair to say that the rebrand has divided the internet – with some people loving it and others scratching their heads. To be fair, the dinosaur logo works best as an animation rather than a static image.
Figma rebrand: where design is everyone’s business
A valid reason why companies rebrand is because they have a new target audience.
Take “Dunkin’ Donuts”, which rebranded to “Dunkin’” to appeal to customers who were interested in more than just fried pastries.
Before 2024, Figma was a platform that designers used to create prototypes. However, the product has evolved to become more of a collaboration platform where team members (and not just designers) can get together to share thoughts and co-create.
As a result, Figma has moved away from its old branding to something more abstract and colorful, showcasing the brand as a virtual playground where people can come together to create amazing things.
Unlike the other brand refreshes on this list, which were carried out by design agencies, the Figma rebrand took place in-house.
Bright and playful, Figma wanted a brand identity that appealed to users, could scale with the business, and could be interpreted in multiple ways. As Brand Studio Director Damien Correll put it: “A developer might look at something as simple as a rectangle one way, through inspection mode, while a designer may see it from an alternate perspective.”
Figma has even developed its own typeface in collaboration with Grilli Type called Figma Sans. An expert, reliable counterpart to Figma’s big bouncy nodes, boisterous shapes, and bold shades.
Our thoughts on the Figma rebrand
This is more of a refresh than a rebrand — think of it more as an evolution than a large departure. It’s still recognizable, but a lot more dynamic and abstract than it was before.
One thing that we found interesting about the Figma branding was the removal of the static cursors that used to represent the brand, especially since Figma pioneered the multiplayer cursor in the first place. As more and more companies use cursors as part of their brand identity, it could be a savvy move for Figma to step away.
As Correll said: “It’s a really important part of our history, (but) we don’t want to be stuck in the cursor zone.”
From a design perspective, we love the use of colors and free-flowing shapes. It’s a smart way to make Figma appealing to more people, without abandoning its initial demographic.
PayPal rebrand: branding for everyone, everywhere
PayPal only rebranded in 2022, so the design world was surprised when the payment provider announced it was rebranding yet again.
This time around, the platform moved away from the iconic double-P logo to something flatter and more basic.
There’s a strong corporate trend of flattening logos – take Google, Johnson & Johnson, GoDaddy, BMW, ABC, et al. The advantage of this is that it makes logos easier to work with, but the significant disadvantage is that it can make a brand much more forgettable.
The PayPal rebrand was spearheaded by Pentagram, one of the largest design agencies in the world and the brains behind brands including Citibank, American Girl, and Porsche.
Ease-of-use appears to be the overlying watchword here, reflecting how easy PayPal is to send and receive payment on.
The logo is crisper, and a new bespoke typeface is now in place – a customized version of LL Supreme.
The color palette has also been streamlined to white, black, and an assortment of blue tones. The original yellow has been quietly discontinued, possibly to bring PayPal in line with other online banking platforms.
Our thoughts on the PayPal rebrand
Hmm, we’re not sure if we’re fans of this one.
We understand that banks and financial institutions want to feel like a safe pair of hands and reassure their customers. However, it’s possible to have a brand identity that is fun, unique, and reliable at the same time – UK bank Monzo does this really well.
That being said, we do like the idea of PayPal’s rebrand being based around user actions like tapping, flipping, and swiping – it makes the brand feel dynamic and relatable.
If you like’d this piece, check out some of our previous rebrand roundups from 2023 and 2022. We’ll be regularly reviewing rebrands on this blog. Why not sign up to our mailing list to discover our latest reviews?