Facebook announces new brand logo

15 years after Facebook was founded, it has announced a departure from its signature blue and white logo. “We’re updating our company branding to be clearer about the products that come from Facebook. We’re introducing a new company logo and further distinguishing the Facebook company from the Facebook app, which will keep its own branding,” says a blog post written by Antonio Lucio, global chief marketing officer at Facebook.

What this changes for end users of the company’s products is that all of the apps will mention the parent company – Facebook’s name. This is an attempt by Facebook to separate the social network from the company that owns it. Facebook as a parent company has the new logo - it wants people to recognise that it owns a host of widely used apps such as WhatsApp, Instagram, Oculus and so on. Facebook as a social network will continue to bear the same blue and white logo.

"Today, when people hear “Facebook” they think of the Facebook app. This posed a unique design challenge. We needed the wordmark to establish distinction from the Facebook app and allow for a clearer connection to the full family of technologies. The new brand system uses custom typography, rounded corners, open tracking and capitalization to create visual distinction between the company and the app," states a blog post on the redesign effort.

Additionally, the colour of the logo will differ according to the app it is being seen on. For example - the logo will appear green when seen on WhatsApp and it will appear pink (in the gradient shade) when seen on Instagram. “The new branding was designed for clarity, and uses custom typography and capitalization to create visual distinction between the company and app,” mentions the blog post.

Facebook seems to be aiming for wider brand recognition among the users of its family of apps. “People should know which companies make the products they use. Our main services include the Facebook app, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, Workplace, Portal and Calibra. These apps and technologies have shared infrastructure for years and the teams behind them frequently work together,” Lucio writes.

This effort is an ongoing process – the blog post mentions that the company started being clearer about the products and services that are part of Facebook years ago, adding a company endorsement to products like Oculus, Workplace and Portal. “And in June we began including ‘from Facebook’ within all our apps. Over the coming weeks, we will start using the new brand within our products and marketing materials, including a new company website,” he states.